Intercollegiate Courses
Queen Mary students
Queen Mary students have the opportunity of taking courses at other institutions within the University of London.
A full list of intercollegiate courses available across the University of London can be found on the IHR website: http://www.history.ac.uk/syllabus/intercollegiate-courses.
If you wish to apply for a place on any of the courses listed you must email the details to the Student Support Manager, Matt Latham at m.latham@qmul.ac.uk. He will then check availability. Once your application has been approved, you must complete the Queen Mary Intercollegiate Registration Form and return this to m.latham@qmul.ac.uk. You will also need to complete the relevant registration form at the institution you wish to study at.
University of London (non Queen Mary) students
The School of History at Queen Mary offers a range of intercollegiate modules to students from other institutions within the University of London:
Group II Modules
HST5109: Outsiders in the Middle Ages
The medieval Christian west abounded in prejudices, proscriptions, violence and atrocities against those who did not ‘fit the mould’. Groups such as students, mercenaries, Jews, prostitutes, the poor and the sick, and individuals who transgressed ideological, penal or sexual codes were all objects of suspicion and hatred. The course will study the interaction of doctrinal and moralistic attitudes and popular prejudice, the myths that evolved about outsiders, the mechanisms of oppression, the alleged increase in intolerance during the late middle ages, and the relationships between different categories of outsiders.
HST6308: The French Civil War 1934-1944 (I) and (II)
On 6 February 1934, demonstrators gathered in Paris to protest against government corruption. The demonstration turned violent, the police opened fire and fifteen people were killed. The left-wing government claimed that it has thwarted an attempted fascist uprising; the right wing claimed that the government had massacred innocent patriots. This event inaugurated ten years of instability and division in French politics. This is the civil war which this module examines.
Among the themes to be covered are the impact of fascism in 1930s France, the reasons why France was defeated by Germany in 1940, the extent of collaboration with Germany, the role of the Resistance, anti-Semitism and the deportation of the Jews, and the Liberation of France in 1944 (looking in particular at the role of General de Gaulle). Finally it will look at changing way in which this period has been remembered in France since 1945 - how the myth that France was a nation of resisters has been replaced by a counter myth which is no less simplistic. One of the purposes of the module will be to examine the validity of these concepts of resistance and collaboration.
The sources to be used will include diaries and memoirs, novels, (for example the famous Resistance novel The Silence of the Sea), films (The Great Illusion, The Crow) and official government archives.
HST6309: The French Revolution
The course provides an in-depth examination of one of the most formative events in world history. The Revolution will be analysed in its origins, processes and outcomes, in the context of European and Atlantic history as well as of the French past. The political narrative of events from 1787 to 1799 will form the organizing thread of themodule, but social, economic, intellectual, religious, ideological and cultural aspects of the period will also feature. A particular focus will be on how and why the Revolution drifted towards Terror – and how Terror was ended. A short, optional research trip to Paris will allow students to explore key Revolutionary sites.
There are no prerequisites for the course. Students with a working knowledge of French are welcome, but equally those with none.
HST6312 Victorian Intellectual History
The course offers an advanced understanding of the major issues, debates and controversies, currents of thought, thinkers and ‘public moralists’ in Victorian intellectual life. These will be closely connected with their broader political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. Themes and controversies focused upon include responses to the gradual advent of democracy, the ‘condition of England’ question, the role of political economy, socialism, the importance of evolutionary thinking, the reception and fate of Positivism in Britain, religious orthodoxy, nonconformity and unbelief, debates around biblical scholarship, the ‘Religion of Humanity’, the role of ‘culture’ and the search for new sources of authority, the meanings of ‘race’ and the significance attributed to it at the time, discourses of ‘national character’, and a wide range of debates on the meanings and merits of patriotism, cosmopolitanism, nationality, Empire and imperialism, and the divergent visions of global order and international relations advanced by Victorian public moralists.
To apply for places on Queen Mary modules you must contact your home institution, who will then check availability. Once your application has been approved, you should contact Matt Latham for a Queen Mary Intercollegiate Registration Form.