Tuesday 28 June Taster Day
B1 The First Crusade – Dr. Thomas Asbridge
B2 The Irish Revolution, 1912–1923 – Professor Richard Bourke
B3 Sex, Love, and Friendship - Dr Thomas Dixon
B4 Who caused the Cold War? – Dr. James Ellison
B5 Was the British Empire a Force for Good in the World? - Dr Reuben Loffman
B6 Renaissance Florence: a golden age? - Professor Kate Lowe
B7 Was the American Civil War a failure of democracy? – Dr. Daniel Peart
B8 Black death - Dr Eyal Poleg
B9 New Work, New Lives? Women at Work in Twentieth-Century Britain – Professor
Amanda Vickery
B10 British Society and Politics after the First World War – Dr Helen McCarthy
B11 The Emancipation of the Serfs (1861): Origins and Consequences – Dr Jon Smele
B12 The Fall of France – Dr Charlotte Faucher
The First Crusade – Dr. Thomas Asbridge
In 1095 Pope Urban II delivered a sermon that transformed the history of Europe,
declaring that Christianity was threatened by invasion and appalling oppression at
the hands of Muslims, ‘a people … alien to God’. He called upon Latin (Catholic)
Europe to rise up against this supposedly savage foe as ‘soldiers of Christ’, reclaiming
the Holy Land. Harkening to this call, tens of thousands of men, women and children
marched out of the West to wage war against Islam in the titanic First Crusade. But
why was this expedition launched at the end of the eleventh century, and was it
religious devotion or simple, barbarous greed that drove such a mass of Latin
Christians to enlist in this extraordinary expedition?
The Irish Revolution, 1912–1923 – Professor Richard Bourke
This class will consider the process by which Ireland sought to renegotiate its position
within the British Empire. That process gave rise to domestic conflict between
nationalist and unionist populations on the island of Ireland, ultimately driving
nationalism towards revolutionary republicanism and unionism towards devolution,
resulting in the partition of the island. The class will then examine the course of events
in the South: insurrectionary warfare against the British state, the establishment of a
Free State constitution, and the onset of civil war between erstwhile comrades in
arms. While these events lie at the root of more recent Irish conflict, they also proved
decisive for the future of British politics, not least for the configuration of the Empire.
Sex, Love, and Friendship - Dr Thomas Dixon
This seminar asks what history can tell us about our emotions. Queen Mary is the
home of the UK’s first Centre for the History of the Emotions. This session uses the
themes of sex, love, and friendship to introduce the idea that even our most
powerful and private feelings have a history. Strong emotions felt between people
of the same sex have in some historical contexts been celebrated, in others feared.
Such friendships have been ambiguous, with the potential to be understood in either
a Platonic or a sexual way. Oscar Wilde’s famous courtroom speech about ‘The love
that dare not speak its name’ is remembered today as a speech about gay rights.
But Wilde’s apparent intention was to describe a kind of intense intellectual
friendship. Today the internet has given a whole new dimension to our emotional
lives – with the possibility for apparently shallow ‘friendships’ with hundreds or
thousands of social contacts, and also the opportunity for worryingly intense and
passionate connections. It is often said today that women and gay men have a
special capacity for friendship. Is that true? And if so, is it a result of brain chemistry or
cultural history?
Who caused the Cold War? – Dr. James Ellison
The responsibility for the outbreak of the Cold War remains a contested historical
question. Was the West, led by the Americans, forced into a defensive posture by
the MarxistLeninist-inspired aggression and expansion of the Soviets after 1945?
Conversely, were the Soviets and their satellite powers compelled to respond to the
attempts by the American government, through the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall
Plan and NATO, to extend their influence and dominance, economically and
militarily, across Europe and the globe? Or, were neither of the superpowers singly
responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War? Was it simply the consequence of
misjudgements and miscalculations on both sides with other states contributing to
the tension? These questions, and the historical events upon which they rest, will be
the focus of the seminar. We will consider in particular how traditional explanations
have been challenged by new thinking based on archival releases from behind the
former Iron Curtain states and what historians want us now to believe about the
period 1945 to 1949.
Was the British Empire a Force for Good in the World? - Dr Reuben Loffman
For a long time, the British Empire was seen as a force for good in the world. Yet
despite steadfast critiques of it being proffered throughout the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, even today some historians have argued that British
imperialism left positive legacies. In his popular book Empire, Niall Ferguson claimed
that ‘no organization in history has done more to promote the free movement of
goods, capital, and labour than the British Empire in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries.’ While this may or may not be true, historians have continued to
critique the manner in which Britain ruled its colonies and the effects its
administration had. In this seminar, we will debate whether or not you believe that
the British Empire was fundamentally ‘a good thing’ with the help of three recent,
thought-provoking readings.
Renaissance Florence: a golden age? - Professor Kate Lowe
Florence under Lorenzo dei Medici (1469-92) is often described as experiencing a
golden age, yet the Medici had to work hard to take over the government of the
city. Political self-fashioning was accompanied by cultural brilliance in many forms of
media, especially art and architecture. The seminar will investigate how these
innovations and successes were achieved, with the aim of deciding just how golden
the period was.
Was the American Civil War a failure of democracy? – Dr. Daniel Peart
This seminar examines the political causes of the American Civil War, and explores
whether the conflict was an unavoidable consequence of the United States’
democratic system. The seminar will consist of class discussion of selected primary
sources, followed by a debate over the South’s decision to leave the Union in
1860/1861, which sparked the Civil War. The primary sources we will be looking at are
provided for you in advance, along with a brief article on the causes of the Civil War
by historian James McPherson. Before attending the seminar, you should read
through these documents, find out who the authors are (if you don’t already know),
and think about how they relate to the seminar topic.
Black death - Dr Eyal Poleg
Between 1347 and 1349 a Plague ravaged medieval Europe. Coming from the East,
it spread to the far corners of the Continent, preceded by fears and rumours, and
leaving towns and villages half-deserted. In this session we will look at the nature and
effects of the Black Death, and realise how difficult it is for historians to learn of this
important historical moment. We will explore medieval chronicles, archaeological
digs, and DNA analysis to look at the nature of the Plague and its impact on
European society.
New Work, New Lives? Women at Work in Twentieth-Century Britain – Professor
Amanda Vickery
This seminar explores the words and experiences of British women in a century of
rapid social, economic and cultural transformation. We will focus our discussion on
changing employment patterns and variations in the female labour market. What
new employments were available to women? How did men’s work change? What
were the implications of the female wage on family dynamics? And how far did
work qualify women for leisure?
British Society and Politics after the First World War – Dr Helen McCarthy
Humanity’s first ‘total’ war had a profound effect on countless aspects of national
life in Britain, from the practices of commemoration to the size and shape of the
British Empire. In this seminar we will focus on the legacy of the war for British party
politics, beginning with the introduction of universal suffrage in 1918 through the
Representation of the People Act and ending with the creation of the National
Government in 1931.
The Emancipation of the Serfs (1861): Origins and Consequences – Dr Jon Smele
The emancipation of the Russian serfs in 1861 was the single most important piece of
legislation ever enacted in imperial Russia. At a stroke, Alexander II did away with
the age-old distinction between those people of his empire who were free and
those who were not. It is worth noting too that he did so peacefully ¬– at a time
when, across the Atlantic, the USA was plunging into a civil war over the issue of
slavery. Yet, twenty years later, Alexander II (“the Tsar Liberator”) was assassinated
by a terrorist bomb on the streets of St Petersburg.
The Fall of France – Dr Charlotte Faucher
France’s defeat to the German army in 1940 was the worst military disaster in the
country’s history and a major turning point in the Second World War. As the German
army continued its rapid advance towards Paris, the government fled the capital
city, resigned and was replaced by an authoritarian conservative regime led by
Marshal Philippe Pétain, France’s greatest living war hero. Pétain agreed an
armistice with the Germans which led to France being divided into an occupied
zone in the north and a free zone in the south. Refusing the armistice and
collaboration policy, the General Charles de Gaulle organised the French external
resistance from London. The seminar will explore the controversies around the fall of
France and the armistice using (translated) contemporaries’ accounts from national
and private archives: were the causes of France’s defeat purely military, or, as
Pétain believed, did the fall of France result from the ‘decadence’ into which the
nation had fallen under the influence of the previous socialist and radical
governments?