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RECORDING HISTORY: MEMORIES OF BELFAST SINCE 1945
Convenor: Dr Sean O’Connell
Level: 2
Semester: 2
All single honours or joint honours students who wish to write a dissertation at Level
3 must take EITHER this module OR HIS2055 (History and Society).
Course content
This project-based module introduces oral history as a research method for
historians. You will conduct individual and group reseach on an aspect of the history
of Belfast since 1945. Each group devises its own research topic, in negotiation with
the module convenor. Topics might include: life in Belfast’s working class
communities; youth in the ‘swinging sixties’; crime and policing; marriage and
family life; women and work. Students will develop knowledge of twentieth-century
British and Irish social history through their case study of Belfast.
Individual students conduct their own oral history interview and also analyse those
conducted by the other members of the group. They develop knowledge of oral
history’s strengths and weaknesses and enhance their understanding of the broader
methodological issues posed by research in modern social history. In providing a
professionally presented transcript of their interview, students will engage with
important skills that can be employed in dissertation research and in the world
beyond graduation. Team working skills will be developed through collaborative
research on your chosen topic. They will also be fine-tuned via the opportunity to
‘pitch’ a programming idea (tbased on the oral history interviews) to BBC Radio
Ulster. An increased capacity for independent learning (through the conduct of oneto-one interviews and the transcription and analysis of those interviews) is a further
important aspect of this module. Oral presentational skills will be developed through
reporting on work-in-progress in seminarsand in the group presentation. The
module will, therefore, significantly enhance many of the skills related to the types of
employment to which history graduates aspire, i.e. team-working, interpersonal
skills, the ability to synthesize large bodies of information, and the compilation of
written reports.
Teaching methods
Teaching methods will involve lectures, workshops and tutorials.
Lectures provide an intellectual grounding on the ‘history from below’ approach to
history and on the uses of oral history. Lectures will also provide detailed
information on the social and cultural history of post-war Belfast.
Tutorials provide the opportunity for students to engage in discussion about social
history, oral history and post-war Belfast.
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Workshops provide training in matters such as: finding interviewees; preparing for
the interview; carrying out the interview; preparing the transcript; analysing the
transcript; preparing to ‘pitch’ ideas to the BBC.
Assessment:
Interview transcript (20%)
1,500-2,500-word critical commentary on interview transcript (20%);
Group presentation: pitching programming ideas to the BBC (10%);
4,500-5,000 word project report (50%).