Research Paper 25%: 1000 words, Learning Outcomes 1-4
Essay 75%: 2,500 words, Learning Outcomes 1-4

Gender is enjoying a new prominence in public discourse today; it is a cornerstone of the contemporary zeitgeist. The epistemological value of gender is being stretched and, in response, contracted with equal zeal. A key way to learn more about this pivotal, topical and profoundly political concept is to look at it historically: what has it meant to be a woman, or a man, in the modern era? Have men’s and women’s experiences changed or differed over time? Has being a woman or a man always meant the same thing, and what were the alternatives to this familiar binary choice? This module uses cutting-edge historiography to interrogate these questions.

1. Demonstrate an understanding of changing attitudes towards gender in the modern era
Knowledge and Understanding

2. Reflect on and begin to deconstruct some commonly-held assumptions about gender and sex from a historical perspective
Reflection

3. Learn some of the prominent trends and predilections in the historiography of gender history and apply them independently to new material
Analysis

4. Learn to independently interrogate historical evidence to learn about gender from a historical perspective Enquiry

Lectures will be organised chronologically and each one will introduce students to a theme in the practice of gender history. Each seminar will be built around discussion of this theme and will also introduce the application of historiographical models to primary source materials, as a means to assess the heuristic value of that model. Independent study hours will be spent reading in preparation for the seminars and also working on the assessments.

• Library access and Blackboard

Barbara Caine, 2000. Gendering European History 1780-1920, Leicester University Press.

Kathleen Canning, 2006. Gender History in Practice: Historical Perspectives on Bodies, Class & Citizenship, Cornell University Press.

Laura Lee Downs, 2009. Writing Gender History, Bloomsbury.

Stefan Dudink, Karen Hagemann and John Tosh (eds), 2004. Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History, Manchester University Press.

Sonya O’Rose, 2010. What is Gender History?, Wiley.