1. Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of the nation-state, its role in international history, and competing scales of historical study

2. Develop the skills necessary to critically interrogate primary source materials in order to extract historical information from them¿

3. Develop an understanding of major historiographical methodologies and demonstrate an ability to apply them to historical information

4. Develop the study skills necessary to write effectively in academic assignments

The first essay (45%,¿1000 words) will require you to outline and critique the ideas and work of ONE of the main theorists of the origins and development of the nation state. [Learning Outcomes 1,3,4]¿

The second essay (45%, 1000 words) will require you to outline and critique the ideas of a school of historical thinking which seeks to challenge or transcend the nation-state, such as world, international or transnational history. [Learning Outcomes 1,3,4]

Essays one and two may, if you prefer, be presented as an 8-10 minute podcast, comprising an MP3 file and an annotated bibliography of the materials used to write your script.
¿
PARTICIPATION 10%: Engagement with Blackboard Discussion Board through own posts and responses to the posts of others Learning Outcomes 1-4¿

One of the criticisms of how history has traditionally been ‘done’ is that of methodological nationalism: the tendency of many scholars to write histories of nations and nation-states as if they are natural and immutable entities. The practicalities of research – language skills, accessing archives – have reinforced these tendencies, and while digital technologies and the ethos of archive accessibility have done much to make other perspectives available, distance and the dominance of English as a global language are still major incentives for trainee historians to limit their horizons.

This module aims to show you how the idea of the nation and the nation-state have been theorised and utilised, both by historians and by scholars such as the anthropologist Ernest Gellner, a key figure in late twentieth-century conceptualisation of the nation. It explores constructivist and primordialist ideas of nationhood, the Enlightenment idea of the nation-state as the natural, democratic form for political representation to take, and challenges to the nation-state model from diaspora studies. It then introduces you to approaches to history which have critiqued and sought to transcend the level of the nation, including international, world and transnational histories, and considers their pros and cons. Incorporating examples such as global Islamism, international feminism and slave trades, and looking at the use of biography and microhistory in international contexts, the module encourages you to consider the impact of the ideas discussed on their own ideas of the world and its history.

This module takes you on a journey through the many scales on which historians have understood human societies, ranging from the individual and local to the national, international and global. We often think of history within the bounds of the nation and the nation-state – ‘British’, ‘French’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Indian’ or ‘Australian’ history, as if these categories and their borders have always existed. Using primary and secondary materials, including images, audio and video, you will explore the ways in which nations are constructed, and how the states which give them political form have emerged and developed over historical time. You will also explore approaches to history which challenge and transcend the nation and nation-state, at the smaller and greater levels, and which emphasise the entangled nature of human relations.

Students will be required to do four things each week of the semester:
1. Read, listen to or watch the core materials for each week. Depending on the content these may be primary or secondary materials, the latter including historiography, theory or history. Ordinarily these will be written texts made available online, but may also include videos, voice recordings, photographs or other media
2. Supplement this document with wider historiographical reading, which should partly come from the relevant week’s folder in the ‘Learning Materials’ tab of recommended secondary literature, and partly from one’s own independent literature search.
3. Contribute to the relevant weekly discussion on the Blackboard site, including writing one’s own post and replying to the posts of others on the module
4. Plan for, prepare for or write one of the two items of formal assessed work (that is: Essay/Podcast ONE, Essay/Podcast TWO)
Students will receive regular formative feedback from the module leader on the module’s Blackboard discussion board and, where requested, via email. Summative feedback will follow all three formal assessments in the usual manner.

- Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso 2006)
- Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983)
- Anthony D. Smith, The Nation in History (Cambridge: Polity, 2000)
- Pierre-Yves Saunier, Transnational History (London: Bloomsbury, 2013)
- Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993)¿
- Akira Iriye, Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
- Ariella Azoulay, Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (London: Verso, 2019)

Blackboard and library access online.