History Workshop: Course Plan
Time & Place: Thursdays 12-14 in U93
Format: Lectures, Discussions
Course Weight: 5 ECTS (= approx. 140 hours of study, including exam work)
Instructor: Nils Arne Sørensen – nils@ sdu.dk
Readings:
Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice, 2nd ed., London: Bloomsbury 2006
Michael Howard, The First World War, Oxford University Press 2007 (available as e-book at SDUB: http://site.ebrary.com.proxy1-bib.sdu.dk:2048/lib/sdub/docDetail.action?docID=10212041 )
Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War, Cambridge University Press 2008
History Workshop: The Great War in British History – A Reader
Note: The book by Howard will not be discussed in class but is mandatory reading.
Course Plan:
Part One: History in Practice
5 September: Introduction
Jordanova, Chapter 1 + Hynes, Introduction (A Gap in History)
12 September
Jordanova, Chp. 2 + 3
19 September
Jordanova, Chp. 4
26 September
Jordanova, Chp. 5 + 6
3 October
Jordanova, Chp. 7 + 8
Primary Sources:
Frederic Manning, The Middle Pars of Fortune (1929), Penguin 1990 , pp. 1-10
British Recruitment Posters (1914ff)
Part Two: The Histories of Britain’s First World War
10 October: A classic, “general” history of Britain in World War One
A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945, Oxford University Press 1965, Penguin ed: 1970,
pp. 25-61, 64-106, 109-157, 165-171.
24 October: The war as political history
David Reynolds, Britannia Overruled. British Policy and World Power in the 20th Century, 2nd. Ed., London: Longman 2000, pp. 83-107
J. Paul Harris, “Great Britain”, in R.F. Hamilton & H.H. Herwig (eds.), The Origins of World War I, Cambridge University Press 2003, pp. 266-299
Student presentation of Harris
31 October: The war as (“structuralist”) social & economic history and as demographic history
Peter Dewey: War and Progress. Britain 1914-1945, London: Longman 1997 , pp. 22-47
Jay Winter, The Great War and the British People, 2nd ed., Houndmills: Palgrave 2003, pp. 65-99
Student presentation of Winter
7 November: The war as military history: soldiers and generals
A British War Trial (unpublished primary source, 3 pp.)
Dan Todman, “The Donkeys”, The Great War: Myth and Memory, London: Continuum 2005, pp. 73-90, 244-247.
Niall Ferguson, “The Death Instinct: The Pity of War, London: Penguin 1998, pp. 339-366 + 527-533
Alex Watson, “Self-Deception and Survival: Mental Coping Strategies on the Western Front, 1914-1918”, in Journal of Contemporary History, 41, 2006, pp. 247-268.
Student presentations of Ferguson and of Watson
14 November (8-10 in U66): The war as women’s history
Arthur Marwick, “New Women”, The Deluge. British Society and the First World War, London: Macmillan, 1965, pp. 127-162.
Gail Braybon, “Women and the War”, from S. Constantine et al, The First World War in British History, London: Arnold 1995, pp. 141-167.
Angela Woollacott: ‘Khaki Fever’ and its Control: Gender, Class, Age and Sexual Morality on the British Homefront in the First World War, Journal of Contemporary History, 29, 1994, 325-347
Student presentations of Braybon and of Woollacott
21 November: The war as public history: Remembering the War
Nils Arne Sørensen, “Remembering the Great War”, in M. Børch (ed.), Narratives of Remembrance, Odense University Press 2001, pp. 37-61
Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, New York: Atheneum 1991, pp. 423-469
Student presentation of Hynes
28 November: A new history of the war and British society?
Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War, 2008
Student presentations of chp. 1, 2, 3. 4 and 6
5 December: A new history of the war and British society?
Adrian Gregory, The last Great War, 2008
Conclusions