Representations and Contexts, 1750-1850
This is a fully interdisciplinary programme, involving the Departments of English, History, History of Art, and Philosophy. It offers the opportunity for you to study the culture and cultural history of the period 1750-1850 from new perspectives, or to lay foundations for higher degrees within the various disciplines involved in the programme. We do not assume that you have any prior knowledge of more than one discipline, or that you wish to abandon whatever discipline you pursued in your earlier studies. It does attempt to encourage you to develop a kind of intellectual curiosity that is open to different methods of inquiry, and interested in considering historical cultures in many different aspects.
The principal focus of the programme is set by the core course in the first term, 'Changes of Meaning, Narratives of Change', an approach to some of the most important issues and debates in the period. The course looks at some of the most important terms and narratives, by which writers attempted to explain changes in the structures and values of their societies, such as 'luxury', 'progress', 'public' and 'private'. It considers interdisciplinary approaches to the understanding of such terms, and the conceptual and methodological issues involved in interdisciplinary study.
These questions are studied mainly in relation to Britain, but with attention also to how they were being addressed in France. The primary texts studied on the course are concerned with politics, history, literary history, the history of art, the law, political economy, etc., and the course examines how far these now separate disciplines were involved in a common debate about the processes and effects of cultural change, and how far they are beginning to develop divergent and specialised accounts of those processes and effects.
Students follow one optional course in the first term, and two optional courses in the second. A wide range of courses taught by staff from the English, History, Philosophy and History of Art Departments are available each year.
Option courses available to MA students in the Centre
All courses are taught by weekly seminars. Assessment is by three term papers and a dissertation written over the summer term and vacation; part-time students are encouraged to use the first summer term of their two years to begin working on their dissertation topic. Students will also take classes in research training.
Staff teaching on the MA may include John Barrell, Geoffrey Cubitt, Kevin Gilmartin, Harriet Guest, Alan Forrest, Natasha Glaisyer, Joanna de Groot, Mark Hallett, Mark Jenner, Emma Major, Jane Moody, Andrew Ward.
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