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Puritans & Players: Popular Culture in Early Modern England - HIS00062C

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  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Emilie Murphy
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: C
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module summary

What was it like to live in early modern England? What did people listen to? What did they read? What did they watch? What did they eat and drink? What were the most extraordinary events of the age? How were these events remembered and memorialised? This module will start to answer these questions, and students will explore the impact of major events such as the invention of the printing press, the Reformations, and the Civil Wars, on popular beliefs and behaviours such as drinking ale and singing songs at local taverns.

Early historians of early modern culture viewed the past with a division between ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ cultures firmly in mind. This polarity was a governing trope, for example, in Peter Burke’s influential monograph from 1978, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. Burke also argued that during this period Europe experienced a ‘reform’ of popular culture, where traditional rituals and beliefs were increasingly challenged by both ecclesiastical and secular authorities. This module will encourage students to critique this approach, while exploring the ways that attitudes and values held by early modern individuals were expressed performatively, symbolically, orally, and in writing. Students will get the opportunity to investigate early modern England through multidisciplinary primary source material such as art, architecture, music, and literature, alongside more traditional historical sources such as church court records held in the Borthwick Institute for Archives.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Spring Term 2022-23

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

  • To give an intensive introduction to an unfamiliar period and/or approach to the study of history;
  • To offer experience in the use of primary source materials;
  • To develop skills in analysing historiography; and
  • To develop core skills such as: bibliographical search techniques; source analysis; essay writing; giving presentations; and, undertaking independent research.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

  • Acquire an insight into an unfamiliar period and/or approach to history through intensive study of an aspect of the period and/or an approach to it;

  • Gain experience of analysing primary source materials;

  • Be able to evaluate an historical explanation;

  • Have further developed work undertaken in the Autumn Term lecture courses and skills portfolios, including historical analysis, note-taking, using primary sources, presenting to groups, and leading discussions in seminars;

  • Be able to construct a coherent historical argument in oral and written forms

Module content

Teaching Programme:

Teaching will be in weekly 2-hour seminars taught over nine weeks, plus an overview and revision session in Week 2 of Summer Term. Each week students will do reading and preparation in order to be able to contribute to discussion.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

  1. What is popular culture?

  2. Orality, literacy and print

  3. Beliefs I

  4. Beliefs II

  5. Popular politics

  6. Music, plays and players

  7. Sexualities

  8. Food and drink

  9. The reform of popular culture?

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Puritans and Players		 8 hours 100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Formative work:

During the Spring Term students will prepare a presentation in pairs or small groups. Tutors will determine the formative work for the course: all groups will present on a primary source. Formative work will be completed in one or more sessions at the tutor’s discretion.

Summative assessment:

An open exam in the Common Assessment Period, comprising one essay question chosen from five options

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Puritans and Players		 8 hours 100

Module feedback

Following their formative assessment task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.

Work will be returned to students in their discussion groups and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their procedural work with their tutor (or module convenor) during student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

Reay, Barry. Popular Cultures in England 1550-1750. London: Longman, 1998

Hadfield, Andrew; Dimmock, Matthew; Shinn, Abigail. The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England. New York: Ashgate, 2014.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.