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Popular Politics in Modern Britain: The Politics of Culture/Culture of Politics Since 1945 - HIS00065H

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  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Prof. Lawrence Black
  • Credit value: 40 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module summary

How do we write a history of political culture in modern Britain? What was politics like on the street, on doorsteps, in campaigns, protests, the media, in the popular mind and what sources can historians use to access this? Integrating official politics with a more grassroots approach, this course explores parties, elections, social movements, cultural and identity politics, the role of the media and, all-in-all, the shifting meaning of “the political” since WW2. In the process it asks how and why political historians have shifted their focus to a history of political culture or, so to speak, from the body politic to the politics of bodies. Much as the course will discuss new initiatives and how politics was able to create new languages and practices, a subtext of the course will be to question quite how popular politics was. As such it will interrogate not just with the standard narratives, sources and chronologies of decline or consensus, but will take the issue of apathy more seriously than political historians have tended to.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Autumn Term 2022-23 to Spring Term 2022-23

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

  • To introduce students to in depth study of a specific historical topic using primary and secondary material;
  • To enable students to explore the topic through discussion and writing; and
  • To enable students to evaluate and analyse primary sources.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

  • Grasp key themes, issues and debates relevant to the topic being studied;
  • Have acquired knowledge and understanding about that topic;
  • Be able to comment on and analyse original sources;
  • Be able to relate the primary and secondary material to one another; and
  • Have acquired skills and confidence in close reading and discussion of texts and debates.

Module content

Teaching Programme:

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1 of the autumn term. Students prepare for and participate in fifteen three-hour seminars. These take place in weeks 2-5 and 7-9 of the autumn term and weeks 2-5 and 7-10 of the spring term. Both the autumn and spring terms include a reading week for final year students and so there will be no teaching in week 6. There will also be a two hour revision session in the summer term. One-to-one meetings will also be held to discuss the assessed essay.

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

Autumn Term

  1. 1945 and All That

  2. Labour: from The Future of Socialism to Blair

  3. Cultures of Labour: the end of the working class?

  4. Cultures of Conservatism: Young Conservatism and hunting

  5. Cultural Politics: memory and modernity

  6. The New Right

  7. The New Left

Spring Term

  1. Social movements: peace, consumerism and middle-class radicalism?

  2. Cultural politics: Whitehouse, the media and the ‘radical’ sixties?

  3. Social Movements: feminism – the personal as political

  4. The Break-up of Britain: nationalism and terrorism

  5. Social Movements: race and memories of empire

  6. Media: satire and spin

  7. A classless society?

  8. Britons and their State

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
4,000 word essay		 N/A 50
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Popular Politics in Modern Britain:		 8 hours 50

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

For formative assessment, students will be given the opportunity to do two practice gobbets and then are required to write a 2,000-word procedural essay relating to the themes and issues of the module in either the autumn or spring term.

For summative assessment, students complete a 4,000-word essay which utilises an analysis of primary source materials to explore a theme or topic relating to the module, due in week 5 of the summer term.

They then take a 24-hour online examination for summative assessment in the summer term assessment period comprising: one essay question relating to themes and issues, but showing an awareness of the pertinent sources that underpin these AND one ‘gobbet’ question (where students attempt two gobbets from a slate of eight).

The essay and exam are weighted equally at 50% each.

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
4,000 word essay		 N/A 50
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Popular Politics in Modern Britain:		 8 hours 50

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:

Hay, C. Why we hate politics. Cambridge: Polity, 2007.

Hilton, M. et.al., The Politics of Expertise: How NGOs shaped modern Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Black, L. Redefining British politics culture, consumerism and participation, 1954-70. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.


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.