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Beauty - HIS00102H

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  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Elizabeth Spencer
  • Credit value: 40 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module summary

Beauty - what is it? Who, or what, possesses it? Who defines it? Every society attempts to describe beauty and every society has different criteria which are elevated as constituting the beautiful. Beauty is culturally constructed and changes through time and place. By investigating the ideals of beauty this course compares the systems of power and social concerns which predominated in many different societies.

From ancient philosophers to profit-making plastic surgeons, what are the motivations of commentators who describe the beautiful in their age? The perceived locations of beauty are intriguingly varied. For example, some have argued that battles and warfare are scenes of beauty, whilst for others war is grotesque and peace was where beauty flourished. We find that in certain societies beauty is directly linked to human nature, sometimes inherent in woman but not in man, or manifest in the youthful but not in the aged. Over time beauty has been defined as a quality endowed by Gods or by nature, and also as a quality that might be man-made. Within competing discourses over what comprises the beautiful we find that aesthetic theory, moral philosophy and political ideals collide. In this course we will aim to define what past societies often claim to have been indefinable. Beauty, it has been said, is in the eye of the beholder. But, as historians, we will ask, who has been the beholder and what have they seen?

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 the practice of comparative history;
  • To enable students to acquire skills and understanding of that practice by studying a particular topic or theme; and
  • To enable students to reflect on the possibilities and difficulties involved in comparative history

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

  • Grasp the key approaches and challenges involved in comparative history;
  • Understand a range of aspects of the topic or theme which they have studied;
  • Be able to use and evaluate comparative approaches to that topic or theme; and
  • Have learned to discuss and write about comparative history
  • Have developed skills in group work

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 2 hour revision session in the summer term.

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

Autumn Term

  1. Introducing beauty and comparative history

  2. Comparing beauty: a quick submersion in theory and method

  3. Theories of distinction: objective versus subjective definitions of beauty.

  4. Modern stereotypes: the beauty contest

  5. ‘Western’ chronology (i): ancients to renaissance

  6. ‘Western’ chronology (ii): the eighteenth century

  7. ‘Western’ chronology (iii): the nineteenth century

Spring Term

  1. ‘Western’ chronology (iii): modern and modernist beauty

  2. The narrow lens

  3. Beauty and the body

  4. Beauty in beautiful things

  5. Beauty and race

  6. Beauty and …. Redefining the field

  7. Beauty, societies and power?

  8. What is beauty? Comparisons, continuities and changes

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Groupwork
Group Project		 N/A 33
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Beauty		 8 hours 67

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

For procedural work, the students will make group presentations towards the end of the autumn term. In addition, they may choose to submit an optional 2,000 word formative essay between weeks 7-9 of the autumn term. Essays should not be submitted in the same week as group project presentations are scheduled.

For summative assessment students will complete a 4,000-word group project due in week 6 of the spring term -- this will account for 33% of the final mark. They will then also take a 2,000-word 24-hour open exam during the common assessment period in the summer term, usually released at 11:00 on day 1 and submitted at 11:00 on day 2. The open exam will be worth 67% of the final mark.

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Groupwork
Group Project		 N/A 33
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Beauty		 8 hours 67

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:

Roberts, Blain. Pageants, Parlours & Pretty Women: Race & Beauty in the Twentieth-Century South. Chapel Hill: University North Caroline Press, 2014.

Brand, Peg Zeglin. Beauty Matters. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Snook, Edit. Women, Beauty and Power in Early Modern England. A Feminist Literary History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.


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.