Accessibility statement

Historical Fictions and Frictions: Fictionalising the past - HIS00128I

« Back to module search

  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Elizabeth Spencer
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: I
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24

Module summary

Most people encounter the past on an everyday basis through fictional genres, rather than the academic texts that are so familiar to us as students of history. In this module, we will explore this multiplicity of genres, audiences, and representational forms that make up historical fiction. We will interrogate what happens when the past is fictionalised, as well as how it is interpreted, adapted, and represented across different formats. Moving beyond a concern with ‘fact checking’, we will instead ask critical questions about the relationship between history and fiction, exploring the limitations as well as the benefits of presenting the past through storytelling and narrative. As well as asking key questions about the nature and impact of historical fiction, we will explore a wide range of specific examples including novels, films and television shows, musicals and plays, children’s books, and board games and video games. We will focus on case studies from the twentieth and twenty-first century anglophone world, and take a broader view to explore the origins of historical fiction as well as change over time. For example, by looking at Jane Austen, we will consider how her life and works have been reinterpreted from the nineteenth century onwards.

While novels and video games may seem far removed from our own practice as historians, by considering historical fiction we will ask critical questions about who interprets the past, who has authority over it, and will interrogate whether ‘history’ as we know it is really so distant from fiction.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 1 2023-24

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

  • To provide students with the opportunity to study particular historical topics in depth
  • To develop students’ ability to examine a topic from a range of perspectives and to strengthen their ability to work critically and reflectively with secondary and primary material

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

  • Have acquired a deep knowledge of the specific topic studied
  • Have developed their ability to use and synthesise a range of primary and secondary sources
  • Be able to evaluate the arguments that historians have made about the topic studied
  • Have developed their ability to study independently through seminar-based teaching

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 1-hour plenary/lecture and a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW) during which there are no seminars. Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour plenaries/lectures and eight 2-hour seminars in all.

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

  1. Introduction: Fact vs fiction?
  2. The historical novel
  3. The historical drama
  4. Case study: Afterlives and adaptations of Jane Austen
  5. History on stage
  6. Fiction for children
  7. Counterfactual histories
  8. Gaming and the past

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Assessed Essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

For formative assessment, students will complete a referenced 1200 to 1500-word essay relating to the themes and issues of the module. This will be submitted in either the Week 5 or Week 9 RAW week (on the day of the weekly seminar).

For summative assessment, students will complete an Assessed Essay (2000 words, footnoted). This will comprise 100% of the overall module mark.

Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Assessed Essay		 N/A 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 seminars 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 formative work during their tutor’s 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 25 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:

  • Hayden White, Tropics of discourse: essays in cultural criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985).
  • Diana Wallace, The woman’s historical novel: British women writers, 1900-2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
  • Adam Chapman, Digital games as history: How video games represent the past and offer access to historical practice (New York: Routledge, 2016).


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.