Ireland: War and Revolution, 1912 - 1923 (HIST0858)

Between 1912 and 1923, the relationship between Britain and Ireland was fundamentally reshaped by revolution, partition and independence. New political movements and war violence were central to these changes, including the First World War, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, internecine sectarian violence and the Irish Civil War. The results remain with us to this day: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was established in this period as was the modern independent Irish state. This module will examine what forces led to such major change in Ireland and provide students with the background knowledge to write dissertations on this turbulent period. It will also examine the impact of the centenary of this pivotal era for Anglo-Irish relations. The Special Subject will prepare students to write dissertations on Irish history in the early twentieth century using a variety of written, visual and oral sources.

‘Animal history’ has emerged in the past decade as one of history’s most vibrant and active subspecies; it roves across number of other...

Animals and Modernity, c. 1750-Present (HIST0687)

‘Animal history’ has emerged in the past decade as one of history’s most vibrant and active subspecies; it roves across number of other subfields (environmental history, the history of science, intellectual history, social history, among others); feeds extensively on other disciplines; makes unexpected leaps across time and space, and adopts new perspectives on major historical processes. However, animal history remains a very diverse, rather sprawling enterprise, in which key questions about periodization, methods, organizing concepts and theories, and objectives remain up for debate. Our seminars below are loosely organized around one such question: is there a coherent story we can tell about human-animal relations and ‘modernity’?

To that end, we will focus on the modern period, roughly 1750 to present. Beyond that, we will range very widely in geographical terms, and try to move beyond the Eurocentric (or Anglo-centric) perspectives that have sometimes hampered the field. Among the topics we will cover: animal symbolism and ideology; animals, food, and industrial production; the role of very old processes and narratives of domestication; the relationship between animals, nations, and state-building; colonial empires; conservationism, zoos, and changing ideas about wild animals; the extinction of species and ‘rewilding’; and whether the idea of ‘animal agency’ is useful for historians.