This module explores how London, as a global capital and (post)colonial metropolis, has been conceived as a city of migration through public history. The...

Migrant City: Migration, Public History and London (HIST0882)

This module explores how London, as a global capital and (post)colonial metropolis, has been conceived as a city of migration through public history. The module sees students engage with the multiple genres and contexts which have made London’s history as a migrant city visible, urgent and relevant to contemporary communities and populations, from museums and walking tours, to novels and films, to digital histories. We examine how London’s migrant past, of both immigration and emigration, has been inscribed upon and produced through engagement with the urban space, investigating how the city’s historical geographies have been used to generate meaning in the present. We focus on the creation of public histories from experiences which may not leave an archival trace, which are ephemeral or spread across transnational spaces. We will grapple with the tensions of migration as a ‘usable’ and ‘consumable’ past as it remains a live political issue, the ethics of doing public history with precarious or marginalised communities, and managing demands for histories of ‘good’ immigrants or successful multi-culture. Using London as our classroom, students will critically engage with place-based public history case studies, learn from leading practitioners and develop understanding of the major debates of the field.

This module considers visual and material culture produced in German-speaking lands between 1450 and 1600. Renaissance and Reformation are two conceptual...

German Art, 1450-1600: Renaissance and Reformation (HART0177)

This module considers visual and material culture produced in German-speaking lands between 1450 and 1600. Renaissance and Reformation are two conceptual frames that have shaped the study of this period, which spans both the flourishing of cultural production informed by an interest in antiquity and the profound upheavals of religious schism that would reorder Europe’s political and social landscape. Over the course of two terms, we will interrogate the usefulness of Renaissance and Reformation for understanding “German Art” while gaining familiarity with a wide variety of media, from popular printed broadsides to carved wooden altarpieces, fine panel paintings and engravings, and the jewel-like vessels of elite art collections. We will also engage with some of the most significant artistic and religious debates of the period. Was Italian art superior to its Northern counterpart? What role should images play within Christian devotion? What should artists portray if the traditional subjects become inappropriate? We conclude with the historiographical question of how the Reformation and the so-called Northern Renaissance in the sixteenth century have impacted the discipline of Art History as a whole.