UWA Handbook 2024

Unit Overview

Description

Britain and Ireland shaped the modern world like few others. Innovations in science and technology, combined with military and naval power, helped the ‘workshop of the world' extend its influence over an Empire on which the ‘sun never set'. But behind the grandeur of industrial and global supremacy lay human suffering, resistance and repression that would threaten the very concept of the United Kingdom itself. This unit charts the rise, decline and break-up of Britain and Ireland from political union in the eighteenth century to armed conflict and partition in the twentieth. It considers how Britain, ‘Britishness' and ‘Irishness' were politically and culturally constructed in the face of opposition and rebellion; how Empire was conceptualised, marketed and received; and how the British nation state and its position in the world was challenged by colonial resistance, sectarian ‘troubles' and Irish and Scottish nationalist demands for self-governance. The unit also explores how hegemonic social and moral codes were experienced and resisted in people's day-to-day lives. It looks at how women overthrew a repressive gender ideology that denied them legal rights, how sexual moral codes were usurped, and how sport was wielded as a political and cultural tool to express competing identities and subvert existing power structures. How these historical themes connect to contemporary issues – including campaigns to tear down imperial statues and recognise Britain's slave history – will be explored throughout. The unit draws heavily on historical sources, including film footage and documentary, posters/propaganda, Belfast murals and personal and political correspondence)

Credit

6 points

Offering
(see Timetable)

Availability	Location	Mode
Semester 1	UWA (Perth)	Face to face
Semester 1	Albany	Face to face

Details for undergraduate courses

• Level 2 option in the History; Human Rights major sequences
• Level 2 elective

Outcomes

Students are able to (1) describe and assess the basic historiographical issues characteristic of the discipline of History; (2) identify and evaluate the historiographical approaches appropriate for the study of British and Irish history; (3) demonstrate a detailed understanding of social, cultural and political change in Britain and Ireland from the eighteenth century onwards; (4) locate and use appropriate sources for research essays; and (5) present arguments in both written and oral assessments using the conventions of the historical discipline.

Assessment

Indicative assessments in this unit are as follows: (1) workshop participation; (2) major research essay; and (3) reflective essay. Further information is available in the unit outline.

Student may be offered supplementary assessment in this unit if they meet the eligibility criteria.

Unit Coordinator(s)

Associate Professor David Barrie

Unit rules

Prerequisites

Successful completion of

12 points Unit(s) from any discipline

Incompatibility

HIST2244 Britain 1750–1900: the First Industrial Nation.
HIST3344 Britain 1750–1900: the First Industrial Nation

Contact hours

Two-hour weekly workshops and one-hour weekly recorded lectures over ten weeks.