Thursday, 6:10-9:00 p.m.

Fall 2005

Dr. Peter Thorsheim

Office: 136 Garinger; tel. (704)687-4874

Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1-2 p.m., and by appointment

Overview

In the first half the nineteenth century, many viewed Britain as the exemplar of modernity. As the world’s first industrial and urban nation, nineteenth-century Britain seemed to provide a glimpse of where the entire world was headed. By the end of the century, however, other countries, particularly Germany and the United States, were challenging Britain technologically, commercially, militarily, and geopolitically. Some suggested that the very forces which had once made Britain modern were condemning it to inflexibility and relative decline. This graduate seminar examines the history of Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the lens of modernity, with particular attention to the realms of culture, sexuality, technology, and warfare.

Required Books (available at bookstores and on 1-hour reserve)

de Nie, Michael. The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798-1882. University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.

Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Making of the Modern World. Mariner, 2000.

Harris, Jose. Private Lives, Public Spirit: Britain, 1870-1914. Penguin, 1993.

Hobsbawm, Eric. Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution. Rev. ed. New Press, 1999.

Nead, Lynda. Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London. Yale University Press, 2000.

Thompson, Andrew. The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Longman, 2005.

Graded Work

Discussion and Presentations (20%). You should come to class prepared to talk about what you found most interesting and significant in the week’s reading, relate it the readings and discussions of previous weeks, and raise questions for the class to explore.

Weekly Journal (20%). Each week that there is reading assigned you are to bring to seminar a typed reflection (no more than two double-spaced pages long) on the assigned reading. Late journals will not be accepted, but you may omit two journals without penalty. Although entries should connect directly with a specific reading assignment, their purpose is not to summarize it. Instead, you should use each journal entry to respond to the reading, ponder questions that it raises for you, or relate it to previous classes or readings. Journals will be assessed excellent, satisfactory, or poor based on writing quality and content.

Draft Research Paper (10%). Three copies due at start of class on 27 Oct. Topic to be chosen in consultation with the instructor. Must contain a thesis and use a minimum of five primary and ten secondary sources.

Peer Reviews (10%). Each student will be assigned two papers to critique on 27 Oct. Written feedback, emphasizing both the strengths and weaknesses of each paper, will be due the following week, 3 Nov. Please bring two copies of each review.

Revised Paper (40%). Approximately 20 double-spaced typed pages, including notes and bibliography. You will write a paper, based on primary sources, that relates to one or more of the themes of this course. You may focus on Britain or any European country or countries.

SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS

25 Aug. Introduction

1 Sept. Technology and Social History (Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire)

8 Sept. National Identity and the Question of Ireland (de Nie, Eternal Paddy)

15 Sept. Urban Culture (Nead, Victorian Babylon)

22 Sept. Revolutionary Ideas (Harris, Private Lives, Public Spirit)

29 Sept. War as Culture, Culture as War (Eksteins, Rites of Spring)

6 Oct. Deconstructing Modernity

Harrison, Frederic. “A Few Words about the Nineteenth Century.” Fortnightly Review 37 (1882): 411-26 (electronic reserve).

Trentmann, Frank. “Civilization and its Discontents: English Neo-Romanticism and the Transformation of Anti-Modernism in Twentieth-Century Western Culture.” Journal of Contemporary History 29, no. 4 (1994): 583-625 (internet)

Meanings of Modernity: Britain from the Late-Victorian era to World War II. New York: Berg, 2001. Read introductory chapter (electronic reserve), “Envisioning the Future” chapter (electronic reserve), and a chapter of your choice (book on standard reserve).

13 Oct. Sexuality and Modernity

Read introduction (pp. ix-xxiii) to Sweet, Inventing the Victorians. New York: Faber and Faber, 2002 (electronic reserve),

and read one of the following (copies of all are on standard reserve):

Barret-Ducrocq, Françoise. Love in the Time of Victoria: Sexuality, Class, and Gender in Nineteenth-Century London. London: Verso, 1991.

Hall, Lesley A. Sex, Gender, and Social Change in Britain since 1880. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.

Hyam, Ronald. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990.

Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Mason, Michael. The Making of Victorian Sexuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Porter, Roy, and Lesley Hall. The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650-1950. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Showalter, Elaine. Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the fin de siècle. New York: Viking, 1990.

Sigel, Lisa Z. Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815-1914. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Walkowitz, Judith R. Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Weeks, Jeffrey. Sex, Politics, and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800. New York: Longman, 1989.

Weeks, Jeffrey. Sexuality and its Discontents: Meanings, Myths & Modern Sexualities. London: Routledge, 1985.

20 Oct. Imperialism and Its Legacies (Thompson, Empire Strikes Back)

27 Oct. Draft papers due; discussion of drafts

3 Nov. Peer critiques due; individual meetings with instructor

10 Nov. No class (work on papers)

17 Nov. Oral presentations and discussion of research papers

24 Nov. No class (Thanksgiving)

1 Dec. Revised research papers due; oral presentations and discussion of research papers