HIST 4501A: Rethinking Victorian Culture
Fall 2024
Instructor: Professor Pamela J. Walker
Introduction
Victorians are often derided as repressed, conservative and staid, ruled by Victoria, their dour Queen. But a closer examination shows that Victorian culture was far more audacious, complicated, and contested. Author Mona Caird published an article in the Westminster Review where she declared marriage a “vexatious failure”. Her article received over 27,000 responses from men and women across Britain and the empire who wondered if marriage had a future. Victorians created an array of new religious institutions. Pacifist, communal settlement houses offered radical religious communities. The Salvation Army was the first Christian denomination to proclaim women’s “right to preach” and the Theosophists found a Divine Feminine allied with their views on anti-colonialism. Women campaigned for access to birth control, an end to the state regulation of prostitution, and most importantly, the right to vote. New scientific theories challenged ideas about the origins of humanity and divine creation. Social scientists pioneered surveys and investigations that changed ideas about social class, poverty, and urban landscapes. Exploring how Victorians engaged with new ideas and social practices will transform our understanding of this era and enrich our understanding of historical change.
Class Format
The class meets weekly in person. Before each meeting you will read books and academic articles, complete short written assignments, conduct research using on-line resources, and consider what historical questions the class can discuss. In class meetings will include discussions of the assigned reading, research questions and class presentations.
Aims and Goals
This course will allow you to work with major problems in modern British history and become familiar with important historiography in the field. It will develop your capacity to conduct historical research, to work with different kinds of historical sources and strengthen your skills in finding and using such sources. You will research and write a substantial research essay related to the themes of this course. This will develop your ability to write persuasively, to respond to historiographical debate, to write clear, concise prose, and to confidently write both shorter and longer essays. Our in-class discussions will sharpen your verbal fluency and your ability to respond thoughtfully to other points of view, both of your fellow students and the historians whose work we will read.
Assessment
Students will complete several smaller written assignments, participate in discussions and debates, formulate a research project and submit a research plan, and complete an original research project that will result in a research essay.
Texts
The assigned reading has not yet been finalized but it will include books, articles, and primary sources that are central to the history of modern Britain.
Questions: email pamela.walker@carleton.ca