International Summer School

This course aims to:

• Provide an opportunity to undertake an independent research project in the Humanities under supervision.
• Introduce approaches to research and analysis in the Humanities
• Develop professional skills in research and analysis and transferable skills in oral and written argument.

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Assess scholarly literature and available sources to formulate a viable research question in the Humanities
• Contextualise and critically analyse sources to produce a convincing argument
• Express analysis and argument in written and oral forms

Once you have been offered a place on the programme, we will contact you and ask you to submit your top three research project choices. You may select projects from more than one humanities subject area (History, Archaeology, Scottish Studies, Classics, Information Studies, Philosophy, and Gender Studies), provided you meet the specific entry requirements for each course. Your allocated research project will be confirmed in April.

1. Hidden Histories: Decolonising Everyday Landscapes 
2. Using (and Abusing) History: Narratives of the Past in Modern Political Speeches 
3. The History of Reproductive Rights and Feminist Activism in Global Perspective
4. Historical and Archaeological Approaches to Toy Soldiers: Reflections of War and Society in Miniature 
5. African American Family Histories in ‘Information Wanted’ Advertisements
6. The Highland Clearances and Human-animal Relationships in Gaelic Oral Tradition 
7. Objects of Empire and Homecoming in the History of the Scottish Diaspora 
8. The History of Russian Autocracy: Ideology and Praxis, 1682-1917 
9. The History of Witchcraft and Folk Belief in Scotland, c.1560-1736 
10. Social History in Italian Renaissance Short Stories 
11. Gender and Politics in Medieval England: The History of Three Generations of Turmoil
12. Ancient Sparta in Modern Political Thought 

1. Hidden Histories: Decolonising Everyday Landscapes

Supervisor: Gala Georgette

This project invites students to explore how colonial histories shape the everyday landscapes of Glasgow, from streets and buildings to public spaces. Working closely with their supervisor, students will select a local site such as a street name, monument, or green space, and examine how their meanings have been shaped by colonial, imperial, and extractive processes.

Students will apply a decolonial methodology to their case study by questioning familiar heritage narratives and analysing digitised, publicly accessible materials (such as maps, newspapers, and online museum or heritage resources) to examine how their chosen site has been represented and normalised over time. Rather than treating sources as neutral, students will consider how particular histories are foregrounded while others may be obscured, situating the site within wider networks of power and empire. With support of their supervisor, students may wish to include reflective elements in their project, considering how everyday experience shapes interpretation.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Chakrabarty, D. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton University Press), ‘Introduction’, pp. 3-23
• Ingold, T. 2021. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (Routledge)
• Smith, L. 2006. Uses of Heritage (Routledge)
• Smith, L. T. 2021. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (Zed Books)
• Terry, N. et al. 2024. ‘Inviting a Decolonial Praxis for Future Imaginaries of Nature: Introducing the Entangled Time Tree’, Environmental Science & Policy, 151, pp. 1-11
• Tuck, E. and K. W. Yang. 2012. ‘Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor’, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1, pp.1-40

Indicative case study example

This project was inspired by a plant container on Byres Road, Glasgow, containing endemic flax from Aotearoa New Zealand. This plant embodies a history of colonisation, ecological exchange, and urban design, illustrating how global histories shape everyday spaces. It is part of the visual environment and a piece of heritage that reflects power relations and cultural imaginaries. Students might similarly investigate local sites to trace the historical narratives and colonial legacies inscribed in such landscapes.

Indicative materials

• Digitised sources such as Trove (Historic Environment Scotland’s online heritage database), historic Ordnance Survey maps (via the National Library of Scotland and PastMap), and It Wasnae Us website and associated resources.
• University of Glasgow library and archives, particularly published catalogues, digitised collections, institutional records, and materials relating to the urban landscape.

2. Using (and Abusing) History: Narratives of the Past in Modern Political Speeches
Supervisor: Larissa Kraft

This project invites students to investigate uses of the past in political speeches of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and to critically reflect on links between history, memory, and power. Whether to justify war or territorial claims, to form a peace deal or make international alliances, political leaders have often referred to the past to rhetorically legitimise decisions that may be fundamentally political or economic. In doing so, politicians cast their own historical narratives, making the past a malleable concept that serves a particular agenda.

Working with their supervisor, students choose their geographical focus (eg. Scotland, Germany, America) and case studies, looking for instance at political leaders’ deployment of historical examples in modern framings of conflict, Cold War, European integration, or self-determination, such as calls for Scottish independence. Students may compare examples, or analyse individual speeches to examine how factors, such as target audience, political context and objectives, influenced the historical narrative presented.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Adams, T. 2022. ‘Sharing the Same Space: How the Memory of the Holocaust Travels in Political Speech’, The Sociological Quarterly, 63.2, pp. 247–65
• Berger, S. and C. Tekin (eds). 2018. History and Belonging: Representations of the Past in Contemporary European Politics (Berghahn)
• Hofmann, S. C. and F. Mérand. 2020. ‘In Search of Lost Time: Memory‐framing, Bilateral Identity‐making, and European Security’, JCMS, 58.1, pp. 1–17
• MacMillan, M. 2010. The Uses and Abuses of History (Profile)
• Müller, J.-W., ed. 2002. Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past (Cambridge University Press) (especially Müller, ‘Introduction’, and Deighton, ‘British imperial memories and Europe’)
• Oddo, J. 2011. ‘War Legitimation Discourse: Representing “Us” and “Them” in Four US Presidential Addresses’, Discourse & Society, 22.3, pp. 287–314
• Rycroft, P. 2022. ‘Whose Past Is It before Us? The Shaping of Identity in Scotland’s 2014 Referendum on Independence’, in Memory and Identity: Ghosts of the Past in the English-Speaking World, ed. by L. Pillière and K. Bigand (Routledge)

Primary Sources

• Kennedy, J. F. ‘Address of President-Elect John F. Kennedy Delivered to a Joint Convention of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The State House, Boston, January 9, 1961. Also Known as the “City Upon a Hill” Speech’. jfklibrary.org, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/the-city-upon-a-hill-speech.
• Salmond, A. ‘“A Good Global Citizen”, Speech at Glasgow Caledonian University, New York Campus’, 9 April 2014. opendemocracy.net, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/good-global-citizen-alex-salmonds-speech-on-scotlands-role-in-world/.

3. The History of Reproductive Rights and Feminist Activism in Global Perspective
Supervisor: Angeliki Kokkali

Access to reproductive health care has been one of the most contested issues of the modern world. This project invites students to investigate how reproductive rights were shaped and challenged between the 1950s and 2020s, as feminist movements, international organisations, healthcare providers, and governments negotiated questions of bodily autonomy and reproductive justice.

Students may explore how these debates have unfolded through law, activism, and culture, and how inequalities of class, race, disability, and religion have shaped access to reproductive freedom. Drawing on frameworks from intersectional feminism, Black feminism, and reproductive justice, students can choose to analyse global case studies from regions such as North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe. Projects may focus on areas such as the development of abortion and birth control policies, feminist health movements, or cultural and autobiographical representations of reproductive choices. Primary materials, in translation as required, may include feminist writings, legal documents, and creative works such as novels and protest art.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Bracke, M. A. 2025. Reproductive Rights in Modern France: Feminism, Contraception, and Abortion, 1950–1980 (Oxford University Press)
• Herzog, D. 2024. The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press)
• López, R. N. 2014. A History of Family Planning in Twentieth-Century Peru (University of North Carolina Press)
• Kościańska, A. 2025. Polish Sexual Revolutions: Negotiating Sexuality and Modernity behind the Iron Curtain (Oxford University Press)
• Nelson, J. 2003. Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement (New York University Press)
• Petchesky, R. P. 1984. Abortion and Woman’s Choice: The State, Sexuality, and Reproductive Freedom (Verso)
• Ross, L. J. and Solinger, R. 2017. Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (University of California Press)

Primary sources

• Our Bodies, Ourselves, Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (1973) https://ourbodiesourselves.org/
• Italian Feminist Thought: A Reader, eds. and trans. by P. Bono and S. Kemp, especially Chapter 11, ‘History of Two Laws’, pp. 211-259 (Basil Blackwell, 1991)

4. Historical and Archaeological Approaches to Toy Soldiers: Reflections of War and Society in Miniature
Supervisor: Euan Loarridge

This project offers students the opportunity to engage in a multidisciplinary project focused on an underexplored but culturally significant artefact-type: the cast lead toy soldier. Rising to prominence in the late eighteenth century, and reaching their apex in the early twentieth century, hand-painted sets of cast lead toy soldiers dominated shop windows and children’s playrooms across the Western World. Working with their supervisor, students devise their own unique project which will contribute to a growing understanding of these objects and their place in society.

Projects may draw on historical and archaeological approaches, to explore a wealth of textual, visual, and material evidence, from contemporary catalogues, to works of literature, to surviving figures and sets. Previous students have explored topics such as representations of the black body and the significance of broken or repaired soldiers. The project allows students to explore a wide variety of interests ranging across political, gender, military, or games studies.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Loarridge, E. 2021. ‘War Through the Eyes of the Toy Soldier: A Material Study of the Legacy and Impact of Conflict 1880-1945’, Critical Military Studies, 7.4, pp. 367-383
• Brown, K. 1990. ‘Modelling for War? Toy Soldiers in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain’, Journal of Social History, 24.2, pp. 237-254
• Flower, C. 2023.‘The Exemplary Game: Going to War with H.G. Well’s Toy Soldiers’, Children’s Literature, 51, pp. 24-50
• Giddings, S. 2024.‘Chapter 3: Toy Soldiers’, in Toy Theory: Technology and Imagination in Play (MIT Press), pp. 85-110
• Duffet, R. 2016. ‘“Playing Soldiers?”: War, Boys, and the British Toy Industry’, in Children’s Literature and Culture of the First World War, ed. by L. Paul, R. Johnston, and E. Short (Routledge), pp. 239-252

Primary sources

• Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA, ‘Past Auctions’ < https://oldtoysoldierauctions.com/past-auctions-page/>
• Wells, H. G. 1913. Little Wars (Frank Palmer)

5. African American Family Histories in ‘Information Wanted’ Advertisements
Supervisor: Katherine Burns

This topic invites students to examine ‘Information Wanted’ advertisements, which are notices that formerly enslaved people used to reconnect with lost family members after the American Civil War. These advertisements are an under-utilised historical resource and are vitally important for their portrayal of individual and collective social, emotional and political realities, particularly regarding the radical and revisionist ways in which they were used to record family histories. As such, the ads are a rich source base that can help further our understanding of the Black experience in enslavement and in freedom, as formerly enslaved people used these documents beyond the immediate search for family, to both voice their struggles and map their family and kinship group histories.

Working with their supervisor, students are invited to formulate a research project that analyses these advertisements. Projects may also make use of other primary sources, such as census records, pension records, obituaries, interviews, pottery or quilts.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Burns, K. 2024. ‘“She died from grief”: Trauma and Emotion in Information Wanted Advertisements’, Slavery & Abolition, 45.1, pp. 99-116, doi: 10.1080/0144039X.2023.2260185
• Fraser, R. J. 2025. ‘“There is No Place Like a Happy Home”: Information Wanted Notices, the Christian Recorder, and the Search for Missing Family Members in Post-Emancipation America’, Journal of Family History, 50.1, pp. 16-35, doi: 10.1177/03631990241273174
• Giesberg, J. 2025. Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families (Simon & Schuster)
• Miles, T. 2021. All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House)
• Williams, H. A. 2012. Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery (University of North Carolina Press)

Primary sources

• Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery: https://informationwanted.org/
• Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project: https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/
• Freedmen’s Bureau Records (for pension records): https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/freedmens-bureau

6. The Highland Clearances and Human-animal Relationships in Gaelic Oral Tradition
Supervisor: Niall Ingham

This project invites students to investigate the Highland Clearances and human-animal relationships found in translations of Gaelic oral tradition, such as collections of poetry and songs from the nineteenth century. This was a period of great change in the Scottish Gàidhealtachd (Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands). Not least were dramatic changes in land use and landscape, such as the shift from small-scale subsistence farming to larger-scale farming which is closely associated with the Highland Clearances. Inevitably the Clearances precipitated and coincided with changes in people’s relationships to domestic and wild animals in the region. Gaelic oral tradition abounds with references to animals in a variety of contexts, in songs, poetry, proverbs or stories.

Working with their supervisor to identify a project focus, students may choose to research a particular animal or collection, and may wish to draw on scholarship in areas such as Scottish history, Gaelic studies, human-animal studies, or environmental humanities.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Bateman, M. and Purser. J. 2020. Window to the West: Culture and Environment in the Scottish Gàidhealtachd (Clò Ostaig)
• Cheape, H. 1995. ‘A Song on the Lowland Shepherds: Popular Reaction to the Highland Clearances’, Scottish Economic and Social History, 15.1, pp.85-100
• Fudge, E. 2018. Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes: People and their Animals in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press)
• Robertson, I. J.M. and Rivett, M.M. 2019. ‘Of Necessary Work: The Longue Durée of the Moral Ecology of the Hebridean Gàidhealtachd’, in Moral Ecologies, ed. by I. Robertson et al.(Springer International), pp. 159-87
• Swart, S. 2022., ‘Kicking over the Traces? Freeing the Animal from the Archive’, in Traces of the Animal Past: Methodological Challenges in Animal History, ed. by J. Bonnell and S. Kheraj (University of Calgary Press), pp. 19-48
• Tindley, A. 2021. ‘“This will always be a problem in Highland history”: A Review of the Historiography of the Highland Clearances’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 41.2, pp. 181-94.

Primary resources

• Meek, Donald E. (ed.). 1995. Tuath is Tighearna – Tenants and Landlords, An Anthology of Gaelic Poetry of Social and Political Protest from the Clearances to the Land Agitation (1800-1890) (Scottish Academic Press)
• Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o’ Riches (online database of sound recordings of music, history, poetry, traditions and stories) https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/

7. Objects of Empire and Homecoming in the History of the Scottish Diaspora
Supervisor: Thomas Archambaud

This project invites students to investigate material culture, such as domestic objects, related to Scots who returned to Britain from across the British Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scotland was transformed by imperial activity. Scots who came home often adopted lifestyles combining foreign elements with re-imagined displays of Scottish identity, creating a hybrid culture visible in social and political life, and also in architecture and objects.

Working with their supervisor, students choose case studies investigating the material culture of Scots who returned from colonial involvement in America, Asia, Australia or New Zealand. Students may analyse various types of images and objects (eg. paintings, drawings, vases, textiles, weapons, furniture) as well as textual sources (eg. notebooks, wills, correspondence, manuscripts). Projects may investigate how objects reflect colonial ideas, and questions of race, status or family. Students may wish to analyse items from Scottish museums, to consider historical impacts of colonialism and its legacies today.

Indicative Preliminary Reading

• Bueltmann, T. 2013. ‘Diaspora: Defining a Concept’, in The Scottish Diaspora, ed. by T. Bueltmann et. al (Edinburgh University Press), pp. 16-33
• Bueltmann T. 2008. ‘“Where the Measureless Ocean between us will Roar”: Scottish Emigration to New Zealand, Personal Correspondence and Epistolary Practices, c. 1850–1920’, Immigrants & Minorities, 26.3, pp. 242–265
• Finn, M. and K. Smith. 2018. The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 (UCL Press), pp. 1-20
• Kehoe, K. 2016. ‘From the Caribbean to the Scottish Highlands: Charitable Enterprise in the Age of Improvement, c.1750 to c.1820’, Rural History, 27.1, pp. 37-59
• Harper, M. 2003. Adventurers and Exiles: The Great Scottish Exodus (Profile), chap. 8 ‘The Temporary Emigrant’, pp. 282-325
• Mackillop, A. 2005. ‘The Highlands and the Returning Nabob: Sir Hector Munro of Novar, 1760–1807’ in Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, ed. by M. Harper (Manchester University Press), pp. 233-256
• Mullen S. et. al. 2024. ‘Surveying and Analysing Connections between Properties in Care and the British Empire, c.1600–1997’, report for Historic Environment Scotland, doi: https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/publications/publication/?publicationId=e192ea9f-0d7e-4745-b499-b0fb010a167a

Indicative Sources/Databases

• Sinclair, J. 1791-1799. The Old and New Statistical Account of Scotland; Drawn up from the communications of the ministers of the different parishes (William Creech, Edinburgh). Accessible at https://stataccscot.ed.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/home
• National Museum of Scotland online catalogue: https://www.nms.ac.uk/search-our-collections (possible keywords: “America”, “Florida”, “Plantation”, “India”, “Bengal”, “Madras”, “Bombay”, “East India Company” etc). Example: East Asian basket with decorated dragon panels, owned by William Fullerton Elphinstone, early 19th century, National Museums Scotland.

8. The History of Russian Autocracy: Ideology and Praxis, 1682-1917
Supervisor: Neil O’Docherty

This research project examines the ideology and practice of Russian Imperial government from the accession of Peter the Great to the 1917 Revolution. Historians have debated the nature of the Imperial political system, with some depicting the Tsars as despotic and the Russian people as servile and oppressed, and others insisting that autocracy was tempered by commitment to religious morality, concepts of honour, and a practical need to build consensus.

Working with their supervisor, students are invited to engage with primary sources (in translation) ranging from government documents to private correspondence, literature, and art, in order to explore how the Tsarist autocracy was conceptualised, and how these ideas related to the reality of Russian people’s experience. Students may choose to focus on specific political / philosophical movements, such as the Slavophiles or Narodniki, and their relationships to Tsarist power, or choose to research the reign of a particular ruler, such as Catherine the Great.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Bushkovitch, P. 2011. A Concise History of Russia (Cambridge University Press), chapters 3 / 4 / 5, pp. 37-58 / 59-78 / 79-100
• Klimova, S. 2020. Russian Intelligentsia in Search of an Identity: Between Dostoevsky's Oppositions and Tolstoy's Holism (Brill), chapter 1, pp. 7-62
• Lieven, D. (ed.). 2006. The Cambridge History of Russia, Volume II: Imperial Russia, 1689-1917 (Cambridge University Press), chapter 20, pp. 429-448
• Maslov, B. 2014. ‘Why Republics Always Fail: Pondering Feofan Prokopovich’s Poetics of Absolutism’, Вивлioѳика: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, 2, pp. 24-46
• Morson, G.S. ‘Tradition and counter-tradition: the radical intelligentsia and classical Russian literature’ in A History of Russian Thought, ed. by Letherbarrow and Offord (Cambridge University Press, 2010), chapter 7, pp. 141-168
• Poe, M.T. 2002. ‘A people born to slavery’: Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476-1748 (Cornell University Press), chapter 7, pp. 196-226
• Van Der Zweerde, E. 2022. Russian Political Philosophy: Anarchy, Authority, Autocracy (Edinburgh University Press), chapter 2, pp. 18-36

Primary sources

• Catherine II, Catherine the Great: Selected Letters, trans. by A. Kahn, K. Rubin-Detlev (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• Pobedononostsev, K. P., Reflections of a Russian Statesman, trans. by R.C. Long (University of Michigan Press, 1965)

9. The History of Witchcraft and Folk Belief in Scotland, c.1560-1736
Supervisor: Nicole Cumming

This project investigates popular culture and belief in the period which followed the Scottish Reformation of 1560. The religious and cultural changes enacted by the Protestant Reformation resulted in an assault on ‘superstitious’ beliefs. Scotland’s witch trials were among Europe's longest and most deadly, something historians have connected to the religious zeal of the Presbyterian Church. The proliferation of trials, and widespread evidence of belief, raises questions about the cultural, political and religious circumstances which led to a heightened fear of witchcraft in this period. There are also questions concerning ‘popular’ religion and the degree to which the church successfully suppressed pre-Reformation beliefs and practices (such as the folk healing of humans and animals, nature worship, and festival days).

Working with their supervisor, students are invited to develop a research project on an aspect of folk belief and/or witchcraft in post-Reformation Scotland, utilising historical sources such as trial and church court records and oral or literary folk traditions.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Levack, B. P. 2008. Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion (Routledge), Chapter 2: ‘Witchcraft and the law in early modern Scotland’
• Todd, M. 2000. ‘Profane Pastimes and the Reformed Community: The Persistence of Popular Festivities in Early Modern Scotland’, Journal of British Studies, 39.2, pp.123-156
• Brock, M. D. 2000.‘Fallen spirits and divine grace: Sermons and the supernatural in post-Reformation Scotland’ in The supernatural in early modern Scotland, ed. by J.Goodare and M. McGill (Manchester University Press)
• McDougall, J. M. 2021. ‘Popular Festive Practices in Reformation Scotland’ in A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland, ca. 1525–1638, ed. by I. Hazlett (Brill)
• Henderson, L. 2016. Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670-1740 (Palgrave Macmillan), Chapter 3: ‘Demons, devilry and Domestic Magic’
• Henderson, L. 2016. ‘The (super)natural worlds of Robert Kirk: fairies, beasts, landscapes and lychnobious liminalities’, The Bottle Imp, 20, pp.1-6, https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/133639/7/133639.pdf.
• Wilby, E. 2013. ‘‘We mey shoot them dead at our pleasur’: Isobel Gowdie, Elf Arrows and Dark Shamanism’ in Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, ed. by Julian Goodare (Palgrave Macmillan)

Primary sources

• Goodare, J. et. al., 'The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft', http://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk and ‘Map of Scottish Witchcraft’ https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk.
• Larner, C. et. al. 1977. A Source Book of Scottish Witchcraft (University of Glasgow), https://archive.org/details/a-source-book-of-scottish-witchcraft-1977.

10. Social History in Italian Renaissance Short Stories
Supervisor: Neil McClelland

The Italian Renaissance genre of short stories, or novelle, was marked by its realism, offering rich sources for social history. Working with their supervisor, students are invited to formulate a research project analysing translations of short stories found in works such as Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (1350s) and Masuccio Salernitano’s Novellino (1460s-70s).

Literature does not exist outside history. Stories can reflect mentalities of their author's social group(s) and others, and authors can depict (and critique) contemporary perceptions and behaviours which were not necessarily their own. Renaissance novelle illuminate social identities, mindsets, and practices. Students might wish to explore areas such as social class/rank, gender, sexuality, foreignness, or city-country relations. Students might also choose to investigate the (often dark and subversive) humour in the novelle, and what this can reveal about the tales’ social contexts in Italy between the era of the Black Death and the High Renaissance.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Martines, L. 1985. Society and History in English Renaissance Verse (Basil Blackwell)
• Martines, L. 1994. An Italian Renaissance Sextet: Six Tales in Historical Context, trans. by M. Baca (Marsilio)
• Martines, L. 2001. Strong Words: Writing and Social Strain in the Italian Renaissance (Johns Hopkins University Press)
• McWilliam, G. H. 2003. 'Introduction', in G. Boccaccio, The Decameron, 2nd edn (Penguin)
• Papio, M. 2000. Keen and Violent Remedies: Social Satire and the Grotesque in Masuccio Salernitano's Novellino (Peter Lang)
• Stace, C. 2022. 'Introduction', in M. Salernitano, A new translation of the Novellino of Masuccio Salernitano (Cambridge Scholars Publishing)

Primary sources

• Boccaccio, G. 2003. The Decameron, trans and ed by G.H. McWilliam, 2nd edn (Penguin)
• Salernitano, M. 2022. A new translation of the Novellino of Masuccio Salernitano, trans. and ed. by C. Stace (Cambridge Scholars Publishing)

11. Gender and Politics in Medieval England: The History of Three Generations of Turmoil
Supervisor: Ashley Brown

The reigns of Henry I of England (1100-1135), Stephen (1135-1154), and Henry II (1154-1189) were characterised by political turmoil, rebellion, civil war and shifts in power. During this period the legacy of the Norman Conquest (1066) and the personalities of those ruling shaped England and Normandy in new – and often contested – ways.

This project invites students to analyse structures of power, and the ways in which authority was demonstrated, through the lens of gender. Using primary materials such as coins and chronicles (in translation), students can explore how noble (and royal) men and women had access to different tools and expressions of authority. Students may analyse how these figures did, or did not, succeed in achieving their goals, paying particular attention to how they were depicted in sources. Working with their supervisor, students may ground their research in recently developed methodologies in gender studies, and may choose to focus on one reign or take a comparative approach.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Anderson, C. 1999. ‘Narrating Matilda, ‘Lady of the English’ in the Historia novella, Gesta Stephani and Wace’s Roman de Rou: the desire for land and order’, Clio, 29, pp.47-67
• Cohen, T.V. 2024. ‘Masculinity as Competence’ in Premodern masculinities in transition, ed. by K. Eisenbichler and J. Murray (Boydell & Brewer), pp.31-52
• Cooper, M. 2021. ‘A Female King or a Good Wife and a Great Mother? Seals, Coins and the Epitaphic Legacy of the Empress Matilda’, The Haskins Society Journal, 32, pp.149-61
• Crouch, D. 2000. The Reign of King Stephen, 1135-1154 (Taylor and Francis)
• Green, J.A. 2008. ‘Henry I and the origins of the civil war’, in King Stephen’s Reign, ed. by Dalton and White (Boydell & Brewer), pp.11-26
• Neal, D.G. 2008. The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England (University of Chicago Press)
• Tanner, H. 2002. ‘Queenship: Office, Custom or Ad Hoc? The case of Matilda III of England (1135-1152), in Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady, ed. by B. Wheeler and J. Carmi Parsons (Palgrave Macmillan), pp.133-58

Primary material

• Extracts from: Anonymous, Gesta Stephani: The Deeds of Stephen, ed. by K.R Potter and R.H.C Davis (Oxford University Press, 1976)
• Coins from the Hunterian Collection, University of Glasgow

12. Ancient Sparta in Modern Political Thought
Supervisor: Aaron Pocock

The ancient Spartans have an enduring legacy in modern political thinking, in areas such as exploration of human liberty; conceptions of ancient connections and racial purity; and ideas about gender roles and social structure. From the T4 program in Nazi Germany to analogies drawn with the Soviet Union to twenty-first century American politics, Sparta has continued to hold prominence as offering a socio-political framework that may be emulated.

Working with their supervisor, students are invited to develop a project investigating the representation of ancient Sparta in modern political discourse. Case studies may examine diverse geographical contexts from the nineteenth-century to the present day. Projects may consider interpretation of an aspect of Spartan society such as gender, slavery, government, militarism and foreign policy in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars. Students may examine classical evidence of Sparta (using translated sources) to analyse how ancient material has been received, understood, and perhaps manipulated, and its influence across the modern world.

Indicative Preliminary Reading

• Hodkinson, S. et. al. 2012. Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History and Culture (Classical Press of Wales)
• Rawson, E. 1991. The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford University Press)
• Cartledge, P. 2001. Spartan Reflections (Duckworth)
• Halkos, G.E. et al. 2022. ‘Tracing the Optimal Level of Political and Social Change under Risks and Uncertainties: Some Lessons from Ancient Sparta and Athens’, Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 15.9, p. 416.
• Kelly, D.H. 1972. Sparta: Some Myths Ancient and Modern, Ancient History Resources for Teachers, 2.1, p. 3
• Cartledge, P. 2006. ‘Spartan Traditions and Receptions’, Hermathena, 181, pp. 41-49
• Bremmer, J.N. 1997. Myth as Propaganda: Athens and Sparta, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, pp. 9-17

Classical Primary Sources

• Plutarch, Xenophon and Talbert, R.J.A. 1988, Plutarch on Sparta (Penguin)
• Herodotus, Waterfield, R. 1998. Herodotus: the Histories (Oxford University Press)