Undergraduate 

History MA/MA(SocSci)

France, 1789-1914: Nation, Revolution and Empire (HIST 4211) - Honours. HIST4211

  • Academic Session: 2023-24
  • School: School of Humanities
  • Credits: 20
  • Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
  • Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: Yes

Short Description

This course explores the history of France in the 'long nineteenth century'. It provides a chronological framework by discussing the political regimes that rose and fell in this period and it examines specific themes such as gender, the urban experience (particularly the place of Paris in French politics and culture), the integration of the peasantry into a 'French' identity, and the overseas empire: overarching them all is the search for a French identity.

Timetable

10 x 1 hour lectures and 5 x 2 hour seminars. This is one of the honours options in History and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.  

Excluded Courses

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Assessment

Course essay - 3,000 words - 60%

Report - 1,500 words - 30% - identifying and commenting on source material (including non-textual sources) from the period.

Oral Assessment (Seminar Contribution) - 10%

Main Assessment In: April/May

Are reassessment opportunities available for all summative assessments? Not applicable for Honours courses

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

Course Aims

 The aims of this course are:

■ To introduce students to a broad, transformative period of French history.

■ To provide students with the knowledge of how forms of French identity have been shaped in the past.

■ To give students the opportunity to investigate different types of political order and the forming and collapse of consensus.

■ To provide students with a knowledge of revolutions, their causes, processes and consequences.

■ To hone students' historical skills by providing them with the opportunity to adopt a variety of approaches to the past, including gender and imperial perspectives.

■ To give students the opportunity to enhance their skills in source criticism with the use of primary materials in seminars and in the assessment.

■ To make connections and comparisons between the past and the present.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

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

■ Display in-depth knowledge and understanding of French history from the Revolution to the outbreak of the First World War.

■ Comment on the relationship between the present and the past in French society.

■ Recognise the relationship between domestic and external developments and between different forms of identity.

■ Analyse the causes, processes and results of social and political upheavals and of cultural conflict.

■ Critically assess the validity of different sides of historical debates.

■ Critically examine, assess and comment upon a variety of textual and non-textual sources and make judicious use of it in constructing an argument.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.