Undergraduate Course: Becoming Modern: Society and Culture in Ireland since 1780 (HIST10360)
Course Outline
School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
Summary | From the end of the eighteenth century Ireland was transformed into what was ostensibly a 'modern' society. This course explores the Irish encounter with modernity, paying particular attention to the effect of cultural and social change on mentalities, world-views and everyday life.
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Course description |
Using primary sources including folklore, migrant letters, autobiographies, diaries and other eyewitness accounts such as travel writings as well as the more traditional sources of historical inquiry (contemporary writings, government records), this course analyses the experience of 'becoming modern' in Ireland after 1780. Subjects that are explored include how notions of time changed in response to the demands of industrial capitalism, the ways in which conceptions of order were integrated into everyday life, and the reasons why the natural world continued to retain a strong hold on Irish imaginations until the 1950s and 1960s. The emphasis will be on reading and critically interpreting primary sources.
Contents
Semester 1 Ireland 1780-1870
1. Introduction
2. Theories of modernity
3. Knowledge and the new order
4. Everyday life
5. Language and cultural change
6. Making good citizens
7. Belief and other worlds
8. Power and inequality
9. Family and household
10. State and society
11. Conclusion
Semester 2 1870-1970
1. Introduction: Ireland in 1870
2. Science, technology and everyday life
3. A wider world
4. Work and leisure
5. Material cultures
6. Faith and fraternity
7. Class and nation
8. Order and disorder
9. Exile
10. The rise of individualism?
11. Conclusions
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.
Before enrolling students on this course, Personal Tutors are asked to contact the History Honours Admission Administrator to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 503780). |
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- a knowledge of the nature of the Irish encounter with modernity;
- an awareness of the complexities involved in the study of everyday life and popular culture;
- an ability to utilise relevant primary sources to support historical arguments;
- enhanced essay writing and oral presentation skills.
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Reading List
Angela Bourke et al. (eds), The Field Day anthology of Irish writing, vols. 4-5, Irish women's writing and traditions (2002). Joe Cleary and Claire Connolly (eds), The Cambridge companion to modern Irish culture (2006).
Joe Cleary, Outrageous fortune: capital and culture in modern Ireland (2007)
S. J. Connolly, Priests and people in pre-famine Ireland 1780-1845 (1985)
Michael De Nie and Sean Farrell (eds), Power and popular culture in modern Ireland (2010)
James S. Donnelly and Kerby A. Miller (eds), Irish popular culture, 1650-1850 (1997)
Terry Eagleton, Heathcliff and the great hunger: studies in Irish culture (1995)
Luke Gibbons, Transformations in Irish culture (1996)
Glenn Hooper and Colin Graham (eds.), Irish and postcolonial writing: history, theory, practice (2002)
Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland: the literature of the modern nation (1996)
Joseph Lee, The modernisation of Irish society, 1848-1918 (1973)
David Lloyd, Irish culture and colonial modernity 1800-2000 (2011)
Maria Luddy, Women in Ireland, 1800-1918 (1995)
Niall O Ciosáin, Print and popular culture in Ireland, 1750-1850 (2010)
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Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Critical interpretation of historical interpretations and primary sources; oral and written presentation skills |
Keywords | Becoming Modern |
Contacts
Course organiser | Prof Enda Delaney
Tel: (0131 6)50 3755
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Marketa Vejskalova
Tel:
Email: |
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