The Parkes Institute offers a selection of modules at Undergraduate and Postgraduate level which enable you to examine the variety of issues that have impacted on the Jewish people throughout history and have influenced the relationship between Jews and non-Jews to the present.
2021-2022 Modules
Undergraduate
HIST1184 Jewish Life and Death in Europe
This module explores Jewish life and death in Europe through the study of the processes and complexities of emancipation, integration and assimilation for Jews in Europe after the Enlightenment through to the post-Holocaust period, including early Jewish responses to Nazi persecution as life as refugees.
HIST1154 Ancient History: Sources and Controversies
This module looks at the societies and cultures of the ancient world through their written texts, visual art and material remains. It will introduce you to different types of sources in study of the ancient world, and how to approach and analyse them as historical sources. Over the course of the module, you will be introduced to literary, material and visual evidence from Herodotus (484-425 BCE) to Procopius (500-560 CE), from buildings and monuments to art, coins and inscriptions, covering Greek, Roman and Byzantine history.
HIST 2004 The Making of Englishness: Race, Ethnicity and Immigration, from 1841 to the Present
This module examines changing notions of British (and, more specifically, English) national identity in relation to issues of race, ethnicity and immigration from the 1840s to the present day.
HIST 2130 Stalin and Stalinism
This module begins with an assessment of the legacy of Lenin and goes on to investigate Stalin's rise to power and his methods in modernising economy and society. We will engage with historical debates concerning his role in the purges of the 1930s and the impact of the Great Patriotic War on his rule. We go on to evaluate the first effort at reforming the Stalinist system under his successor Khrushchev, whether there was a (partial) return to Stalinism under Brezhnev, and why the attempts to reform eventually failed under Gorbachev.
HIST3243 Short History of the Far Right
This module will identify the distinctive features of far right thinking and practice by studying its manifestations in Europe and the wider world. Although the most notorious expression of the far right - fascism - is inescapably European in origin, these and other forms of authoritarian populism are much more widespread. You are asked to think about where far right ideas come from while also bearing in mind their variety, and the fluidity and contingency of their development since the late nineteenth century.
HIST 3261/2 Entangled Histories: France and Germany in the Mid-Twentieth Century
This module explores the entangled histories of France and Germany between the end of WW1 and the aftermath of WW2. Resentment over the Treaty of Versailles was central to the emergence of radical nationalism in Germany after 1918; conversely, solving the ‘German problem’ was at the heart of French concerns in the interwar years. The German occupation of France between 1940 and 1944 brought these histories to a head in the most fundamental way.
ENGL2091 From Black and White to Colour: A Screen History of Race, Gender and Sexuality in Post-War Britain
This module presents a history of post-war multicultural Britain through the lens of British film and television, considering how our attitudes to 'race', sexuality and British identity more generally have been defined, challenged and changed by film and television.
ENGL3007 Holocaust Literature
This module examines a range of responses to the Holocaust from the 1940s to the present day, including memoirs of camp survivors and experimental texts. Focusing on the limits of representation we will approach questions concerning memory, trauma and the aestheticisation of horror through testimony, fiction, poetry and film.
HIST1195 The End of the World: Apocalyptic Visions of History
This module explores the cultural and historical contexts of apocalyptic ideology up to Late Antiquity (Palestine under Greek and Roman rule up to the emergence of Islam). It explores how concepts of the end of time are used to present a response to historical events such as the Jewish War against Rome or the Arab conquests. This module examines the Jewish and Christian communities that produced apocalypses, the historical value of apocalypses in the Ancient World, and what they teach about intercultural relations in this period.
FILM6055 The Holocaust in American Film
This module will explore the various ways in which the Holocaust has been represented in film and television, with specific focus on American film. These will be discussed through the study of the content and historical context of key films including The Diary of Anne Frank, Judgment at Nuremberg, Schindler’s List and Inglourious Basterds. You will not be restricted to writing on American film and there will be scope for comparative work on television and non-American films, for example Shoah and the miniseries Holocaust.
Postgraduate
HIST6136 Themes in Jewish History
This module introduces the evidence and its problems relating to specific and crucial periods for the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, including Graeco-Roman antiquity; middle ages; early modern; and late modern. It studies everyday interaction of Jews and non-Jews in various environments such as the Hellenistic world, the Roman Empire, medieval Europe; early modern England; nineteenth and twentieth century Britain, continental Europe and the USA. It also considers the influence of theology on the representation and treatment of the Jews in the Christian era.
Students can put together their own tentative ‘Jewish Studies programme’ by choosing modules taught by members of the Parkes Institute and thus prepare for postgraduates studies.