CANG9157 : C1/C1+ _ Master narratives in People's History

Scope

What do we mean by “people’s history”? Is it simply a history about the people – and if so, who exactly counts as “the people”, and what aspects of their lives are worth telling? Is it a history for the people – that is, one intended for a broad public, or perhaps one serving the interests of the many rather than the few? Mightit be a history from the people’s perspective? Or even a history made by the people themselves? 

This course examines some of the diverse cultural and intellectual forms (texts, plays, exhibitions, iconography, film) through which people’s history has been articulated in 19th- and 20th-century Britain. We will explore how these forms engage with and reshape various master narratives – “recurrent skeletal stories, belonging to cultures and individuals, that play a powerful role in questions of identity, values, and the understanding of life” (Abbott, 2008) – within their historical context. We will address not only the ambiguities and challenges involved in constructing people’s history, but also its emotional, imaginative and intellectual power. 

Purpose

• To practice and develop the five Cambridge English C1 Advanced skills (listening, reading, speaking, interacting, writing).
• To explore the different faces of “the people” within cultural and intellectual production, and examine how these relate to different conceptions of the role of the intellectual.
• To reflect on the role of master narratives in culture and knowledge – and question the (supposed) decline of such narratives in postmodern times.
• To develop close reading and critical thinking skills across a wide range of media and genres. 

Provisional outline

1. Lost rights and the Norman Yoke
2. The Whig narrative
3. Recovering the Anglo-Saxons
4. The quiet struggle of the plebs
5. A working-class history?
6. “The world we have lost”
7. A Communist People?
8. Rescuing “the poor stockinger”
9. The people talking and writing history
10. Towards an intersectional, reflexive people’s history?
11. The postmodern death (or rebirth?) of master narratives