Close
Description
Telling stories about oneself and expressing intimate emotions, desires and experiences has become a defining feature of modern life. This course will explore the historical development of this urge to confess in twentieth-century Britain. We will examine a range of forms of personal testimony from letters, diaries and autobiographies, to medical case histories, documentaries and oral histories. Each of these media allowed the narrator to shape their stories in particular ways and offer specific challenges and opportunities to the historian. How, for example, did letters home from the Front in the First World War provide possibilities for certain types of narrative while inhibiting others? Could soldiers tell their families about their experiences of fear and physical discomfort or did they construct accounts of courage and patriotism? We will consider the historical conditions which prompted a culture of personal testimonies and how the telling of intimate stories has facilitated the development of a politics of identity in modern Britain. The accounts we will study demonstrate the diversity of experience and identity in twentieth-century Britain, exploring accounts of sexual marginalisation, racial discrimination, feminist activism and 鈥榦rdinary鈥� working-class life. The Special Subject will prepare students to develop dissertation topics on Modern British History and using a variety of written, oral and visual sources.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
听