Unit information: Constructing the 'Other' in Western Europe, c.1000 - 1400 (Level H Lecture Response) in 2014/15

Unit name	Constructing the 'Other' in Western Europe, c.1000 - 1400 (Level H Lecture Response)
Unit code	HIST39012
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Wei
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

Historians working in different fields of medieval Western European history have noted a tendency for medieval people to construct an ‘other’ against which to establish their own identity. We will bring together these various fields to pose fundamental questions about the nature of medieval society and to test various explanatory models.

Were some groups defined and persecuted in order to enhance the power of rulers and their bureaucrats? Was there a distinctive medieval concern about purity and taboo? How much can be explained by medieval beliefs about sin and evil? Were some images of the ‘other’ constructed in attempts to understand the unknown? Are historians misled by a rhetoric of abuse which they over-interpret? Was ‘otherness’ merely a construction of learned clerics which most people ignored?

Topics will include: heretics, Jews, Moslems, angels, devils, ghosts, concepts of race, class conflict, gender difference, sexual deviance, animals, monsters, travel, criminals, lepers.

Aims:

• To provide a broad grounding in the history of a particular period/country or continent/theme.

• To provide a particular perspective from the tutor to which students can react critically and build their own individual views and interpretations.

• To develop students ability to learn independently within a small-group context

• To bring together fields of medieval Western European history that are usually studied separately.

• To develop students understanding of the different ways in which medieval people constructed an other against which to define their own identity.

• To test a range of explanatory models used in history and anthropology.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the unit students should:

• Have a deeper awareness of how to approach longer-term historical analysis

• Be able to set individual issues within their longer term historical context

• Be able to analyse and generalise about issues of continuity and change

• Be able to select pertinent evidence/data in order to illustrate/demonstrate more general historical points

• Be able to derive benefit from and contribute effectively to large group discussion

• Be able to identify a particular academic interpretation, evaluate it critically and form an individual viewpoint

• Have a wider historical knowledge of Western Europe, c.1000-1400

• Have developed an understanding of the different ways in which medieval people constructed an other against which to define their own identity

• Be able to deploy and assess the value of a range of explanatory models used in history and anthropology.

Teaching Information

Weekly 2-hour interactive lecture sessions

Tutorial feedback on essay

Access to tutorial consultation with unit tutor in office hours

Assessment Information

1 x 3000 word essay (50%) and 1 x 2 hour exam (50%)

Reading and References

S. C. Akbari, Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100-1450 (Ithaca, 2009)

N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London, 1970)

M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London, 1966, reprinted 2002).

R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250 (Oxford, second edition, 2007).

D. Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (1996)

J. R. S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe (Oxford, second edition, 1998).

J. Richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages (London, 1991).

J. E. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (New York, 1994).

D. H. Strickland, Saracens, Demons, Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton, 2003)