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Teaching and learning focus on three integrated areas of study: 1. Nation and empire 2. Race, class and gender 3. Individualism and subjectivity The module requires students to focus on a core body of scholarship seeking to understand the multiple dimensions through which these categories of historical analysis have been lived, experienced and narrated in the modern British historical context. The module places considerable emphasis on critical approaches to the idea of ‘national history’, paying attention to the transnational, imperial, global and comparative dimensions of political, economic, social, cultural and intellectual life that fall within a ‘British history’ framework. Weekly seminars focus on a particular historical, theoretical, conceptual or methodological approach, or a combination thereof. An example of this might be the relationship between gender as an analytical category and the prevalence of popular imperialism ‘at home’ in the late 19th and early 20th century, asking to what extent metropolitan gender identities were formed in relation to the colonial contexts of the day. Topics will be critically examined through readings that combine the works of theorists with writings by historians who apply these theories, as well as through group discussion and formative activities. The module will also introduce students to the varied range of archival sources available for the study of identities in modern British history, and critically engage with debates about the types of source materials available, how they can be analysed, and what their strengths and limitations might be.

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