• Inactive for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Professor Susan-Mary Grant

• Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

• Capacity limit: 40 student places

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

The American Civil War was the formative event of American history, the war that defeated the secessionist challenge and established the modern American nation. Although the war ended in 1865, it continues to resonate in present-day America, at the extreme in the League of the South and the neo-confederate groups for whom the Civil War represents a crucial part of their heritage.

This module takes an alternative approach to the conflict by exploring the emotions of those involved in it, from the patriotic upsurge of nationalist sentiments following the fall of Fort Sumter to the fraught emotional fall-out in the war's immediate aftermath. As such, it offers students the opportunity to think afresh about the Civil War, and to explore the ways in which the war changed the emotional landscape of the nation in the 19th century, and laid the groundwork for that of the 20th and 21st centuries.

This module aims to:

1. Introducing students to the various approaches employed in studying the history of emotions: the social and the mainly medical.
2. To apply this approach to such topics as: the political, cultural and social background to the war; specifically the developing sectional divisions of the mid-nineteenth century; the war years themselves, with particular reference to the writings of soldiers and surgeons on such topics as fear, fighting, emancipation, the refugee crisis, the war's medical history, and the lasting legacies that the conflict bequeathed to its veterans and their families.
3. To identify the role that the Civil War era continues to play in America's emotional identity today.
4. To provide an opportunity both of investigating in some depth selected problems, including the appraisal of selected source material and the critical examination of current historiography on both the war and the history of emotions, and of acquiring a sound general knowledge of the subject, reading widely in the (primary and secondary) literature associated with it.
5. To encourage and improve the student's capacity for independent study.

Outline Of Syllabus

Seminars may be structured around:


1. The emotional history approach: cutting edge or rediscovery?
2. The emotions involved in sectionalism and during the ‘secession winter’ of 1860-61.
3. A volunteer's war: from rage militaire to second thoughts.
4. The emotional impact of the war's first two years on the Union, and on the Confederacy.
5. The war's medical and emotional landscape: trauma and treatment.
6. The Emancipation Proclamation: the emotions of reaction.
7. Refugees: loss and liability.
8. 1863: emotional turning points?
9. The emotions of Union victory: success and surrender.
10. How to read the emotions of the war's popular culture: photographs and literature.
11. Legacies: veterans, generations, memories.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The teaching methods deployed in this module have been designed so as to match the learning outcomes and prepare students for the assessment structure. They comprise:

•       First and most obviously, reading. But there is so much potential secondary reading on this topic, along with a new (to most students) historiographical approach, that specific teaching skills have to be brought into play in order to help the student navigate what could be an unwieldy pile of books and articles. So the background (asynchronous) lectures will include guidance on the broad historiographical landscape up to now; the seminars (two-hour) will devote about 50% of their time to discussion and critique of secondary material, its approach, its sources, the appropriateness of both to the arguments etc. (this being one of the most contentious aspects of the study of enslavement in America).
•       Seminars will also introduce students to the use and analysis of primary material, including: appropriate sampling methods; the use of 19th century medical texts; and the use of soldier's letters.
•       The broader seminar discussion and formative assessment, which will include presentations by the students themselves. This will require a degree of independent research into some of the online primary evidence, such as 19th century journals and soldier's letters, in order to test the extent to which students are acquiring the necessary research skills to interrogate material that is, in its nature, both dramatic and disturbing, and reach appropriate and considered conclusions about it.
•       The seminar discussions will also allow students to test out ideas, and share information they have gleaned from both primary and secondary material.
•       Finally, the cumulative effect of the teaching methods will give the students the confidence, by the module’s end, to discuss the fascinating subject of the history of emotions taking America's civil war as the case study, and deploying evidence in making a case (for whatever essay topic they select to do).

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Research Paper: tests the students' capacity for independent research into a topic, developing the material and reading set to address original questions about the chosen topic, find material relating to this via the library and other on-line sites, and reach a conclusion about the state of current research in the field. They require the ability to compare and contrast related source texts on a common subject, as well as the ability to expound and criticize a textual extract lucidly, succinctly and with relevance in a relatively short number of words. Feedback and guidance will be provided as to how best to utilize the research materials in the final essay.

Essay: tests the students' capacity for constructing and defending an argument, using both primary and secondary literature to evidence the argument, and presenting it in a coherent, relatively concise, but persuasive way, using the appropriate footnoting for History.

This module can be taken by study-abroad, exchange and Loyola students.

Study-abroad, exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. This will take the form of an alternative assessment, as outlined in the formats below:

Modules assessed by Coursework and Exam:
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be one essay in addition to the other coursework assessment (the length of the essay should be adjusted in order to comply with the assessment tariff). The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Exam only:
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be two 2,000 word written exercises; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Coursework only:
All semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be expected to complete the standard assessment for the module; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Study-abroad, exchange and Loyola students spending the whole academic year or semester 2 are required to complete the standard assessment as set out in the MOF under all circumstances.

Reading Lists

• HIS3181's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• HIS3181's Timetable