Course Details in 2026/27 Session

Module Title	LH Advanced Option: Gross Indecency to Gay Marriage? Gender and Sexual Minorities 1885 to the Present
School	History and Cultures
Department	History
Module Code	09 38746
Module Lead	Dr Mo Moulton
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Lecture-10 hours Seminar-20 hours Guided independent study-170 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	\"The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it,\" wrote Oscar Wilde in 1891. Less than a decade later, the Irish poet and playwright was dead, having never recovered from his prison term for gross indecency with men. This module takes up Wilde's challenge and explores the queer history of modern Britain. Beginning in 1885, when the Labouchère Amendment made gross indecency a crime, the module traces the emergence of queer identities and practices from sexological debates and criminal codes. It covers the politics of gay activism in the 1970s and 1980s and the development of modern identity categories, often grouped in the acronym LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex), protected by the 2010 Equalities Act. Defining 'Britain' broadly, we will ask how empire and colonialism shaped queer historical experience, and we will explore the intersections of race, class, and gender within the worlds of sexual and gender minorities – looking, for example, at the home movies made by a British archaeologist in Palestine in the 1930s and the Bedouin man who seems to be his lover. Queer history challenges us to read between the lines and to unsettle established categories, a project we will undertake with a variety of sources, such as Jeanette Winterson's classic coming-out tale Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985). Ultimately, we will ask how the tools and methods of queer studies can help us to rewrite the history of modern Britain.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: analyse and explain key events and historical processes relevant to the subject under scrutiny, analyse and explain reasons for and implications of these events and processes (including analysis of primary evidence where appropriate) compare and evaluate the main scholarly views on the subject under investigation, critically evaluate the historiographical context and trends of the subject under exploration work with an appropriate degree of learner independence to explain and analyse the material under scrutiny summarise, analyse and evaluate the subject material clearly and effectively in writing, synthesise and evaluate themes across a wide range of diverse material
Assessment	38746-01 : 3,000 word essay : Coursework (100%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessment: S1 = 1 x 3,000 word essay (100%)
Other
Reading List