This module (and its co-requisite) will allow students to study a historical theme or area in great depth, under the guidance of members of staff drawing on both secondary sources (i.e. books and articles) and primary sources (documents, newspapers etc), both published and unpublished. The module will allow students to study an aspect of history in detail and gain a fuller understanding of how different types of source material inform the historical process.
Module Summary: This module aims to examine the development of societies in the North Atlantic (including the Atlantic archipelago and Iceland) which were shaped by similar but different impacts of the ‘viking’ expansion, climate and environment, and proximity to more centralised polities. The emphasis is on how political and social structures, including religious ones, shaped societies in this region during and after the so-called ‘Viking Age’. Many of the regions that are examined seem politically decentralised and so it aims to understand how and why that might have been the case, and what roles, if any ‘viking’ activity and Scandinavian heritage played in shaping society and politics.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
analyse and critically appraise key events and historical processes relevant to the subject under scrutiny;
analyse and critically evaluate a wide range of relevant primary source material;
critically evaluate the historiographical context and trends of the subject under exploration;
Summarise, synthesise and evaluate the subject material in a sophisticated written form.
