HUMN 3019 Britain in the Age of Botany Bay, 1760-1815

Credit Points 10

Legacy Code 102079

Coordinator Simon Burrows Opens in new window

Description This subject introduces the social, economic, political and cultural forces that shaped the society from which the first white Australians came. It considers processes of historical change and uses primary sources to explore historical debates concerning these changes. Themes covered include social class; sex and gender; crime and punishment; industrial revolution, urbanisation, and public health; the public sphere; political life; war, militarisation, and empire. This subject places special emphasis on the use of digitised primary sources, training students in their use. It also requires an extended piece of original primary source-based historical research. The subject spans the period 1760-1815.

School Humanities & Comm Arts

Discipline History

Student Contribution Band HECS Band 4 10cp

Check your fees via the Fees page.

Level Undergraduate Level 3 subject

Restrictions

Successful completion of 60 credit points of study in currently enrolled program.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

  1. Demonstrate an understanding of the nature of the discipline of history.
  2. Evaluate debates amongst historians.
  3. Analyse historical documents and the conduct of original primary-source based historical research using digital resources.
  4. Utilise skills of analysis, synthesis and fluid expression in the oral and written presentation of historical evidence or argument.
  5. Utilise skills at video/oral presentation of project work and peer assessment.
  6. Demonstrate an awareness of the forces - social, economic, cultural, political, geographical and religious - responsible for British society in the period examined.
  7. Assess the influence of history on contemporary issues, attitudes and places.

Subject Content

Topics covered in lectures and tutorials will include:
- Polite society
- Industrialisation and urbanisation
- Commercialisation and Consumer culture
- Crime and Punishment
- sex and gender
- religion
- politics and The public sphere
- War, militarisation and empire
- Radicalism and Working class protest
Most topics will be delivered in a series of lecture pods of about 20 minutes each. Tutorials will serve as research skills workshops, instructing students in the conduct and methodologies of historical research. Emphasis will be laid on the use of key on-line resources, notably ECCO (Eighteenth-Century Collections Online); the Burney collection of early English newspapers; The Old Bailey on line. On line research training materials will also be provided.

Prescribed Texts

  • Students will be recommended to buy one of the following for background and reference, according to their interests:
  • Hilton, Boyd, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People: England 1783-1846 (Oxford, 2006)
  • Langford, Paul, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (1989)
  • O'Gorman, Frank, The long eighteenth century: British political and social history, 1688-1832 (London : Arnold, 1997).
  • Porter, Roy English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Allen Lane: London 1982)