Early Modern European Nations and Empire

Faith, Nation and Empire in Modern East-Central Europe

Dr Jim Bjork

This module will be examining three broad ways in which East-Central Europe has been organized and re-organized over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first and most familiar of these organising principles is the nation-state. We will be exploring why this model has had such a powerful appeal, as well as the problems that have arisen out of attempts to create neatly delineated nation-states out of the region’s linguistic ‘crazy quilt’. A second model that we will consider is that of supranational or imperial systems. Included here are not only pre-national dynastic states like the Habsburg Monarchy, but also a wide range of more self- consciously forward-looking attempts to transcend national divisions: the hierarchical racial order of the Nazi era; the one-party states of the Soviet bloc; and, most recently, the market integration of the European Union. Finally, we will be looking at the role that religious communities have played in the life of East-Central Europe., at the level of both subnational regional bonds and transnational ‘civilizational’ systems.

Assessment is by one three hour examination.


Themes in Early Modern Cultural History
Dr Anne Goldgar

This module will explore, through specific themes and examples, the way people in early modern Europe (including England) conceived of their world, and how these conceptions manifested themselves in practice. It will use both primary and secondary sources, as well as theoretical works, particularly anthropology, to consider the question of what culture was, what forms allowed for the expression of cultural values, what values were being expressed, and how the transmission and control of those values was accomplished. Defining these themes will entail close attention to both social and political structures, as well as to change in these structures over the course of the period. The main themes to be considered in this module will be: the definition of community, the articulation of conflict, the uses of culture, the transmission of culture, the control of culture, and relations between elite and popular. Some of the specific topics under these headings will be: the culture of work, carnival and popular protest, oral culture, popular self-fashioning, the civilising process, civic culture and the body social, culture and power, material culture and consumption, defining the other, and museums and the transmission of culture.

Students will generally have completed one main module in early modern European history. A reading knowledge of French would be helpful but is not required. The module will be examined by one three-hour paper and 4 essays.