Critical Approaches to Early Modern History (HISM001)

30 credits

This module introduces you to the main approaches historians have taken to studying early modern history. You will engage with the key theories informing particular approaches, whether religion and politics or print and material culture, to the study of early modern people, places, and societies; you will investigate the sources through which the early modern past can be studied (including wills and inventories; court depositions; sermons; personal letters and diaries; household accounts; ballads, plays, and literary texts; art, artefacts, and architecture); and they will consider the advantages and difficulties of using various methods. The module will therefore provide you with an essential toolkit for their further study of early modern history.