2024/25 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

HIST2080 Voices of the People: Speech, Language and Oral Culture in Early Modern Europe

20 creditsClass Size: 48

Module manager: Dr Simon Quinn
Email: S.Quinn@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2024/25

This module is approved as a discovery module

Module summary

Early modern Europe was alive with voices. Exploring gossip, rumour, blasphemy, insult, slander, news, oratory, and song, this course offers a new way of understanding the history of speech, language, and communication in the early modern world. We will use a wide range of sources, from broadsheet ballads to anatomical texts, and from Inquisition records to accounts of New World explorations, to rediscover the cultures of orality and communication of the past. How do we write histories of speech in premodern periods? Is there an oral history of the Renaissance, or the Reformation? How can we listen to the voices of ordinary people in early modern Europe? This course uses the noisy world of early modern Europe to think about questions of politics, media, urban history, gender, social hierarchies, religious change, intellectual history, and the birth of European global empires.

Objectives

The objectives of this module are:
- to explore and understand the history of orality, speech, and communication in early modern Europe
- to introduce the concepts associated with the history of oral culture in premodern periods
- to work critically with primary materials in seminars and through independent study
- to encounter new perspectives on the cultural, social, and political history of early modern Europe

Learning outcomes
On completion of this module, students will be able to
- understand the place of the spoken word in the history of early modern Europe
- relate the history of orality to questions of cultural, social, and political change
- work critically with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources
- use printed editions and online databases of early modern primary source materials
- present researched materials confidently
- write clearly and critically, engaging with primary and secondary source material

Syllabus

Topics covered in lectures and seminars may include speech crimes, the oral
history of the Renaissance, religion and the spoken word, the voices of women, slang and
secret languages, the history of silence, language-learning, and voices in the archives.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lecture	11	1.00	11.00
Tutorial	9	1.00	9.00
Private study hours			180.00
Total Contact hours			20.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study

Students will be expected to read primary source extracts and secondary literature in advance of the seminars, as well as pursuing independent reading and research to prepare for class discussion, presentations, and assessments. Students will contribute VLE posts, and research and write an assessed essay.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Students' class contributions and VLE contributions will be assessed continuously and feedback offered where necessary. Individual and group tutorials will be offered to students.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Assignment	2,000-word ‘Voices in the archives’ exercise.	40.00
Essay	3,000-word research essay chosen in consultation with module tutor,	60.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 18/10/2024

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