advanced dphil lecture series - university of oxford · 2019. 4. 26. · advanced dphil lecture...

Advanced DPhil Lecture Series

Name Lecture Title Paper(s) Summary Date/Time

Medieval Communities in England and Europe

S. Markert Local Communities and

Legal Development: new

research in the

administration of justice in

England 1250-1350

BIF2: The British Isles in the

Central Middle Ages, 1000-

1330

BIP2: 2 The British Isles, 1000-

1330

This lecture will explore the role of local communities

and legal practices in the evolution of English law. It

will address questions such as the connection between

local and centralized courts and their administration,

popular attitudes towards and expectations of justice,

and the effects of the professionalization of law during

the 13th century. The lecture would be useful for

anyone interested in English law, social and

institutional change during this period, and the impact

of local societies on English governance.

Th. 3pm (Week 1)

S. Braund Queens, Saints, and

Monastic Communities:

new research in the 10th

century Benedictine

Reform in Anglo-Saxon

England

BIF1: The Early Medieval

British Isles, 300-1100

BIP1: 1 The British Isles, 300-

1100

This lecture will explore the influence and reception of

the 10th century monastic reform, known as the

Benedictine Reform, in male and female monastic

communities. It will address questions concerning the

extent of the Benedictine Reform, the local agency of

monastic communities (male and female) in late

Anglo-Saxon England, and the importance of royalty to

these communities. This lecture would be useful for

students interested in the role of the Church in Anglo-

Saxon society, monastic life for men and women,

and/or the role of gender in the negotiation and

creation religious communities and identities.

Th. 3pm (Week 2)

A. Raisharma Identity, Institution and

Interaction in Monastic

Spaces in Europe and

World History in Late

EWF1: The World of Late

Antiquity: 250-650

EWF2: The Early Medieval

World, 600-1000

This lecture will demonstrate how monastic

communities from western Europe, Byzantium and

North Africa in the late antiquity and the early

medieval period can be used as case studies to explore

key questions of social and cultural history: identity,

Th. 3pm (Week 3)

Antiquity and the Early

Middle Ages

EWF4: The Global Middle

Ages, 500-1500

institution and interaction. Accordingly, this lecture

will be delivered in three parts: a) Gender and Identity:

this lecture will focus on inter-generational tensions

and explore whether one can detect crises of

masculinity within monastic communities. b)

Community Formation and Institutional Practices:

Community formation and institutional practices will

be examined through histories of slavery and domestic

labour. c) Inter-connected Spaces and Places: Finally,

this lecture will test whether these monastic spaces

were affected by or affected the dynamics of the

Mediterranean world in this period, or whether the

global circulation of texts, peoples and ideas had little

or no impact on these communities.

Movement and Exchange in the Long Sixteenth Century

R. Asquez

New Research in the

Material Culture of

Devotion: the Case of the

Suffering Christ (c.1450-

c.1530)

EWF6: Early Modern Europe,

1500-1700

Much recent research into late medieval piety has

focused on the role of the Blessed Virgin and the

saints; however, my research approaches late

medieval religion through an image which was at its

heart – that of the suffering Christ. This lecture will

serve as an introduction to the theme by analysing its

place and presence in the material culture of piety. As

such, it explores devotional material culture and the

ways in which we can think about these images, as

well as the spaces in which they were located.

M. 2pm (Week 1)

H. Guzik New Research in Early

Modern European

Pilgrimage


1500-1700

Given its "golden age" in the twelfth century,

pilgrimage is commonly thought of, from a European

perspective, as a strictly medieval phenomenon.

Despite the demographic shifts that accompanied the

Reformation, pilgrimage did not cease to be a catalyst

for travel and encounters. Drawing on Helena’s

doctoral research into the pilgrimage involvement of

M. 2pm (Week 2)

fifteenth- and sixteenth-century ruling Italian elites,

this lecture will explore the logistics of and motivations

for undertaking both local and long-distance

pilgrimages in the shifting religio-political landscape of

early modern Europe. It will also examine the ways in

which objects commemorated these journeys and

linked them to everyday devotional practices.

L. Luiten New Research in Late-

Medieval and Early

Modern European

Dynastic History


1500-1700

What are dynasties and how do they relate to the

emerging state system in early modern Europe? Why

did rulers spend vast amounts of resources and energy

pursuing claims to distant lands and (at times

imagined) titles? Recent research has re-centred

dynasty as a conceptual tool for understanding the

political history of late medieval and early modern

Europe, and has opened up new inroads to

comparison with dynasties across the globe. During

this lecture we will explore the new inroads made

possible by focusing on dynasties, address its

repercussions for our understanding of cultural

exchange in Europe, and discuss the relation between

dynasties and states.

M. 2pm (Week 3)

L. Morris New Research in

Transnational Military

History


1500-1700

Soldiers are recognised to have been one of the most

mobile and distinctive social groups of the Long

Sixteenth Century, and ever since Geoffrey Parker’s

work tracing the ‘Spanish Road’ between Italy and the

Low Countries there has been keen interest in patterns

of military movement across the continent. Research

into similar topics has now broadened to consider

issues such as the survival of traditional mercenary

lifestyles amidst military reform, the role of

borderlands and defensive frontiers in spatial

imaginings, and how soldiers understood their own

identities within a transnational context. This lecture

M. 2pm (Week 4)

will address the cultural, political, and economic

impact of soldiers on the move, with a particular focus

on the Rhineland region which formed the epicentre of

a wide-ranging network of martial migration during

this era.

Pontiffs and Perverts: approaches to religious and queer history

I. McDole Faith and Power: Bishops,

Monks, and Princes in the

Tenth and Eleventh

Centuries


World, 600-1000

EWF3: The Central Middle

Ages, 900-1300

The tenth and eleventh centuries saw bishops not only

as major political players, but also as shapers of the

new ruling dynasties in Europe. Fulbert of Chartres,

Gerbert d’Aurillac (Sylvester II), and Bruno of Toul (Leo

IX) were bishops who helped to shape and promote

the political culture around them. Using letter

collections and hagiographies, they asserted at least

moral authority over the local nobility as well as kings

and emperors; charter sources show how they worked

side by side secular rulers for their own benefit. The

Peace of God and Truce of God movements were also

developed at this time, but many bishops were also

military leaders, leading troops for secular leaders.

This lecture will evaluate the role of these three

bishops to see how they reconciled religious and

political authority in the administration of their

dioceses.

W. 3pm (Week 1)

A. Raw Gendered, Trans*, and

Queer Communities in

Medieval Europe


World, 600-1000


Ages, 900-1300

This lecture will offer an introduction to queer

approaches to the medieval period. The practice of

queer history began with a genealogical project to see

ourselves, driven by a political and personal need to

write the history of ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ peoples – by

writing these identities into the narrative, we could

prove that we have always been here. This lecture will

first discuss the limits of the genealogical approach –

that is, the loss of time-specific identities rendered

W. 3pm (Week 2)

invisible by myopic application of modern identities,

and the imposition of modern identities onto historical

actors who did not view themselves in these terms.

We will consider the role of the historian – as Joan

Scott renders it, ‘to ‘expose categories as inadequate

and empty’ – and then turn to new methodologies and

practices within queer history, such as queer critical

history, and queering-as-method, to open out what a

queer lens reveals about medieval gender discourse.

New Research in Politics, Economy and Society in the Long Eighteenth Century

A. Lim Art and Power in late

Stuart England

BIF 4: Reformations and

Revolutions, 1500-1700

BIF5: Liberty, Commerce and

Power, 1685-1830

FS12: Court Culture and Art in

Early Modern Europe, 1580-

1700

This lecture will consider the art patronage of the late

Stuart court and some of its leading courtiers. It will

interrogate the role of the court in leading patronage

and fashion in the fine and decorative arts, and the

relationship between art and power in this period of

Restoration and Revolution. Against a backdrop of

shifting diplomatic allegiances and political alliances,

and drawing on new research into the patronage of

leading courtiers, it will explore how art was used to

reflect and maintain political power and status.

T. 2pm (Week 1)

B. Schneider Wages and Living

Standards in the Industrial

Revolution


Power, 1685-1830

BIF6: Power, Politics and the

People, 1815-1924

FS26: The Development of the

World Economy since 1800

This lecture will discuss the incentives to innovate in

the British Industrial Revolution and how

industrialization affected living standards, focusing on

recent contributions to the study of wages. Supposedly

high English wages have been identified as the spur to

innovation in the 18th century, but more careful

examination of the sources has revealed lower

earnings levels than previously thought. Wages have

also been used as the traditional measure of living

standards during the period of industrialization, and

the lecture will discuss key contributions and

T. 2pm (Week 2)

incorporate the recent literature into this lively

political and historiographical debate.

R. Manning Leisure and Cultural Life in

Long Eighteenth-Century

Britain


Power, 1685-1830

2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of two major

contributions to the field of eighteenth-century

studies: Paul Langford’s A Polite and Commercial

People and Peter Borsay’s The English Urban

Renaissance. Exploring the historiography inspired by

these two books, this lecture will consider the

enduring importance of theories of ‘politeness’ and

‘urban renaissance’ for our understanding of British

leisure and cultural life during the period. Moving on

to highlight areas of ongoing historiographical debate,

the lecture will also seek to demonstrate the

continued potential for new provincial case studies to

provide fresh and informative perspectives in this area.

T. 2pm (Week 3)

The Global Left, 1945-1989

M. Woolgar New Research in

Southeast Asian

Communism since 1945

EWF14: The Global Twentieth

Century, 1930-2003

Politics and IR course

International Relations in the

Era of the Cold War

In the period after the Second World War,

communism played an important role in Southeast

Asia’s politics, in a context of ongoing decolonisation

and developing Cold War competition. Communism

influenced a range of movements, taking forms that

varied from guerrilla campaigns to parliamentary

parties. Communist regimes were eventually

established in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, though

elsewhere in the region they were successfully

suppressed, often violently. This lecture will explore

recent research that has seen scholars re-evaluate

communism’s contexts, drivers, and enemies in a

region where its legacies are still vividly felt.

W. 2pm (Week 1)

M. Myers Western European

Histories of the Left from


Century, 1930-2003

An overview of political and intellectual developments

on Western European left – from the extra-

parliamentary to the Communist Parties – during the

W. 2pm (Week 2)

1968 to the Rise of

Neoliberalism

long 1970s. The period saw both the flowering of

revolutionary expectations and imagined socialist

breakthrough across Western Europe in the aftermath

of 1968. This lecture will explore the contradictory

expression of the left’s response to its changing

industrial and electoral fortunes as the long 1968 gave

way to the rise of neoliberalism.

J-P. Stone Strikes and Discontent in

the French Empire and

Beyond from 1945 till

1950


Century, 1930-2003

The immediate post-war years in France and Europe

saw countless cities, factories and industries engulfed

in paralysing, divisive and deadly strike waves. From

Paris to Algiers, industrial action saw thousands of

miners, metal-workers, postmen, textile weavers and

teachers, belonging to multiple ethnicities and political

orientations, take to the streets for reasons often not

articulated fully or accurately by either Socialist,

Communist or trade union representatives at the time.

Demands for higher wages, lower prices and more

bread obscured and subsumed more subtle sources of

discontent. This lecture will therefore provide an

introduction to the latent anxieties, quiet frustrations

and powerful forces which drove such movements in

France and later spread to her colonial possessions,

principally in North Africa, and overseas apartments. In

addition, this lecture will briefly explore how strikes in

post-war France mirrored, and occasionally inspired,

similar movements and developments in neighbouring

Belgium, England, Poland, Czechoslovakia and even as

far afield as Latin America.

W. 2pm (Week 3)

N. Garland Ideologies of Community

on the British Left in the

1970s

BIF7: Changing Identities,

1900-present

While the word "community" is a constant feature of

politics on all sides of the political spectrum, it is a

heavily contested concept. As the cultural critic

Raymond Williams observed, 'community can be the

warmly persuasive word to describe an existing set of

W. 2pm (Week 4)

relationships, or the warmly persuasive word to

describe an alternative set of relationships. What is

most important, perhaps, is that unlike all other terms

of social organisation (state, nation, society, etc.) it

seems never to be used unfavourably and never to

give any positive opposing or distinguishing term.'

From the late 1960s and through the 1970s, a

bewildering array of political initiatives sprung up

across Britain’s towns and, especially, its cities,

concerned with the idea of community. The political

Left especially was preoccupied with the idea,

theorising and attempting to put into practice a wide

range of grassroots and elite initiatives to promote a

more participatory politics and to seek to make politics

more sensitive to the needs of communities. This

lecture will explore the different meanings attached to

community, and the continuities and contradictions

that existed within the explosion of "community

politics".

Exclusion and Outsiders in Early Modern England and France

E. Glassford New Research in

Xenophobia in London,

c.1450-1558

BIF4: Reformations and


This lecture will explore xenophobia in London in the

period between the end of the Hundred Years’ War

and the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign, examining the

primary groups of immigrants to London, the roles of

their communities in and around the city, and the

economic, social, and cultural factors involved in

tensions between them and native Londoners. In so

doing, the lecture will address cultural stereotypes of

strangers and what these perceptions and portrayals

reveal about Londoners’ own values and fears in the

period. The lecture will also grapple with previous

characterisations of anti-alien behaviour, instead

Th. 2pm (Week 1)

asserting that Londoners shared a cultural framework

of xenophobia and a common cultural vocabulary with

which to express it.

M. Innes New Research in

Sixteenth- and

Seventeenth-Century

Exclusion Crises in England

and France


1500-1700



This lecture explores early modern English and French

politics at their breaking points, namely the periods

when disputed successions seemed to lie ahead. Both

political ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ sought to exclude

unwelcome candidates, whether for reasons of gender

or religion. With a particular focus on the crises of the

late 1580s, this lecture will consider both the content

of these debates, as well as the means through which

they were pursued. In so doing, it will explore some of

the connections between intellectual, political, and

cultural history in the early modern period.

Th. 2pm (Week 2)

A. Blackwood New Research in

Neighbourliness and

Honour in the Early

Modern English Parish



This lecture will explore the effects of religious change,

state policy and the economy on social hierarchy

within the English parish. Often the politics of the

parish are discussed from an external perspective, in

terms of local reactions to policies imposed from

above, but we will be shifting the focus to the internal

culture of honour and neighbourliness that dictated

the terms of inclusion or exclusion within parish

society. In particular, this lecture will examine the

diverging experiences of the 'better sort' of the parish

and the poor in the Elizabethan reign and illuminate

the gaps between state rhetoric and cultural realities.

Th. 2pm (Week 3)

New Approaches to Intellectual and Social thought in Medieval Europe

E. Lavallee

Medieval Intellectual and

Political Culture: From

Ideas to Action, c.1150 -

1300


Ages, 900-1300

The lecture will examine the influence of intellectual

ideas, primarily from the schools and universities, on

the rhetoric and practices of the political sphere in

England and France. It will look at key 'vectors' for

these ideas, such as the rise of mendicant preaching

F. 11am (Week 1)

BIF2: The British Isles in the

Central Middle Ages, 1000-

1330

and confession, as well as the historical sources that

help to illuminate these connections (sermons, biblical

commentaries, mirrors for princes, chronicles, etc.) It

will bring in my own research on conceptions of

counsel in the period as the primary case study, as well

as referencing the work of historians such as David

D'Avray, Alexander Murray, and Robert Bartlett.

H. Flatley New Research on

Medieval Iberia:

Christians, Muslims and

Jews in the Western

Mediterranean


Ages, 900-1300

EWF4: The Global Middle

Ages, 500-1500

The lecture will cover new approaches to

understanding interreligious interaction and exchange

in medieval Iberia. It will explore questions relating to

religious identities, religious violence and conflict, and

interactions between Christians, Muslims and Jews in

the 11th-13th centuries. The lecture will survey new

research that aims to cut through the traditional

binaries that have shaped historical inquiry in this

direction (reconquest vs crusade, tolerance vs

intolerance), covering cases in both Islamic al-Andalus

and Christian Iberia.

F. 11am (Week 2)

L. Caravaggi New Research in the

Italian City-communes:

good government in

theory and practice'.


Ages, 900-1300

The lecture will look at how high and late medieval

urban governments dealt with the problem of internal

conflict and divisions, and managed to achieve periods

of prosperity.

There will be three main points made in the lecture:

first, that the idea of good government in c.1200-1350

consisted of securing the material as well as spiritual

well-being of the citizens, and that this idea was not

only theorised in literary works and art, but that it also

drove political action; second, that because of internal

pluralism and competition, political stability depended

on collaboration between various parts of society, and

was not secured only by unprecedented levels of

political centralisation and legal/judiciary

developments, and that this kind of collaboration was

F. 11am (Week 3)

inspired by the ideas of good government discussed;

third, that the linear approach of current

historiography - of an irreversible path towards the

rise of autocratic rule (signorie) caused by the crisis of

communal institutions which could no longer contain

internal conflict - needs to be addressed and revised,

as the law and institutions were not the only elements

which secured political stability and good

government.

Global Powers: Empire and After

D. Green

New Approaches to

Religious Imperialism in

the 17th and 18th

Centuries

EWF11: Imperial and Global

History, 1750-1930

EWTd: Catholicism in the

Making of the Modern World,

1545-1970

FS10: The Iberian Global

Century, 1550-1650

This lecture will introduce students to the

historiographical treatment of the notion of ‘religious

imperialism’ in colonial America in the 17th and 18th

centuries. First, the concept will be introduced, along

with the key theoretical questions that have shaped its

discussion. The French, Spanish and British empires

will then be discussed in turn, with each section

structured around a central historical incident/episode

involving missionary work. Historiographical

arguments will then be applied to each case study to

illustrate their advantages and disadvantages.

Throughout, the lecture will emphasise the complex

relationship between indigenous peoples, missionaries

and the early modern imperial states as the key nexus

around which religious imperialism functioned. In

concluding, I will discuss the application of my own

work to these problems.

M. 9am (Week 1)

A. Jockyman

Roithmann

New Research on Latin

America: Empire and

Revolution, 1808-1852

FS10: The Iberian Global

Century, 1550-1650

FS37: Modern Mexico, 1876-

1994

What happens after empire? The flourishing of

independent, law-abiding nation-states born out of

revolution, or merely the rise of new empires, as

predatory as their predecessors? From the American

Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are

W. 9am (Week 1)

FS35: Political Theory and

Social Science, c 1780-1920


History, 1750-1930

EWF8: Enlightenments and

Revolutions: Europe, 1680-

1848

EWF10: A Liberal Epoch?

Europe, c. 1830-1914

BIF6: Power, Politics and the

People, 1815-1924


Power, 1685-1830

provided with arguments for each case, yet reality was

more complicated. Instead of a clear-cut division

between empires and nation-states, asymmetric

power relations developed in polycentric ways,

dictated not only by military conquest, but also

commercial and diplomatic entanglements. Following

the collapse of the Iberian American empires, Latin

America presented itself as a prime example of how

diverse actors competed to advance their own

revolutionary projects. Some saw the emerging states

as ‘sister republics’, which would cooperate to rid the

hemisphere of the last traces of imperial absolutist

rule; others saw their main task as the maintenance of

order, for which end authoritarian forms of

government and alliances with imperial powers might

prove necessary. Starting from the crisis occasioned by

Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of the Iberian

Peninsula, this lecture will first paint a general picture

of Latin America at the time of independence. We will

then focus on Brazil and the River Plate, analysing the

developments leading to the establishment of a

monarchy in Brazil and republics in Argentina and

Uruguay. By emphasising the various political

experiments and ‘failed’ states which dotted the

region over the first half of the nineteenth-century, we

hope to demonstrate the plurality of shapes taken by

revolutionary and independence movements. As we

discuss this period of political rearrangement, we will

also touch on historiographical debates around

republicanism, liberalism, and ‘informal empire’.

H. Cho

Empire and Knowledge:

New Research on


Century, 1930-2003

This lecture will help students cultivate a better

understanding of British presence in the Pacific region

during the 20th century. We will study the

M. 9am (Week 2)

Medicine and War in the

British Pacific

EWTb: Technology and

Culture in a Global Context,

1000-1700

EWTc: Waging War in Eurasia,

1200-1945

FS16: Medicine, Empire and

Improvement, 1720-1820

geographical and political scope of the British Empire

and will particularly focus on the South Pacific as it is

an exemplary region to examine the complex nature of

the British Empire. This much overlooked area consists

of various constituent layers of the Empire, such as

dominions, colonies, protectorates, condominiums,

and treaty-based ‘friendships’. We will also dive into

the case of transmitting scientific knowledge in

Oceania. British initiatives in native medical practice

and the development of international medical

cooperation will be discussed as well as the

contribution of local knowledge in the war against

Japan. Students will have a chance to practice using

primary sources in answering sample exam questions

relating to this topic.

H. Aldrich

Cold War in Africa: New

Approaches to Non-

Alignment and Pan-

Africanism


Century, 1930-2003

This lecture will explore the dynamics of the Cold War

in Africa. It will consider competing interpretations of

global superpower rivalry across the continent, and

analyse the impact of intervention on the African

political landscape. More importantly, this lecture will

emphasise the African agency at the centre of African

Cold War dynamics. It will explore the efforts of the

Non-Aligned Movement to challenge Cold War

paradigms and forge an alternate vision. Focusing on

Ghana, this lecture will explore the rise of Pan-

Africanism, and the ways in which Africans created

alternatives to this dominant conception of a world

order centred around global powers. Not only did this

competing vision transcend the nation-state, but it

also sought to empower Africans through a shared

anti-colonialist identity and new projects such as the

African Union. Students will have the opportunity to

W. 9am (Week 2)

analyse a sample exam question and to utilise primary

source material in addressing it.

L. Stadler

New Approaches to the

Soviet Occupation of

Afghanistan, 1979-1992


Century, 1930-2003

This lecture will introduce students to the complex

background and developments surrounding the Soviet

occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It will

also address the withdrawal of the Soviet armed forces

in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the

consequences thereof up until 1992. In preparation for

the upcoming examinations, it will unpack a sample

exam question, drawn from a past paper and in doing

so, will include new historiography as well as introduce

students to new primary source material which -

thanks to the Thirty-Year Rule – is now gradually

becoming declassified.

M. 9am (Week 3)

S. Philips New Approaches to The

History of the Asia-Pacific,

1898-1937


History, 1750-1930

EWF12: The Making of

Modern America since 1863


Century, 1930-2003

FS 25: Modern Japan, 1868-

1972

FS 28: A World at War, 1914-

1919

By the turn of the twentieth century, many were

prophesying the emergence of a ‘Pacific Age’, an

era in which the Asia-Pacific would increasingly

establish itself as the centre of the world’s economic

and political gravity. The emergence of Japanese and

American Empires as significant regional powers,

coupled with a Chinese state in a revolutionary mood

and settler states (including Australia and Chile) lining

the ocean’s rim proclaiming their own regional

destinies sought to provide clinching evidence of this

impending transformation. This lecture will introduce

students to some of the major themes that

underpinned the dramatic transformation of the

Asia-Pacific region in the first four decades of the

twentieth century, book-ended by the conclusion of

the Spanish-American War and the beginning of

Second World War in East Asia.

The first half of the lecture will introduce students to

some of the key themes and historiography

W. 9am (Week 3)

through which to explore this regional history: imperial

expansionism and geopolitics, race and anti-

colonialism. The second half of the lecture will explore

the emergence and significance of

pan-regional thought. Pan-Asianism will be contrasted

with a less frequently theorised alternative,

the Pan-Pacific. Amidst the hybridity of these visions,

both conceptions sought to sustain the idea of large

regions as coherent global spaces, both attempted to

foster regional solidarities to

contend with purportedly common problems and both

sustained a politics of inclusion as well as

exclusion. As a result of these deliberate attempts at

boundary-crossing, we will explore how

these ideas bolstered and challenged ideas of nation

and empire in the Asia-Pacific. Approaching the topic

as a macro-regional or sub-global history, the lecture

will also encourage students to consider the usefulness

(and indeed the drawbacks) of such a large-scale

approach.

advanced dphil lecture series - university of oxford · 2019. 4. 26. · advanced dphil lecture...

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