HST424 Feminist Methods in Historical Practice

Please note that this is a new module for 2024-25 and is currently subject to approval by the University's academic programmes office. This means that there may still be adjustments to the module content at this stage.

30 credits, Semester two
Module leaders 2024-25: Emily Baughan and Erin Maglaque

Module summary

In this course, we examine a wide range of feminist approaches to studying the past. We trace the development of women’s history, gender history, and queer history, asking how feminist politics have shaped the research questions and methods of historians. But we also consider feminist history in its most expansive forms: through the lens of psychoanalysis, of memoir and oral history, of auto-theory, and intersectional histories of gender, race, and social class. How has feminism reshaped historical methods and our institutions? How has it failed to do so? How can we balance our stories of women’s agency and transformations in women’s status, with accounts of continuity and long-term injustice? What is the future for feminist history, and what is the place of historical writing in feminist activism?

Throughout, we encourage students to engage their learning with their own ongoing research and primary sources from contexts with which they are familiar. Our classroom discussions will be enriched by a creative and diverse application of feminist methodologies to a wide range of primary sources and student-led research interests.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, you will be able to:

Understand the broad development of women’s history, gender history, and queer history, and the approaches that historians take to their sources within those subfields
Apply an understanding of feminist methodologies to their own primary sources
Apply an understanding of historiographical development to wider intellectual and methodological trends within the discipline
Communicate their analysis clearly and effectively in both oral and written form

Assessment methods

Assessment type - % of final mark

4000 word essay - 80%
Engagement and participation - 20%

You will complete a 4000 word essay on a topic related to one of the module's key themes. You will define your own essay topic in discussion with your tutor.

You will also complete an engagement and participation exercise based on the learning activities and environment for the module. This task will be set by the module leader but may include activities such as presentations, reflective seminar diaries, contributions to discussion forums or collaborative documents.

Additional learning and teaching information

Teaching and indicative seminar plan:

The module will be taught in ten, two-hour classes. You will also have individual tutorial contact with the module tutor in order to discuss your assessment for this module.

Indicative seminar plan:

Does Sex have a History?
Women’s History and Gender History
Feminist Approaches to the Body
The Private and the Public
Memoir, Autobiography, and the ‘I’
Speculative histories
Fantasy and the psyche: psychoanalysis and feminist history
Of Woman Born: history, motherhood and feminism
Women’s Work: theories of social reproduction
Queering feminism
Black feminism and the practice of history

Selected reading:

Joan Scott, The Fantasy of Feminist History (2009)
Bonnie Smith, The Gender of History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice (2000)
Lucy Delap, Feminsms, a global history, (2023)

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