University of Leeds Direct Enrollment Summer

Course Offerings

The Leeds International Summer School is offered over a four week period and provides stimulating teaching, exciting field trips and an active social program. Participants can choose between subjects related to history, culture, media and literature and can earn credits that may be used towards their degree at their home university. Three courses are offered in the first two weeks of the program, and three courses are offered during the second two weeks of the program. Students will choose one course during each two week session.

There will be a number of field trips associated with the different courses which students will be able to attend. These may include:

• Country house visits to locations such as Temple Newsham House, Harewood House, and Castle Howard
• Music events in Liverpool and/or Manchester
• Haworth, home of the Brontë sisters
• London

COURSE INFORMATION

The following courses are offered during the first two weeks of the program. Students will select ONE course.

Heretics, Witches & Conspirators: A History of Fear, 1500-1700 (3)

Who (or what) did the British really fear in the Early Modern period? Most students will be familiar with the notorious witch-hunts that spread across Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but few will have fully grasped the beliefs, perceptions and anxieties that led neighbours to persecute each other, children to accuse parents, or the ways in which other identities – Catholics, Jews, Vagrants, even ‘Actors’ and ‘Egyptians’ – were perceived to threaten or undermine the order of society. This course will allow you to diagnose the causes for cultures of suspicion and persecution, and open a route to understanding the logic behind it. Students will look at the details of the alleged magic, heresy, cursing and plotting that these ‘criminals’ were accused of, as well as analyse the cases where voices of toleration were heard. The course will allow students to get to grips with the actual writings circulating about these groups at the time across Britain and Europe, with particular attention to trials of ‘witches’ and ‘heretics’ within Yorkshire and Lancashire, including visits to where these people lived, debated and died.

OR

The Olympic Games – Sport in the UK (3)

Inspired by London hosting the 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games, this course aims to provide participants with a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the Olympic Games and to gain knowledge and understanding of Olympic sports through participation, observation & skill acquisition. There will be a focus on the two quintessentially English sports of Fencing and Archery with an opportunity to gain practical experience in one of these areas as well as a chance to visit Olympic facilities and attend British sporting events. There will also be a chance to learn more about the history and values of the Olympic Movement, the development of the Paralympics and a look at the ethical issues facing the sporting world today.

OR

The English Country House: A Social History (3)

Country houses are one of Britain’s greatest contributions to world culture, but who created them and why? Have they always functioned as ‘containers’ for art collections or have they had deeper meanings and a wider social impact? Using Yorkshire’s world-class country houses as case studies, this course introduces students to the following topics:

• The builders of the country house
• The rise and fall of the great estates
• The ‘upstairs’ lives of the men, women and children who lived in the country house and the ‘downstairs’ world of the men and women who served them
• The idea of a ‘court style’ and its regional variations
• The often difficult relationship between patron and architect
• The allied arts of interior design and decoration
• The relationship between the aristocratic great house, the more modest gentleman’s house and the villa

Tutor-led visits to houses such as Temple Newsam, Harewood House and Castle Howard are an important feature of this course.

The following courses are offered during the second two weeks of the program. Students will select ONE course:

British Literature and the Brontës (3)

This module will provide students with an introduction to British Literature with a particular focus on well-known authors from the region including the Brontës. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë lived at Haworth Parsonage, only a few miles from Leeds which will be visited as part of this module. During the 1840s and 50s, they wrote some of the most original and challenging fiction of the Victorian period which retains its popularity and still inspires criticism, fiction, popular culture, and film adaptations. Other British authors such as Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson and the Lakeland Poets may be included in the curriculum. Students in this module will be in good company — The School of English at the University of Leeds is one of the top-rated departments in the country and ranks in the top 10 for Research!

OR

Building Britain, 1700-1840: Industrial ‘Revolution’ or ‘Evolution’? (3)

In the short span between the accession of George III (1760) and the death of his son William IV (1837) the face of England changed dramatically. Roads, railways, rivers and canals sprung up across the land, country hamlets became populous towns, factories replaced farms and chimney stacks dwarfed church spires, as technological innovations drove rapid economic growth. The structure of British society was changed forever, with mass migration from country to towns and cities. Yet, despite significant economic and social changes in this period, the popular notion that these developments were rapid and ‘revolutionary’ has been questioned by recent scholarship, suggesting certain industrial developments in the eighteenth century were the result of a culmination of gradual changes dating back to Tudor England. This course sets out to examine both the processes and social effects of England’s Industrial Revolution and in so doing explore the accuracy of the term ‘revolution’. It will take advantage of the wealth of local evidence of industrial development in West Yorkshire (an important area in the broader history of England’s industrial past) and include study visits to sites of special historic interest.

OR

British Popular Music in the North of England (3)

Joy Division, The Smiths, The Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys… But what about The Stone Roses, Echo and the Bunnymen, Reverend and the Makers and the Happy Mondays? Oh, yes, and a little band called the Beatles… The trouble is the list is just way too long. It’s true that the north has a most formidable reputation for innovation in pop music, but why is this the case? How do these ground-breaking and acclaimed musicians and performers speak of their region and the wider culture in their music? This module will explore these questions and more through a mixture of presentations, workshops and visits, with a focus on musical and lyrical content, culture and heritage, identity and iconography.