Entangled Histories: France and Germany in the mid-century era (Part 1)

Learning Outcomes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• locate and use effective textual, visual and material culture sources in the library and on-line, synthesising this material in order to develop cogent arguments
• utilise and develop your time-management skills
• research historical questions and communicate your findings convincingly and concisely in written essays and reports

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The political, social and cultural contours of Germany and France from 1918 to the decades after 1945.
• The nature and impact of Nazism in a wider European context.
• How developments in Germany and France were to some extent dependent upon perceptions of and encounters with the respective other.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• assess the evolution of the historiography of both modern France and modern Germany and recognise what is at stake in the advocacy of particular arguments or schools of thought
• analyse a wide variety of written, visual, filmic and material sources pertinent to the topic.
• bring your knowledge of both primary and secondary sources relevant to the topic to bear on the production of essay-based arguments relating to key questions of Franco-German history

This module explores the entangled histories of France and Germany between the end of WW1 and the aftermath of WW2. Resentment over the Treaty of Versailles was central to the emergence of radical nationalism in Germany after 1918; conversely, solving the ‘German problem’ was at the heart of French concerns in the interwar years. The German occupation of France between 1940 and 1944 brought these histories to a head in the most fundamental way. Yet this shared history was not governed solely by the politics of national antagonism. Both societies had much in common, calling into question our conventional assumptions about democracy and dictatorship, Left and Right in twentieth century European history.

Ultimately, the module questions the insularity and exceptionalism underpinning traditional national historiographies by exploring such entanglements.

The current intention is to deliver teaching for this module online. If circumstances allow, some form of blended delivery methods, including lectures, seminars, workshops, or individual tutorials may be introduced if it is safe for all concerned to do so. However, delivery will remain entirely online if face to face teaching is not possible or advisable.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.