Module Information

Ever since the pioneering work of W.G. Hoskins it has become clear that understanding landscape is part of any historian's toolkit for interpreting the past. The aim of this module is to introduce students to the skills of reading landscapes, both for their empirical content and as a form of representation; both as an historical element in their own right and as source for investigating wider economic, social, political and cultural processes. Landscape is here taken to be the material environment in a broad sense, from individual buildings to large-scale assemblages of built and `natural' elements. The emphasis will be on Georgian and Victorian Britain, but the methods deployed could be applied to other countries and periods. The material environment is the focus of attention. However, a key feature of the module will be learning how to read not only physical records but also literary and visual representations of landscape, and how to investigate the relationship between all three mediums.

This module will develop in students the skills required to undertake a critical analysis of eighteenth and nineteenth century landscapes. The introductory session will set out a variety of approaches to and sources for studying historic landscapes. The bulk of the module will explore generic types of landscape, or landscape features. However, there will also be strong emphasis on particular buildings and places. In each instance the seminar will explore, through discussion and analysis, a specific example (or examples) of the broader type. So the seminar may look in detail at house, a garden, a public building or a piece of countryside. This will act as preparation for the project in which students investigate a landscape of their choosing. Across the seminars particular themes will be regularly examined, in particular the polarities of town and country, public and private, sacred and secular, local and national, popular and elite, and human and natural. Change over time will be addressed by exploring the differences between the Georgian and Victorian eras, and there will be constant reference to the interplay between economic, social, political and cultural factors. Landscape as such is a material form but it is represented through visual forms (such as maps, paintings and photographs), and literary forms (such as guidebooks and novels). The module will examine these three types of form, and the interaction between them. Today the `historic landscape' has become a key medium for popular access of the past. The final session will address the relationship between landscape and heritage, and examine the role of Georgian and Victorian landscapes in the contemporary `heritage industry'.