Daily Life in Authoritarian Régimes in the Long Twentieth Century
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| HIST4065 | History | 4 | 20 | Spring UK |
- Code
- HIST4065
- School
- History
- Level
- 4
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Spring UK
Summary
This module looks at how living under authoritarian regimes affected the daily lives of populations. It is concerned with the high politics of those regimes only in so far as they impacted on the quotidian existence of men, women, and children.
The focus of the module will normally be on:
late Tsarist Russia/USSR
Nazi Germany and the GDR
Fascist Italy
Franco’s Spain
Communist China
However, the module may expand its focus depending on staff availability and also look at colonial India, Salazar’s Portugal, Vichy France, the states of the Warsaw Pact beyond Germany and the USSR, Putin’s Russia; North Korea, Marcos’s rule of the Philippines, military rule in Myanmar, the military dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina, Castro’s Cuba, Pinochet’s Chile and even the USA during McCarthyism, South Africa under apartheid, and various incarnations of twentieth-century imperial rule.
Themes that may be examined include:
∙ Definitions and practices of authoritarian rule
∙ Family life and natalism
∙ Childhood and education
∙ Gender, sexuality, and sex
∙ Religious belief and practice
∙ Language and minority identities
∙ Crime, punishment, and policing
∙ Gulags, camps, internal exile, house arrest, surveillance
∙ Persecution and control of ‘enemies’ of the state
∙ Censorship and propaganda
∙ Political mobilisation
∙ Film, photography, and the visual arts
∙ Sport and leisure
∙ Housing and domestic economy
∙ The workplace
∙ Transport and infrastructure
∙ Resistance to authoritarian rule
∙ Memory and memorialisation of authoritarian régimes
Target Students
Available to MA History and Politics and Contemporary History
Classes
- One 2-hour seminar each week for 11 weeks
Assessment
- 60% Coursework: 3000 word essay
- 40% Presentation: Poster presentation
Assessed by end of spring semester
Educational Aims
To explore how people lived on a day-to-day basis under some of the autocracies, dictatorships, and single-party states that have existed across the world in the ‘long’ twentieth century; to examine different historiographical interpretations of the impact of authoritarian regimes on daily life, and the way in which men, women, and children found ways to negotiate these systems in ways that De Certeau would describe as ‘tactical’; to compare and contrast the quotidian resistance to authoritarian regimes, but also the ways in which individuals and groups adapt to and collaborate with authoritarian rule.Learning Outcomes
∙think critically and imaginatively about the nature of authoritarianism and its impact on daily life;
∙compare the experience of at least three countries that experienced authoritarian rule during the course of the twentieth century;
∙ be aware of the way in which political ideologies and practicalities of maintaining power shape life under authoritarian governments;
∙ consider the effectiveness of protest and resistance in authoritarian régimes;
∙ assess and evaluate competing historical interpretations of the experiences of life under authoritarian governments within the historiography;
∙be able to analyse primary sources relating to the impact of the authoritarian rule ;
∙reflect on the value of novels, poetry, pictures (photographs, paintings, posters, illustrations), maps as historical sources and to evaluate how they contribute to ourengagement with the past;
∙reflect on how films shape our view of the past;
∙form independent judgements based on the evidence acquired in the process of learning;
∙take responsibility for own learning, while working as part of a team when appropriate;
∙ demonstrate competence in footnoting and provision of a wider academic apparatus;
∙ communicate thoughts in an articulate and concise manner orally and in writing;
∙ provide commentary on a historical question or theme through a well-designed poster.