• Offered for Year: 2025/26

• Module Leader(s): Dr Shane McCorristine
• Lecturer: Dr Clare Hickman, Dr Luc Racaut, Dr Jen Kain

• Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

The aims of this module are two-fold:

1. To introduce and immerse the students in critical reflection around the social, cultural, economic and political aspects of alcohol and drinking (and resistance to this) in Britain, Ireland and the British colonial context from the eighteenth century to the present.

2. To support students to better identify then develop their skills, including those traditionally associated with History teaching (independent research and study; critical and reflective thinking; information literacy; written expression), and broader skills associated with employability (oral and personal presentation; team work; managing different audiences).

Both aims are addressed in the teaching content and methods and in the assessment types. The module also aims to support the wider progression of the students and what is expected from them at Stage 2, building on their foundational Stage 1 year and preparing them for Stage 3.

Outline Of Syllabus

This module will feature several History colleagues who specialise in different fields, but will have a grounding in the nineteenth century.

The module will take a thematic (rather than chronological) approach to ‘drinking histories’, with a broad syllabus which may include:

Alcohol and the city;

The rise of connoisseurship in the c21st (case study: whisky politics);
Alcohol and travel
Cafe culture
Chocolate and society
Combatting alcohol – temperance, prohibition, alternatives
Drinking and class – alcohol as a regulator of power
Alcohol and the industrial revolution – from artisan to mass production: the economic and business history of alcohol production (case studies: Stu Brew + Scottish & Newcastle; Wylam);
Drinking and crime;
Gender and alcohol;
Alcohol and creativity – literature, poetry, the creative arts;
Drinking and alcohol in the imperial context;
Alcoholism – from nuisance to disease: the evolution of its treatment.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

As a Stage 2 module, aside from an in-depth understanding of the content of the module, the teaching methods, which focus on small group work, team work, lecture delivery and independent research and writing, relate to the core learning outcomes of supporting students in developing sophisticated research skills across a wide range of sources, being able to synthesise the information they collect and form convincing and coherent arguments.

Independent learning is essential to this module: students are expected to develop skills of source evaluation, critical reading and note-taking in an independent and effective manner. Seminar teaching complements these skills by allowing students the opportunity to share and debate information gathered independently. Moreover, a significant part of seminar teaching will test the development of primary source analysis and problem solving.

Small group teaching will allow the students to explore ideas and patterns together in a structured way, and great emphasis will be placed on primary sources and their interpretation.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

This module (1) supports and assesses student progression into Stage 2 and (2) endeavours to support their skills development, including academic and employability.

The independent research element requires students to set their own deadlines and goals, plan their work and incorporate formative feedback. Organisational and time management skills are to the fore here. The research essay emphasises independent thinking and learning (supported by the Module Team), research literacy and finding skills, writing and structuring skills and working to deadlines.

This will be assessed mid-term with a short research case study (worth 25% of the module mark: summative) and then to support the formative research essay directly, a formative assessment, the research proposal, forms a means of determining student progress. Submitted work tests intended knowledge and skills outcomes, develops key skills in research, reading and writing.

Reading Lists

• HIS2095's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• HIS2095's Timetable