What is cultural history, and how can we study the British past through a cultural lens? We will consider how people in British society found and created meaning in consumer goods, how they constructed spaces that reflected their values and beliefs, and how they articulated their emotions and ideas about the world around them.
This semester’s theme is ‘tactile history’: histories of things that we can touch. This includes objects, collections, and other people. We will think critically about what it means to possess things, and about how tactile experiences change our understanding of the world around us. We will read four books in their entirety: the first two focus on material culture, and how goods have been acquired and valued in the British world; the second two will put into question how we write histories of things we cannot see always see, feel, or touch.
Cover image: old Fruit and Wool Exchange, Spitalfields, East London, 2023.
- Profesor: Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre