First-Year Undergraduate Handbook
2008-09
Department of History
DATES OF TERMS
2008-2009
Autumn TermMonday 29 September 2008- Saturday 6 December 2008
Spring TermMonday 5 January 2009- Saturday 14 March 2009
Summer TermMonday 20 April 2009- Saturday 27 June 2009
2009-2010
Autumn TermMonday 28 September 2009- Saturday 5 December 2009
Spring TermMonday 4 January 2010- Saturday 13 March 2010
Summer TermMonday 19 April 2010- Saturday 26 June 2010
2010-2011
Autumn TermMonday 4 October 2010- Saturday 11 December 2010
Spring TermMonday 10 January 2011- Saturday 19 March 2011
Summer TermWednesday 27 April 2011- Saturday 2 July 2011
The information in this handbook is as accurate and up-to-date as we can make it. Statements of departmental policy are made in good faith and are an honest attempt to describe current practices. However, the final arbiter of university policy is the university regulations, as laid down in the Calendar, the Course Regulations and the official timetable.
THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT
FIRST YEAR HANDBOOK
Table of Contents
Map 1
Introduction: Welcome to Warwick History 2
A General Information
A1 Registration and Induction 4
A2 Departmental Organisation 4
A3 Communications 5
A4 Personal Tutors 6
A5 University Counselling Service 7
A6 Students with Disabilities 8
A7 Student Academic Complaints Procedures 8
A8 Health and Safety Policy 8
A9 Equal Opportunites / Sexual and Racial Harassment 9
A10 Staff Student Liaison Committees (SSLC)10
A11 History Society10
A12 The Venice Term12
A13 Study Abroad13
A14 The Beaumanoir and Felix Dennis Prizes14
A15 Careers Advisory Service14
B Resources
B1 The Library (including Survival Guide)17
B2 IT/Computer Facilities and Training for Students20
B3 Language Centre21
B4 Department Website21
C Teaching and Learning
C1 Seminars, Essays, Tutorials and Lectures21
C2 Reading and Research Week23
C3 Plagiarism23
C4 Names and Meaning24
C5 Submission of Essays25
C6 Questionnaires and Student Feedback/PDPs25
C7 PDPs and BLOGS26
C8 Course Costs26
D Examinations and Assessment
D1 The Place of Exams in Your Degree26
D2 Classification Criteria28
D3 Sample Essay Cover Sheet32
D4 Student Sickness and Medical Certificates33
E The Degree Programmes
E1 History – Aims and Objectives33
E2 History The Two Streams34
E3 History Syllabus36
E4 History Language Modules36
E5 History and Politics Syllabus38
E6 History and Sociology Syllabus39
E7 History and Culture Syllabus40
F History Options for first-year students43
G Outside Options open to first-year History students61
Appendix One: Essay-writing Check List66
Appendix Two: Undergraduate Style Guide68
Appendix Three:Exam and Assessment Regulations77
Appendix Four: Staff List: Contact Numbers and addresses81
Appendix Five:Research Interests of Current Staff83
Dates of termsInside front cover
First year lecture timetableInside back cover
Blank timetable for your own useOn back cover
Introduction: Welcome to Warwick History
It’s a great pleasure to welcome our new cohort of first-year students to Warwick History. If you have been accepted to study on single honours History, History & Culture, History-Politics or History-Sociology, you will find useful information below. If you have been accepted onto French & History, Historical Studies or History, Literature & Cultures of the Americas, please click on the relevant link to go to the website of your home department.
Information will be added to this site during the summer, and the Departmental undergraduate webpages [ as a whole will be updated by the first week of term (29 September-3 October). In the meantime, I hope that the information below will be of assistance, and look forward very much to welcoming you in person on Monday 29 September.
Departmental Induction Meetings: Induction meetings for History programmes, for our joint-degree departments and for individual modules are held throughout week 1 of the autumn term. Once the schedule is finalised, you’ll be able to access it here Do be sure to attend all required meetings: this will help to make your hectic first week much less confusing.
Degree Programmes: You’ll feel more at home (and make wiser choices) during your first year if you familiarise yourself in advance with your degree programme. Full details will be provided in your first-year handbook, which you will receive by post before the start of term. You can review an outline of your degree programme by clicking on the relevant link below:
- History (single honours)
- History & Culture (‘without’, ‘with’ and ‘and’ language)
- History-Politics
- History-Sociology
Module Preferences: All of our first-year students take the ‘Making of the Modern World’ module. The other modules that you take will depend upon your degree programme (and, for single honours students, your stream), your module preferences, and module availability. You’ll be indicating your module preferences by submitting an electronic form to the History Department (not the University’s OMR system) by Tuesday evening of week 1, after meeting your personal tutor and attending a presentation on option modules. Module allocations are made by the Departmental Administrator by Thursday of week 1. A list of 1st-year History modules is available here
A PowerPoint overview will be available from 28th September at You can also find detailed information about 1st-year modules by reading the module handbooks available online shortly.
Survivor’s Guide: The first fortnight of the first term is inevitably confusing. To help you to negotiate this new terrain, I’ve created a brief guide for 1st-year students. You can access this at I suggest that you familiarise yourself with this document before you arrive on campus, when I and your other tutors can answer your queries in person.
Margot
Margot Finn
Head of Department
History Department
A. General Information
A1. Registration and Induction
The first term begins on Monday 29 September 2008. The Academic Office will have sent you details of the registration procedure.
The Department’s induction programme lasts for the whole of the first week of term. The programme begins on Monday 29 September, with three introductory meetings - one for single-honours History students, one for joint degree students (History and Politics, History and Sociology, French and History) and one for History and Culture:
History and Culture degree: 10.00 am, Room H0.03, in the HumanitiesBuilding
Single honours History: 12.00 pm, Room LIB2, in the HumanitiesBuilding
Joint degrees: 2.00 pm, Room H052, in the HumanitiesBuilding
At this meeting you will be given a copy of the first week’s timetable for your degree. Professor Margot Finn, Head of Department, will welcome you and explain the arrangements for the rest of the week. Please remember to bring this handbook to this meeting.
All students (including joint degrees and History & Culture) will also attend a meeting on Monday 29 September from 1:00-2:00 in MS.01 (MathsBuilding). This is an essential meeting that will introduce you to the core ‘Making of the Modern World’ module, and discuss language and ‘stream’ choices (for single Honours students only). It is essential that you attend both this meeting and the degree-specific meeting noted above.
(French and History Students also have an earlier meeting on the same day, at 11.30 am in H052 Humanities Building)
A2. Departmental Organisation
The Headship of the department is an elective office rotating on a three-year basis. Other key officers in the coming year include:
Director of Part I (in charge of Making of the Modern World):Dr Rainer Horn
Director of Undergraduate Studies (convenes SSLC)Dr Beat Kümin
Senior Tutor (student welfare and academic progress): Prof. Carolyn Steedman
The joint degree courses have joint directors from each department involved. The directors from the History side are:
History and PoliticsDr Daniel Branch
History and SociologyProf. Carolyn Steedman
History and FrenchDr Stephane Van Damme
History and CultureDr Penny Roberts
The current Departmental Administrator is Dr Ruth Hewston in Room H319, tel: (02476) 523453 (or extension 23453 from within the University). The Departmental Secretary is Mrs Jean Noonan in room H305, tel: (02476) 522080 (or extension 22080 from within the University). The Undergraduate Secretary, Miss Paula Keeble, and the Assistant Secretary, Miss Tracy Smith, are your first port of call for enquiries about timetable, regulations and other practical details.
The School of Comparative American Studies (CAS), situated at the far end of the third floor, is part of the History Department administratively but runs its own undergraduate degree programme as well as teaching History students. The CAS secretary is Mrs Val Melling in Room H342, tel: 02476-522502. The CAS Director is Dr Tim Lockleyin Room 341, tel: 02476-523422.
A full list of the History staff (including CAS), together with their room numbers, is included at the end of this booklet. To help you to remember who is who among the staff there is a photo-board in the History Corridor. There is also information of this sort on the Department website (which you should visit as soon as you can. The address is
A3. Communications
The atmosphere in the department is friendly and informal and it is normally easy to see individual members of staff. All staff post ‘office hours’ on the doors of their rooms when they will certainly be available, and you can always set up appointments at other times by e-mailing them. (It may take 10 days or so at the start of term for office hours to be finalised for the year—if in doubt, email the tutor to ask when it is convenient to meet).
You can also leave notes for History staff in the named pigeonholes opposite the lift on the third floor landing of Humanities, outside the History office. (CAS staff pigeonholes are opposite the lift at the other end of the hallway, outside the CAS office). The lower pigeonholes outside the History office, which are organised alphabetically, are for undergraduates: notes from tutors and any mail addressed to you in the Department will be placed there. Please check your pigeonhole regularly. You should also check your University e-mail regularly since, increasingly, messages to students are delivered by e-mail. Please note that not reading your Warwick email is not considered a valid excuse for missed deadlines, failure to reply to messages, etc.
The first-year notice board is adjacent to the lift in the foyer outside the History office, Room H305. Many important notices will be placed here, and you should get into the habit of checking the notice board regularly. There are special notice boards for the joint degrees in the History corridor. Joint degree students should also keep an eye on the notice boards in their other home department. Course tutors and personal tutors will also sometimes use the doors of their own offices to post notices of interest to their own students.
At the beginning of term you will be asked to fill in a record card. Students taking History degrees at Warwick follow a very wide range of modules. We often need to know who your tutor for a particular module is (especially if it is a module in another department) or where we can get in contact with you in a hurry. We do not want to have to keep going to the University Registry for this kind of information. Please remember to return your card to the departmental office. If you change your address during the course of the year (either your home or term-time address), please inform the departmental office.
A4. Personal Tutors
You will be assigned to a personal tutor, who may well be the member of staff teaching you in the core first year module, The Making of the Modern World (MMW). Please check the Personal Tutee notice board (in the foyer outside the History Office, to the left of the lift) on Monday 29 September to find out who your personal tutor is. Your first meeting with your personal tutor will normally be on the afternoon of Tuesday, 30 September. (Some joint-degree students will have personal tutors in the partner department: please check first meeting arrangements with them). Some tutors will arrange one or more group meetings with their personal tutees, followed by individual slots; others will rely entirely on individual meetings. Some tutors will post times of meetings with individual tutees on their doors: others will operate on a first-come first-served basis. It is very important to keep this appointment: your personal tutor will be able to answer essential questions about your first year of study, and provide advice as needed about option choices.
Throughout the year, your personal tutor will be able to clear up any queries you may have about academic, social or general matters. If your query or problem relates to the other department in your joint degree programme, you may find it helpful to take the issue up with the Director of the joint degree. If you are in any trouble, your personal tutor is the first person you should go to. If you need to see your tutor urgently you should ask the History secretary for his or her home telephone number.
Towards the end of your first term you will be invited to discuss your progress with your personal tutor. This meeting will give you the opportunity to reflect on your transition to life at university and to talk over any issues that may be worrying you.
Similar progress meetings will be held at the beginning of your second and third years. But, of course, you do not have to wait for these scheduled meetings to raise issues with your personal tutor. Please note that in September 2008, the University will be launching ‘Warwick Advantage’, a PDP (Personal Development Planning) resource, which may also be useful for your discussions with your personal tutor. Further information on Warwick Advantage will be available by the start of term.
One of the roles of the personal tutor is to write references and recommendations on your behalf. If you need a written reference from an academic tutor, you can of course ask any of the permanent members of staff who teach you to write on your behalf. The best references, however, are written by members of staff who can convey their personal experiences of teaching you in their letters. If that is your personal tutor, you should ask him or her first. It will be very difficult for your personal tutor to write you a useful reference if s/he has had little contact with you, so do be sure to meet your personal tutor at least twice in your first term at Warwick.
Broadly speaking, a personal tutor's functions are to provide pastoral care and support. You should regard your personal tutor as someone with whom you can always discuss personal problems which are causing stress or anxiety and interfering with your work. There is of course no obligation on you to bring problems to your personal tutor. Many students get through university perfectly happily with the support of friends, secretaries, and/or the staff they get to know as teachers.
All of these individuals play an invaluable role in helping students to cope with the considerable adjustments involved in leaving school, home and family. In addition, the university has a good Student Counselling Service (see below) and students with serious problems may choose to contact it directly, without involving their personal tutor.
If your personal problems become so large that they interfere seriously with your academic performance, it is very important that you see your personal tutor and have a frank discussion with him or her. It is vital that you do not let problems pile up without seeking help. If, for any reason, you fall behind with your work, never give way to the temptation to miss classes in order to avoid the module tutor. That will only lead to more trouble, and the longer you let the situation slide the harder it will become to face up to it. See your module tutor as soon as possible and explain the situation; if you find that difficult, see your personal tutor first, who will then liaise as necessary.
In some (fortunately rare) circumstances a personal tutor may also act as your advocate, either within the department or before a university body. If you fall seriously behind with work, for example, your personal tutor will present your case to the Senior Tutor and/or department. Very rarely someone might get into trouble over the payment of library fines or a breach of regulations; in such cases it is again your personal tutor's role to argue your case before the relevant body, if requested by you to do so. It is obviously important in such a situation to make sure your personal tutor is fully briefed on all the circumstances.
Finally, if you ever feel the system is not working for you, you should ask for an appointment with the Departmental Senior Tutor, Prof. Carolyn Steedman, with the Director of Undergraduate Studies (Dr Beat Kümin) or with the Head of Department, Prof. Margot Finn. They will do their best to find a solution to the problem. Please note that you are entitled to change your Personal Tutor if you wish at any stage during your time within the department. This, however, needs to be co-ordinated and agreed by the Head of Department. Beyond the Department, you will also find assistance from the University Senior Tutor (for academic matters) or the Director of Student Support (for residential accommodation matters).
A5. University Counselling Service