Undergraduate Course: Wartime: Military encounters in British art from the Seven Years' War (1756-63) to the Battle of Waterloo (1815) [L10] (HIAR10198)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course addresses military encounters in visual and material culture in Britain, from the second half of the eighteenth century to 1815, a period in which Britain was engaged in a sequence of wars across the globe. |
| Course description |
This course addresses the visualisation and materialisation of aspects of war fought between Britain and her enemies. It considers this period as one of intense wartime which witnessed the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. In pictorial terms, it is bookended by Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe, 1770 and David Wilkie's Chelsea Pensioners Receiving the London Gazette Extraordinary of Thursday, June 22, 1815, announcing the Battle of Waterloo, 1822. The course looks at a wealth and range of relevant martial materials via case-studies, including colossal oil on canvas history paintings, monumental sculptures erected in Westminster Abbey, London, the popular immersive spectacle of the panorama, fashionable portraiture, battlefield tourism and military uniforms and accessories. It seeks to understand how civilians experienced wartime by thinking about the various visual and material modes and modalities by which it was mediated between foreign theatres of operations and the domestic sphere.
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2023/24, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 20 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Formative Assessment Hours 1,
Summative Assessment Hours 2,
Revision Session Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
172 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
50 %,
Coursework
50 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
You will be assessed for this course in two ways:
(1) ESSAY (worth 50% of your overall mark)
One 2,500-word essay, the title to be chosen from a list supplied; due in Weeks 8-10.
(2) EXAM (worth 50% of your overall mark).
One 2-hour exam, in December or May diet
Learning outcomes will be tested equally in both components of assessment.
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| Feedback |
Students are given feedback on FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT as follows:
You will be asked to prepare an essay plan and a preliminary bibliography. You will receive verbal feedback at a one-to-one meeting afterwards. The formative assessment will contribute to your performance in your summative assessment.
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT: There will be an essay and an exam, equally weighted. Written feedback on student essays will be provided, in addition to the opportunity for a one-to-one meeting towards the end of semester.
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| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours & Minutes |
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| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | 3 hour online examination | 3:00 | |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate with some depth and across a breadth of material, knowledge and understanding of British involvement in warfare from around 1750 to 1815.
- Demonstrate with some depth and across a breadth of material, knowledge and understanding of the ways in which warfare in this period was represented in visual and material culture.
- Analyse the ways in which civilians in this period understood and experienced warfare in both foreign and domestic realms, as this can be seen in the visual and material culture of the time.
- Critically examine the scholarship of warfare and its representation in this period.
- Present and convey clearly in writing information about this specialist field in the history of art.
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Reading List
Nigel Arch, 'The wearing of the red: The redcoat and the British brand', Costume, 41.1 (2007), 99-104.
Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, (3rd edition, New Haven and London, 2009)
Mary A. Favret, War at a Distance: Romanticism and the making of modern wartime, (Princeton, 2010)
Stuart Semmel, 'Reading the tangible past: British tourism, collecting and memory after Waterloo', Representations, 69 (2000), 9-37
Katie Trumpener and T. J. Barringer (eds.), On the viewing platform: The panorama between canvas and screen, (New Haven and London, 2020)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Visual and critical analysis; Clear thinking and the development of an argument; Independent research; Presentation and communication skills; Organisation and planning; Teamwork through group discussion |
| Keywords | War,British history,American Revolution,Napoleonic Wars,French Revolution,Military dress,Portraiture |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Viccy Coltman
Tel: (0131 6)50 8426
Email: Viccy.Coltman@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Chloe Hancock
Tel: (0131 6)50 4124
Email: chancock@ed.ac.uk |
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