Module description
The reign of King George III from 1760 to 1820 was one of the longest in British history, and encompassed some of the most dramatic developments in Britain's modern history: the American Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars; significant social change associated with industrialization and urbanization; the rise of political parties and radicalism; a key phase in the expansion of the British empire and exploration; key developments in literary, musical and artistic culture; and the emergence of key lineaments of the modern state. George himself is a monarch of exceptional interest, controversially but closely engaged in affairs of state save for those periods when he was famously the victim of mental illness, keenly interested in culture, the arts and science, and with a rich family and social life. The archives associated with this monarch held at Windsor Castle are exceptionally rich and voluminous and in many cases largely unexplored. They contain manuscript documents, correspondence in several languages, music and state papers.
King's College London worked with the Royal Household to digitize these archives and make them more widely accessible through the Georgian Papers Progamme. This module gives students an extraordinary opportunity to experience this project and learn how scholars in a range of disciplines engage with an archive and help interpret it to both scholarly and wider public audiences. During the course they will have an opportunity to learn about the history of George's reign from a range of expert scholars, in preparation for themselves selecting, and then editing and preparing an edition of a document from the archive. The best of these will be made public. Throughout the module they will receive training and guidance on how to prepare an edition to a high scholarly standard; through transcription, annotation and contextualization - and have the opportunity to practice these techniques in a group project before embarking on their chosen assignment.
No prior training as a historian or editor is required, and the module is aimed at students from across the range of Humanities disciplines. It will equip students with a variety of highly transferable skills of equal value to pursuing postgraduate academic study and a wide range of employment options
Assessment details
- Presentation of group project (10%)
- Digital edition of item from the Royal Archive (90%)
Learning outcomes
After completing this module students will be able to demonstrate:
- A detailed understanding of the academic protocols around the creation of a scholarly edition of archival material
- A sophisticated understanding of the value of such editions to scholarly enquiry and debate
- An understanding of the historical context of the reigns of George III and George IV
- An ability to work together with peers in a collaborative manner to produce scholarly rigorous work
- An ability working individually to assess the historical significance of items in the archival collections of Windsor Castle
- An ability to prepare archival material including manuscripts for an edition through accurate transcription, contextualization and annotation to a rigorous standard suitable for use by others
- A knowledge of how to prepare a digitized presentation of such material online
- An advanced understanding of the issues associated with the presentation of such materials to a wider public
Teaching pattern
10 x 2 hour seminars