The Material Enlightenment (HI3T5)
Module Convenor: Michael BycroftLink opens in a new window
Office Hours in 2025-6: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12-1pm, during term time, excluding reading week. I can do in-person (FAB 3.75) or on Teams at both times. For Teams, just call me on Teams - no need to make an appointment - although you may need to try more than once to get through. To meet outside these office hours, please send me an email to arrange a time.
Seminar times in 2025-6: Thursdays, 2-4pm, in FAB 1.05, starting in week 2 (not week 1!) of term 1.
Module description
How do we know what to value? How do we distinguish between the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly? This module answers these questions by exploring the material world of Europe in the long eighteenth century. The period from c. 1650 to 1830 witnessed many new proposals for evaluating the material world, from window-shopping to telescopes. These proposals were part of wider historical processes such as war, consumerism, industrialisation, and the making and remaking of states and empires. To study material evaluation is therefore to study the formation of the modern world. The module covers a wide range of material things, from gold to brandy to horses. We ask how these were judged by men, women, artisans, enslaved people, farmers, bureaucrats, scientists and engineers, and others. The focus is on Britain and its empire, with several French examples considered as well. We bring these examples to bear on the present, where material evaluation is tied to debates about capitalism, environmentalism, the internet, the humanities, and much else.
Syllabus
Links to slides and handouts are posted here in the week of each seminar.
The readings and seminar instructions are on Talus Aspire.
There is no Moodle page for this module.
TERM 1
1.2 The history of knowledge
1.3 The material Enlightenment
1.4 Gold and the Atlantic slave trade
1.5 Sugar and the plantation system
1.6 READING WEEK
1.7 Essay-writing workshop
1.8 Coffee and Orientalism - Assignment 1 due this week
1.9 Textiles and the Enlightened consumer
1.10 Horses, races, and pedigrees
TERM 2
2.1 Alcohol and the fiscal-military state
2.2 Muskets and the end of the Old Regime
2.3 Jewellery and the Industrial Revolution
2.4 Cotton and the Industrial Revolution - drop spindle video (esp. 1:43 to 3:54), jersey wheel video (3:44 to 5:04), saxony wheel video (9:26 to 12:25), spinning jenny video (whole video)
2.5 Wild card
2.6 READING WEEK
2.7 Mineral water and the growth of towns - video (up to 7:27)
2.8 Air and social reform - Assignment 2 due this week
2.9 Rocks and the discovery of deep time
2.10 Heaven and the discovery of deep space
TERM 3
3.1 Recap and assignment 3 discussion
3.2 Value in the age of smartphones
3.3 No seminar - Assignment 3 due this week
Assessment
Seminar contribution (10%). This will be based solely on students' contributions to seminars over the whole year. There is no class presentation. The assignment is simply to do the seminar reading, turn up to seminars, and contribute to the discussion in class. There is no self-reflection form to submit.
1500-word essay (10%). A review of one of the books on the module reading list, focusing on how the book deals with the theme of material evaluation. Students may also choose a book not on the reading list, but this must be approved by the module convenor. The book must be a secondary source, not a primary source. Details here.
3000-word source-based essay (40%). An essay that focuses on one primary source to shed light on material evaluation in the Enlightenment. To achieve this, the essay will also draw on other primary and secondary sources. Details here.
3000-word essay (40%). There is one and only one question for this essay: what do we learn about the long eighteenth century by focusing on material evaluation? You should give the best answer you can based on everything you have learnt in the module. You will need to be selective, because you can't cover literally everything in 3,000 words. Think about which topics, and how many topics, would make for the strongest answer. Consider the limits of the concept of material evaluation as well as the strengths (you may have concluded that the concept does not shed much new light on the period after all). The essay should be weighted towards secondary sources, but you may draw on primary sources if you wish. Don't forget to include some discussion of how you understand the concept 'material evaluation' as used in the module.
Deadlines for this module are available on the History Department's overall deadline map.
Learning outcomes
- Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of material evaluation in the Enlightenment
- Critically analyse and evaluate a broad range of primary sources relating to material evaluation in the
Enlightenment. - Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments, relating to material evaluation in the Enlightenment.
- Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to material evaluation in the Enlightenment.
Seminar ground rules
- Do the homework
- Say what you think
- Be nice to each-other
Principal module aims
To integrate material evaluation into the history of the Enlightenment
To introduce students to the history of early science and technology, and to the community of historians who study it
To use historical examples to illuminate present-day debates about value
To engage with theories of value from the social sciences
To engage with literary sources, including maps, diagrams, letters, guild regulations, travel narratives, and scientific books and articles
To engage with the material world in creative ways, including through museum objects, historically significant landscapes, and replications of past experiments and observations.
