Study Abroad Summer 2007 in Britain! SYLLABUS/ITINERARY | NEXT MEETING | WHY THIS COURSE? | FORMS | ABOUT/CONTACT DR. KEY | CLASS BLOG

What: British History Abroad: British Rulers & British Ruled since 1700, HIS 3970 (or HIS 5997, can include Senior Seminar credit), 6 c.h. Where: Harlaxton Manor, near Grantham and Queen Mary College, London When: 3 June–6 July 2007 With: Dr. Newton Key, Professor of History, Eastern Illinois University How Much: $3,875* (includes all airfare, room and board, transport, admission, and event fees; does not include tuition) *(For estimated full cost--including tuition, cost of passport if not already obtained, a weekly stipend of personal spending money, etc.--see EIU HIS Program Budget) Who: All University Majors (20 student max.) How: Register (deadline extended to 1 March 2007)

Harlaxton Manor

History Abroad (His 3970 or, for graduates, His 5997) is an opportunity for students in all majors to study and experience British society and culture during the last three centuries by examining the people's lived life, artifacts, and key texts. Study the effects of social class in history–from "giving-the-wall" to ones betters while walking down the street in early modern London, to the "old school tie" demarking one elite man from another in 20th-century Britain, to understanding the marker of an East End (lower) vs. a West End (upper class) accent. No prerequisites beyond a willingness to visit, to talk, to read, to write.

All housing, travel, guided tours, entrance fees, and meals are included in the cost. (to right, some of the students from History and Literature programs at Greenwich, July 2006)
	His 3970 will be based at Harlaxton Manor (aerial view to left) a huge estate house built in the 1830s but on a 16th-century model in attempt to purchase for the initial owner a higher status (class). From there, the course students will tour and study the manor, Harlaxton village, the local town of Grantham, and the surrounding Midlands, from the perspective of class (then and now). Students will visit Chatsworth House, Houghton Hall (for 18th-century rural elite and peasant life), University of Cambridge (for 18th-20th-century elite schooling), Lincoln (for Cathedral city life), Bath (for 18th-19th elite resort society), and Ironbridge (for 19th-century elite and working class industrial life). Finally, we relocate to London, to study working-class and immigrant East End, ruling class West End, and the center of rule, Westminster (for 19th-20th-century elite and poor urban life).
Dr. Newton Key (to right with Dr. Dagni Bredesen and students from History and Literature programs at Brick Lane restaurant, July 2006), a former UK resident and published historian of England and Wales, will direct the course (two distinguished British professors will guide us through the Victoria & Albert Museum and Westminster). His 3970 fulfills 6 s.h. of upper division history electives. Most weekends will be reserved for student independent travel, which is, of course, to be paid for independently (and students should budget for extra meals, travel, entertainment, or shopping). Old houses of the elite, and almost all factories/housing of the poor, often require a fair bit of climbing stairs, and we will all do a bit of cross-country hiking (as R.H. Tawney noted, the best tool for a historian is a good pair of sturdy shoes).

last updated on February 22, 2007