Empire and After: Britain Since 1832

The 40^th session of British Studies At Oxford concentrates on the period from the 1830s to the end of the millennium, from the Great Reform Act to the period of Britain’s withdrawal from Empire and growing integration with Europe. A brief summary gives a sense of the extraordinary importance of this era, which continues to influence and condition our modern world.

In political, social, and economic history, the period begins with Britain’s emergence as the foremost imperial power and as the first major industrial economy. Britain’s power and wealth grew as never before, but throughout the period other events and voices drew attention to alternative perspectives: the grim social conditions of industrialization, the pervasive shock of Darwinian science, and the hostility of colonized peoples, to mention but three. The period includes the First and Second World Wars and the expansion of the electoral franchise to include the entire adult population, male and female.

Such profound developments are complemented in the evolution of the arts and intellectual life. The period includes sharp contrasts between the Victorian and modern visual arts, and the development of competing accounts of human consciousness, understanding, and imagination as they are expressed in literature and elsewhere, ranging from late Romanticism, through Ruskin, William Morris, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the impact of Freud and Marx, to Modernism and its aftermath.

The study-excursions form an integral part of the program and give a sense of the unique opportunity offered by British Studies At Oxford. Members of the 2009 session will visit key sites associated with their studies, ranging from the grandeur of the imperial architecture of London, through the great palaces of the commercial aristocracy, to museums revealing the awesome realities of world war and the irresistible creativity of the arts of this period. We will include a visit to the battlefields of the First World War in Northern France and Belgium (at no extra cost). Also included in the program are visits to major theatrical productions, featuring this year not only the pre-eminent Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon but also one of the most exciting developments in modern British theater, the recreated Globe Theatre on Bankside in London.

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