Apprenticing undergraduate history students into interpretative practice through local history

Student Number : 7262070 - M Ed research report - School of Education - Faculty of HumanitiesThis research report investigates the development of undergraduate history students’ knowledgeability and identity as historians. Drawing on a sociological paradigm, it examines the classification of the discipline or practice of history that informs undergraduate history teaching at a sample of three South African universities. It suggests that most undergraduate courses focus on and aim to apprentice students into a partial experience of the practice of history – the adjudicative task of the historian. The report then presents findings from an analysis of student feedback on their participation in an extended local history assignment. The analysis of student work draws upon socio-cultural notions of situated learning and the community of practice. This analysis suggests that as an instance of situated learning, the local history engagement enhances students’ understanding of the interpretative task of the historian and their own identity as constructors of history. The findings also suggest that there are implications for curriculum development in undergraduate history programmes

'We can but spell a surface history': the biblical typology of Christina Rossetti

My research examines Christina Rossetti’s use of biblical typology in her articulation of individual and communal identity. The central concern of my thesis is with tracing the ways in which she bridges the gap between the two biblical covenants and her contemporary situation by a ceaseless interpretative movement between the discourses of the Old and New Testaments. After examining the basis for her typological modes of reading, I demonstrate the various ways in which they underpin her interpretations of Tractarian, Romantic, and Pre-Raphaelite writings as well as providing her with a framework with which to structure her own poetic sequences. In my examination of the ways in which Rossetti engages with patristic and medieval theology and articulates identity through the cyclical dynamics of typology, I consider her writings alongside those of Isaac Williams, John Keble, John Henry Newman, and Edward Pusey and highlight the key part they play in reinforcing the Oxford Movement’s liturgical momentum. Focusing specifically on her poetic utilization of the ancient practice of chanting psalms and antiphons, her engagement with the musicality of the church service, and her depiction of the visual aspects of ritualism, I read her poetry in terms of the mystical journey towards God upon which, she suggests, each Christian embarks. Applying to Rossetti’s poetry the method of typological analysis that she herself uses, I consider how the poems in her 1893 volume, Verses, can be understood to comment upon her earlier works and how her earlier poetry can be seen as an antecedent to her later works. Through this, I trace the development of her theology as it engages more directly with the hermeneutical principles encouraged by the Tractarians and offers a basis upon which the patristic concept of trinitarian personhood can be understood

Elizabeth Gaskell and the short story

Elizabeth Gaskell was the author of over forty short stories. Despite the resurgence in Gaskell criticism over the past three decades, these stories have only recently begun to receive the attention they deserve. Following an account of how the Victorian short story has been re-evaluated by literary critics, this introductory survey illuminates Gaskell’s key contributions to the development of the genre. Our discussion is structured around several areas of critical investigation that have been at the forefront of Gaskell studies over the past few years. These include: the position of Victorian short fiction in relation to predominant accounts of the form’s development; Gaskell’s engagement with the periodical press and the Victorian literary marketplace; her response to the connection between short stories and the Christmas season; and her deployment of supernatural and sensational tropes. The image that emerges is that of a professional woman of letters who used shorter fiction as a space to experiment with new narrative methods, unusual characterisation, and contentious themes. Concluding with some reflections on the two-part review in All the Year Round, newly attributed to Gaskell in July 2015, we suggest how Gaskell’s engagement with the ‘ungodly spinnings’ of French ballad and narrative tradition might have helped shape her own practice as a master of the form

High Church Anglicanism: Practice and Poetry

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'We can but spell a surface history' : the biblical typology of Christina Rossetti

My research examines Christina Rossetti’s use of biblical typology in her articulation of individual and communal identity. The central concern of my thesis is with tracing the ways in which she bridges the gap between the two biblical covenants and her contemporary situation by a ceaseless interpretative movement between the discourses of the Old and New Testaments. After examining the basis for her typological modes of reading, I demonstrate the various ways in which they underpin her interpretations of Tractarian, Romantic, and Pre-Raphaelite writings as well as providing her with a framework with which to structure her own poetic sequences. In my examination of the ways in which Rossetti engages with patristic and medieval theology and articulates identity through the cyclical dynamics of typology, I consider her writings alongside those of Isaac Williams, John Keble, John Henry Newman, and Edward Pusey and highlight the key part they play in reinforcing the Oxford Movement’s liturgical momentum. Focusing specifically on her poetic utilization of the ancient practice of chanting psalms and antiphons, her engagement with the musicality of the church service, and her depiction of the visual aspects of ritualism, I read her poetry in terms of the mystical journey towards God upon which, she suggests, each Christian embarks. Applying to Rossetti’s poetry the method of typological analysis that she herself uses, I consider how the poems in her 1893 volume, Verses, can be understood to comment upon her earlier works and how her earlier poetry can be seen as an antecedent to her later works. Through this, I trace the development of her theology as it engages more directly with the hermeneutical principles encouraged by the Tractarians and offers a basis upon which the patristic concept of trinitarian personhood can be understood.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceArts and Humanities Research Council (Great Britain) (AHRC)GBUnited Kingdo

Prayer and the role of the ‘Soul-Artist’ in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Historical Fiction

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Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites

This chapter explores the influence of the Oxford Movement on early Pre-Raphaelitism and reveals how Christina Rossetti uses the Brotherhood’s aesthetic to inform and disseminate Tractarian theology through the late nineteenth-century. Showcasing how her poetry engages dialogically with the writings of the leaders of the Oxford Movement in London, the second half of the chapter proposes a fresh consideration of her as a key participant in the maturation of Tractarianism