Unit information: Joan of Arc (Level H Reflective History) in 2008/09

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Unit name Joan of Arc (Level H Reflective History)
Unit code HIST38012
Credit points 20
Level of study H/6
Teaching block(s) Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director Dr. Gibbons
Open unit status Not open
Pre-requisites

None
Co-requisites

None
School/department Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit explores the short life and complex legacy of Joan of Arc (1412-31), the simple country-girl who managed, over two years, to influence the course of history. Against a backdrop of Anglo-French warfare, medieval spirituality, and social constraints of class and gender, we examine Joans career, her Condemnation, and her Rehabilitation before exploring her historical legacy.

By sheer force of personality, Joan inspired thousands of people in her lifetime, and millions since, yet controversy in her own time and popular myth in ours can mean, still, that she eludes definition. Joan has been depicted as a soldier, saint, patriot, deviant, feminist, and madwoman, and in this unit her appropriation as a 'cultural artefact' by politicians, the Church and other interest groups over the last two centuries sits alongside exploration of her within her own time, and continuing revisionism by historians, filmmakers and enthusiasts of this Woman for

Teaching Information

  • 1 hour intro to unit
  • 5 x 2-hour seminars

Assessment Information

1 x 24 hour seen exam

Reading and References

Introductory Reading

  • Taylor, Craig, ed., Joan of Arc  la Pucelle (Manchester, Manchester UP, 2006)
  • DeVries, Kelly, Joan of Arc: a military leader (Stroud, Sutton, 2003)
  • Fraoli, Deborah A., Joan of Arc: the Early Debate (new edn., Woodbridge, Boydell, 2002)
  • Pernoud, Regine, The Retrial of Joan of Arc: the Evidence for her Vindication, trans. J.M. Cohen, introd. Katherine Porter (Fort Collins, CO., Ignatius Press, 2007)
  • Warner, Marina, Joan of Arc: the Image of Female Heroism (London, Penguin, 1983; new edn., Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001)
  • Wilson-Smith, Timothy, Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth and History (Stroud, Sutton, 2006)

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