Cambridge History for Schools

Cambridge History for Schools is an exciting new outreach initiative by one of the leading History Faculties in the world. Here at Cambridge University, we love to stimulate a passion for asking new questions about the past and trying out new ideas. We want to show how pupils can enjoy history and imagine the past through imaginative and exciting workshops. Sessions will involve many different kinds of evidence, which we will analyse, critically assess and engage with through discussion, acting, play or art-work. We like to crack myths and find out about what really shaped cultures and societies, and wonder what it might have felt like to live in them. Above all, we search for those new questions that no-one has ever explored – and for this we need you! So if you are interested, please join us for this hands-on history series. These workshops for school children will inspire, amuse and fascinate.

For more projects for schools visit: www.cam.ac.uk/publicengagement

If you would like to apply for places on any of these sessions please contact the Faculty of History by email: gen.enq@hist.cam.ac.uk or call: 01223 335302Please note there is a maximum of 4 places per booking and that children and young people may attend these sessions without a parent or carer present during the session, however we ask that the young people are met promptly at the end of the session.

All sessions take place at the Faculty of History, West Road, Cambridge UK, CB3 9EF

11am – 12.30pmDreaming of the afterlife: Dr Carl Watkins

Around the year 1200 an Essex peasant named Thurkill had a strange dream. He left his body and travelled into the next world. He saw heavenly places where souls of good men and women wandered about in meadows and he saw dark and fiery places too, where the wicked were punished for their crimes. When he woke up, he described everything that he had seen to the local priest who wrote his story down. In this session, we will start by thinking about what Thurkill’s life was like – the sorts of clothes he wore, the work he did in the fields and the kind of house he might have lived in. We will think about what sorts of sources help us to do this. How much do written records tell us? How reliable is archaeology? Then we will turn to the kinds of things Thurkill believed in. Peek into medieval afterlife and create your own picture of a medieval dream.

Key Stage 2 (ages 7 – 11)

2pm – 3.30pmThe Inquisition: Stephen Cummins

Why were people in the past punished for their religious beliefs? Looking at the infamous Inquisitions of Italy and Spain, this session will introduce the world of religion, law and heresy in pre-modern Europe. What was the Inquisition? Who was put on trial and were suspects tortured relentlessly? What was it like to be on trial? Where does the very negative modern image of the Inquisition come from? Using pictures, interrogation records, diaries and legal handbooks this sessions gets you to the world of Inquisitors and the men and women who had to face them in court. Primary sources reveal surprising aspects of the history of religion in Europe and will crack down on historical myth-making.

Key Stage 3 (ages 11 – 14)

Michaelmas Term 3 November 2012TH

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To book email: gen.enq@hist.cam.ac.uk or call: 01223 335302

11am – 12.30pmThe world of Russain peasants: Dr Hubertus Jahn

‘Past the woods and mountains steep,Past the rolling waters deep,You will find a hamlet pleasantWhere once dwelt an aged peasant...’

Thus begins a famous Russian fairytale. This session will take you to a distant land, beyond the mountains and woods and across the sea to explore how that peasant from the fairytale lived in the historical reality of the 19th century. We will see what people in Russian villages at that time ate and drank, in what kind of houses they lived, how they were dressed, what they did at different times of the year, how they feasted and mourned, in what they believed and how they had fun. We will recreate the world of the Russian peasants by looking at a rich array of sources, from ethnographic descriptions to popular prints, old photographs and items of everyday use. We will also listen to some old recordings of the songs which peasants sang and which are themselves like musical fairytales.

Key Stage 2 (ages 7 – 11)

2pm – 3.30pmInside the sick-chamber: disease and medicine in seventeenth-century England: Dr Hannah Newton

One day in the 1630s, a fourteen-year-old boy called Richard Gilmore vomited ‘black Worms, about an inch and a half long, with six feet, and little red heads’. He was so ‘cruelly afflicted’ that ‘he was ready to tear himself to pieces’. Ever wondered what it would be like to live at a time when there were no antibiotics, hospitals, NHS, or anaesthetics? In this session, we will be transported into the seventeenth-century sick-chamber. We will find out what happened to patients like Richard, and how people explained, treated, and experienced illness at this time. Participants will take on the role of physician, diagnosing disease from the taste and smell of some (pretend) urine samples! They will encounter a range of fascinating primary documents, from doctors’ casebooks, to paintings, and in the process, acquire new skills of source analysis. Above all, the session will enhance our understanding and empathy for people in the past.

Key Stage 3 (ages 11 – 14)

Lent Term 2 March 2013

To book email: gen.enq@hist.cam.ac.uk or call: 01223 335302

11am – 12.30pmThe ice cream challenge: Dr Melissa Calaresu

Discover the history of ice-cream in eighteenth-century Naples: one of the hottest and largest cities of Europe at the time! Sorbets served in silver cups were a luxury eaten at the banquets of aristocratic and royal palaces. Yet new research shows that ice-cream was also enjoyed by common people on the streets. This session will piece together the making and eating of ice-cream – from the tax and guild records of the snow trade, from recipe books used by professional cooks and later householders, from the few objects for serving ice cream which have survived, and from the many images of itinerant ice-cream sellers which British travellers brought home with them -- to reveal the early history of a food product which has disappeared from memory almost as easily as an ice-cream melts. Can historians reconstruct the making and preparing of ordinary food in the past? How do we use evidence for something that tastes so well but has left a sparse and tricky record for historians to interpret?

Key Stage 2 (ages 7 – 11)

2pm – 3.30pm Protesting against an American War: Dr Andrew Preston

Waging war is one of humanity’s oldest preoccupations, but protesting against it is fairly new. The largest and most enduring anti-war movement in human history emerged in the 1960s, in opposition to the American war in Vietnam. Difficult to explain and even more difficult to fight, the Vietnam War stirred intense feelings among the American people. The U.S. government argued that it was containing the spread of communism in the Cold War. The conflict in Vietnam turned many Americans against this. Millions marched in the streets to stop the fighting, yet the war continued until 1975. Why did Americans protest the foreign and military policies of their own country? Why did others around the world join them, even people living in countries that depended on the U.S. military for protection? What impact did the anti-war movement have? By examining a wide range of sources, from government documents and news footage to more recent films and editorial cartoons, we will seek some answers to these intriguing and important questions.

Key Stage 3 (ages 11 – 14)

Easter Term 11 May 2013

For more projects for schools visit: www.cam.ac.uk/publicengagement

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