This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
The curriculum is deliberately flexible and is built around student interests and how they can be merged with the REMLAs holdings with the overall intention of deepening the students' knowledge of both the historical role of the Royal Engineers and provide work experience through basic museological and curatorial skills.
For example, a student with a particular interest in the First World War will be assigned to relevant materials in the REMLA collection. This material will then form the basis of the assessments. The student will also be asked to looked at the relevant section of the Museum and reflect on how this particular aspect has been presented.
11 weekly sessions at the Royal Engineers Museum, Library and Archive (Mondays, 10am-4pm) plus four group progress sessions at the Canterbury campus.
Students will commence in Week 13 with a seminar (Group Progress Session 1) held jointly by the School and REMLA in order to provide orientation and introduction to the aims and outcomes of the module. This session will be used to determine student interests which will then feed into the materials they will be directed to in the REMLA collection.
For each of the REMLA weeks, the students will be assigned a particular cataloguing task drawn from its vast range of materials. The students will be given full instruction in cataloguing and interpretation in these sessions. The sessions will not only impart cataloguing skills and associated rudimentary skills as to how such material might be used in an exhibition, but also an in-depth knowledge into a range of primary sources.
One essay exploring the historical role of the Royal Engineers based on particular interest.
Production of a text panel relating to the materials you will have explored.
The production of two blog pieces outlining your experiences of working with the materials and what you have learned about presentational skills.
In addition, you may find it useful to maintain a work-log outlining what you doeach week, the issues arising and anything you may wish to discuss with the convenor and the museum staff.
Bettina Messias Carbonell, Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts (Maldon MA: Blackwell, 2004)
David Chandler and Ian Beckett (eds), The Oxford History of the British Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, The Educational Role of the Museum (London: Routledge, 1999)
Roy M. Macleod and Deepak Kumar, Technology and the Raj: Western Technology and Technical Transfers to India, 1700-1947 (New Delhi and London: Thousand Oaks and Sage, 1995)
Sharon Macdonald, A Companion To Museum Studies (Malden, MA, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006)
Alan Ramsay Skelley, The Victorian Army at Home (London and Montreal: Croom Helm and Queen's University Press, 1977)
Hew Strachan, From Waterloo to Balaclava: Tactics, Technology and the British Army, 1815-1854 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985)
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
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