Empires - HIS00146H
Module summary
Empire, imperialism, decolonisation: these words stand at the heart of twenty-first-century ‘culture wars’ and remain among the most controversial terms used in history-writing today. In this module, we interrogate what it means for a state to be an ‘empire’. Must empires be based on conquest? Is the term relevant to non-Western societies? Who decides what it means to be ‘indigenous’? Alongside these broad conceptual questions, the module delves into individual histories to attempt to uncover the lived experiences of colonisers and colonised. We shall look at how imperial expansion revolutionised what people ate in the early modern period, how landscapes from medieval Wales to modern Taiwan were transformed to meet the needs of colonial powers, and how processes of colonisation influenced definitions of race, social class, and gender. Particular attention will be paid to the strategies used by colonised peoples to resist imperial power and to the ways that past empires still structure our lives today.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 2 2025-26 |
Module aims
The aims of this module are:
- To introduce students to the practice of comparative history;
- To enable students to acquire skills and understanding of that practice by studying a particular topic or theme; and
- To enable students to reflect on the possibilities and difficulties involved in comparative history
Module learning outcomes
Students who complete this module successfully will:
- Grasp the key approaches and challenges involved in comparative history;
- Understand a range of aspects of the topic or theme which they have studied;
- Be able to use and evaluate comparative approaches to that topic or theme; and
- Have learned to discuss and write about comparative history
Module content
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1, then a 1-hour workshop and a 2-hour seminar in each of weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of the semester. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour workshops and eight 2-hour seminars in all.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
- Empire, hegemony, postcolonialism: contested concepts
- Types of imperial power: relationships between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’
- Us and them: race, indigeneity, and the negotiation of difference
- Colonial bodies: gender, sex, and health
- Colonial landscapes: cities and nature
- Empires and mobility: enslavement, forced migration, and settlement
- Empires and the global economy: food and material culture
- Resisting empire: from ‘weapons of the weak’ to decolonisation
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
For formative assessment work, students will produce an essay plan relating to the themes and issues of the module.
For summative assessment students will complete an Open Exam in the assessment period.
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) | 100 |
Module feedback
Following their formative assessment task, students will receive written feedback, which may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss their feedback during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission. For semester 1 assessments, the tutor will be available during student hours of the following semester for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
Indicative reading
For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
- Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).
- Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018)
- Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule, 2nd edn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010)