In recent years historians have made important moves towards integrating the study of Empire within the broader political, cultural and social history of Britain and its ex-colonies. As a consequence, they have treated the study of Britain and India since the eighteenth- to the early half of the twentieth century as an integrated dialogue between the ‘metropole’ or home country and the ‘periphery’ or colony by applying the new categories of historical analyses: race and sex alongside gender and class. Students will engage in a critical and in-depth study of the history and politics of imperialism in this course. It will also provide multiple perspectives on the changing relationships between the coloniser and the colonised through several themes and topics which include: The reproduction of empire: European women in India; Imperialism, Social Legislation and Social Control: Debates on Child Marriage; The colonial state, Hindu tradition and Indian women: Debates on Sati; Indian women on Patriarchy and the Raj: Tarabai Shinde’s ‘Women and Men: A Comparison’; Empire and Travel: Indian Diaspora in Britain; Imperial feminism, Suffrage struggles and colonial politics. Students will hone their historical skills by engaging with a wide variety of primary source materials drawn from social legislation and women’s own accounts of their lives. Both Britons and Indians will figure in the historical analyses from ordinary housewives to prostitutes and key reformers in India.

At the end of the module the student would have gained knowledge and understanding of two societies, India and Britain, and be able to:

·      Identify and evaluate the transformations in the lives of Britons and Indians in the heyday of empire through various themes, concepts and issues;

·      Demonstrate knowledge of the local and international context of colonialism during the eighteenth- and nineteenth- century;

·      Demonstrate an in-depth and critical understanding of a range of perspectives and debates within the secondary literature;

·      Demonstrate a critical understanding of key primary sources in studies of empire and British imperial history and their significance.

A combination of pedagogical methods, chiefly comprising of:

1. Lectures
2. Seminars
3. Documentary sessions including analysis of primary materials
4. Film Workshops

Academic:

·         Express their ideas and assessments of the history of imperialism;

·         Discuss in an critical and informed manner the impact of imperialism on Britons and Indians in colonial India;

·         Identify strengths, weaknesses, problems, and or peculiarities of alternative historical or/ and historiographical interpretations

·         Apply a critical approach to the nature of primary sources in the assessment of historical interpretations and methodologies

·         Use and evaluate primary sources and demonstrate an appreciation of how historians have approached them

Subject-specific:

·      Identify and evaluate the transformations in the lives of Britons and Indians in the heyday of empire through various themes, concepts and issues;

·      Demonstrate knowledge of the local and international context of colonialism during the eighteenth- and nineteenth- century;

·      Demonstrate an in-depth and critical understanding of a range of perspectives and debates within the secondary literature;

·      Demonstrate a critical understanding of key primary sources in studies of empire and British imperial history and their significance.

Generic:

·      Acquire an ability to discuss in an informed and critical manner the history of the period of colonial contact with India;

·      summarise the relative merits and demerits of alternative views and interpretations about Imperial British and modern Indian history;

·      Construct, sustain and develop arguments about the interactive dialogue between Britain and India during the Age of Imperialism through an appropriate application of  sources and terminology;

·      To present accurately, succinctly and lucidly, and in written or oral form their arguments in accordance with appropriate scholarly conventions.

Summative assessment takes the form of one 3,000 - 4,000 word essay (excluding empirical appendices and references).

Students may study the following topics and themes:

1)    Imperialism, Social Legislation and Social Control: Debates on Child Marriage

2)    The colonial state, Hindu tradition and Indian women: Debates on Sati

3)    Indian women on Patriarchy and the Raj: Tarabai Shinde’s ‘Women and Men: A Comparison’

4)    Empire and Travel: Indian Diaspora in Britain.

5)    Imperial feminism, Suffrage struggles and colonial politics

Padma Anagol, The Emergence of Feminism in Colonial India, 1850-1920 (2005)

Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British feminists, Indian women and Imperial Culture (1995)

Jeffrey L. Cox, Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818-1940 (2002).

Ronald Hyam, Empire and Sexuality (1990)

R O’ Hanlon, (tr.), Comparison between Women and Men: Tarabai Shinde and Critique of Gender Relations in India, (1994)

Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (1995)

Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘manly Englishman’ and the ‘effeminate Bengali’ (1995)

Margaret Strobel, European Women and the Second British Empire, (1997)

Rozina Visram, Asians in Britain: 400 years of history, (2002)