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 nature and function of colonial knowledge of India; theories of Aryanism, race and masculinity in the legitimation of empire; regulation of sexual behaviour between the Raj and its subjects; the role of the memsahib in the making and unmaking of empire; missions, missionary activity and the nature of Indian conversions to Christianity; the myth of 'global sisterhood' examined through the forging of imperial or Victorian feminism; and the new citizens of empire namely the Asian Diaspora in Britain. Students will hone their historical skills by engaging with a wide variety of primary source materials drawn from social legislation such as the Contagious Diseases Act to key episodes such as the debates over Sati (widow burning), the Ilbert Bill and Child marriage controversies of the nineteenth century. Both Britons and Indians will figure in the historical analyses from soldiers and prostitutes to European housewives in India. METHODS OF TEACHING: A mixture of lectures and seminars. METHODS OF ASSESSMENT: One assessed essay (25%) and one 3 hour examination (75%). REQUISITES: HS1101 or HS1104 or HS1105 or HS1106.

Knowledge and Understanding:

• 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.

Intellectual Skills:

• 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.

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

• 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

  Transferable Skills:

• To communicate ideas and arguments effectively, whether in speech or in writing in an accurate, lucid and succinct manner;
• To formulate and justify their own arguments and conclusions about a range of issues;
• To consider the arguments’ of peers in seminars and workshops and be prepared to re-evaluate one’s own position as a result of such discussions;
• To work independently and organise your own study methods and workload.

The course will be taught and students will learn through

• A series of formal lectures will introduce students to the main factual and conceptual issues to be discussed and analysed during the course
• Seminars in which key texts are analysed will enable students to further develop analytic skills
• Documentary Workshops in which primary sources are analysed will enable students to develop discipline specific methods of approaching and analysing primary historical sources

Film Workshops through which analysis and commentary is further facilitated via visual images.

Students will be assessed by means of a combination of one essay relating to primary sources [20%], an assessed essay [30%] and an examination paper [50%].

Course assignments:

1. The essay relating to primary sources will contribute 20% of the final mark for the module and must be no longer than 1,000 words.
2. The Assessed Essay will contribute 30% of the final mark for the module. It is designed to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to review evidence, draw appropriate conclusions from it and employ the formal conventions of scholarly presentation. It must be no longer than 2,000 words.
3. The Examination will take place during the second assessment period [May/June] and will consist of an unseen two hour paper that will contribute the remaining 50% of the final mark for this module. Students must write 2 answers in total.  

1. Knowing the subcontinent: Colonial Constructions of India
2. Contextualising Race: Race and the distancing of India
3. Empire, Health and Sexuality: Military imperatives and morality legislation
4. Empire, Religion and Conversions
5. The reproduction of empire: European women in India
6. Imperialism, Social Legislation and Social Control: Debates on Child Marriage
7. The colonial state, Hindu tradition and Indian women: Debates on Sati
8. Indian women on Patriarchy and the Raj: Tarabai Shinde’s ‘Women and Men: A Comparison’
9. Empire and Travel: Indian Diaspora in Britain.
10. Imperial feminism, Suffrage struggles and colonial politics

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