This core seminar introduces students to the historical scholarship on the British empire in the east between the 1750s to the 1950s from a comparative perspective. It illustrates a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the history of colonialism. Students will learn to analyze primary sources, paying special attention to strategies for writing the history of the marginalized, and for attending to silences in the archives. Together, we will debate questions that remain relevant in the present: What was the social, economic, political, and cultural impact of European colonial rule around the world between the 18th and 20th centuries? How did colonial contact shape European history, philosophy, and politics? How did colonialism continue to affect the world after the formal end of Empire? Can we decolonize politics, culture, and knowledge without confronting the colonial origins of the modern world?
Following a few weeks devoted to chronological and geographic groundwork, students will explore themes such as liberal political thought, capitalism and consumerism, law and policing, science and medicine, gender and sexuality, childhood and age, the environment and non-human animals, as refracted through the history of empire and colonialism. Students will learn to use primary sources such as court cases, forensic handbooks, maps, census reports, novels, letters, advertisements, photographs, and diaries.
