Decolonising History/Histories of Decolonisation

How do we connect histories of decolonisation to conversations about decolonising the curriculum? In our Decolonising History/Histories of Decolonisation short course we explore this question by taking a critical approach to practices of history making.

We begin by looking at the emergence of critical theory around the breakdown of colonial and imperial regimes, and we consider how various thinkers interpreted the past and envisioned new futures for a world without empires. We then focus on how social and political structures of colonial empires broke down (or were reconstituted) after the Second World War, focusing particularly on connections in and beyond Africa through Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.

In the second half of the course, we look at methods of historical practice, for instance how historians might take the questions raised by, and in histories of, decolonisation and apply them to our own practices. Then we move to considering more recent trends in thinking about race, empire and subjectivity. Finally, we ask what sources might inform a decolonised historical practice as we consider ongoing collaborations and collectives whose goal is to change the futures of history.

On this short course we plan to cover the following themes:

• An emergent decolonial consciousness
• Temporalities and antecedents: eighteenth-century Atlantic revolutions and the ‘Wilsonian Moment’
• Ending empire 1: processes, events, frameworks
• Ending empire 2: violence of decolonisation (Algerian War and Mau Mau)
• Rethinking geographies 1: the Black Mediterranean
• Rethinking geographies 2: hubs of decolonisation - Cairo, Paris, Lisbon, Lusaka, London
• Race, empire and subjectivity
• Intimate spaces, intimate times: embodied experiences and imperial afterlives
• Migrants, immigrants/decolonising economies
• Researching and remembering decolonisation

This postgraduate-level course is assessed via a 5000-word essay.