This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module offers a cultural and imaginative engagement with the ideas and realities of British Imperialism in the past, the present and indeed the future. Students will use books, visual and material cultures, fiction, film and radio to explore the ways in which the British Empire has been imagined, understood and remembered from the eighteenth century to the present. The module is split into three main sections, the first looking at the way Empire was imagined and presented at the time of its existence, the second exploring the recent 'nostalgia boom' surrounding Empire in the present and the ways in which the imperial past is mobilised in modern debates (surrounding, for example, Brexit), and the third looking at how imperial tropes and understandings have informed science fiction reimaginings of the past through telling stories about the future. A mixture of traditional and innovative assessments (including source commentaries, blog posts and podcasts) will push students to think both analytically and creatively about the role of the past in the present and the future. Students will emerge with a highly developed ability to analyse and critique primary and secondary evidence, as well as having gained employability skills relating to independent research, oral and visual presentation, and creative industries. The module presents an exciting opportunity to engage with the cultural history of the British Empire, as well as creative approaches to learning, assessment and employability.
40% Coursework, 60% Examination
Levine, Philippa, The British Empire: From Sunrise to Sunset (Harlow: Longman, 2007).
Stockwell, Sarah (ed), The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives (Blackwell, 2008).
Darwin, John, After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000 (London, 2007).
Darwin, John, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World System, 1830-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Ferguson, Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (Basic Books, 2003).
Ferguson, Niall, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (Penguin, 2012).
Gott, Richard, Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (Verso, 2011).
Judd, Dennis, The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present (London: Harper Collins, 1996).
Kwarteng, Kwasi, ?Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World? (A & C Black, 2011).
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Paxman, Jeremy, Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British (London: Viking, 2011).
Porter, Bernard, The Lion's Share: A short history of British imperialism 1850-2004. Fourth Edition (Pearson Education, 2004).
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