Unit information: 'Empires Within': Imperialism in British Culture and Society in 2009/10

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Unit name 'Empires Within': Imperialism in British Culture and Society
Unit code HISTM0029
Credit points 20
Level of study M/7
Teaching block(s) Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director Professor. Howe
Open unit status Not open
Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

School/department Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit surveys the rapidly developing debates on empire's traces, effects and afterlives within Britain. We will be looking at a wide range of sources from historical texts to novels, films and songs $� and drawing on the resources of the Empire Museum in Bristol. What was the impact of empire on Britain itself? What kinds of attitudes did different groups in British society hold toward the empire and its subject peoples? What influences did the imperial experience have on the images which British people developed of others - and of themselves? How have the cultures of the United Kingdom been influenced by the loss of Empire and of world power, the relatively new presence of multiple migrant, ethnic, religious and 'racial' minorities, and the (re)emergence of various nationalist and particularist movements - from Scottish to Islamicist - within the state?