| Unit name | Gender and The British Empire (Level I Special Field) |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HIST26029 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Reid |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
HIST 23008 Special Field Project |
| School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Until the 1970s and 1980s, scholarship on the history of the British empire was largely gender- and sex-blind. The empire was considered a quintessentially male world. Women were regarded to have played little or no imperial role, and nor was the gender (or masculinities) of men in empire considered much of an issue. Over the last two to three decades this has decisively changed. As historian Angela Woollacott notes, historians now ‘recognise gender as a foundational dynamic that shaped all aspects of the empire from the conduct of war, to the drafting of statutes and regulations, to social and medical codes governing sexuality’, to children’s literature, popular culture and more. This unit aims to introduce students to this now burgeoning scholarly literature and asks them to consider the roles played by gender in empire. They will explore the contribution of ideologies of masculinity and femininity, sexuality, domesticity and the family to the constitution of new ideas about race, ethnicity and nation. They will also examine the interplay between the ideology and practice: asking questions how ideas about gender, sex and the body shaped both imperial and colonial policies and everyday life. The unit focuses on the period from the late eighteenth century to the Second World War. Students will explore a range of key themes via a series of in-depth and source-based case studies including: motherhood and empire; missionaries and gender; adventure stories and imperial masculinities; gender and emigration; the regulation of mixed race sexual relations and ‘half-caste’ children; the policing of prostitution; homosexuality and empire; feminism and empire; and the role played by gender in anti-colonial and nationalist movements.
By the end of the unit students should have:
Weekly 2-hour seminar Access to tutorial consultation with unit tutor in office hours
2-hour unseen written examination (summative, 100%)
The examination will assess their understanding of the unit’s key themes in the historical scholarship on gender and empire, the related historiography as developed during their reading and participation in / learning from small group seminars, and relevant primary sources. Further assessment of their handling of the relevant primary sources will be provided by the co-requisite Special Field Project (HIST 23008)
Antoinette Burton, Burdens of history: British feminists, Indian women and imperial culture, 1865-1915 (Durham, NC, 1994). Nupur Chaudhuri & Margaret Strobel (eds.), Western women and imperialism (Indianapolis, 1992). Durba Ghosh, Sex and the family in colonial India: the making of empire (Cambridge, 2006). Philippa Levine (ed.) Gender and empire (Oxford, 2004). Angela Woollacott, Gender and empire (Basingstoke, 2006) Anne McClintock, Imperial leather: race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest (New York, 1995).
