Course description
Course description
Prior to 2008, this course was titled MA Colonial and Poscolonial History.
Over the last decade the emergence of postcolonial theory and thought has challenged conventional understandings of empire and colonialism. The development offers exciting opportunities for fruitful dialogue among historians researching colonial and postcolonial themes around the world, as well as across disciplines. This MA programme is designed to address the problematics raised by postcolonial theory and recent debates among historians and other scholars in the field, with specific reference to a range of colonial and postcolonial experiences around the world.
The MA programmes in History at Manchester University comprise annually over forty students, and have their own reserved graduate studies centre in the Philip Haworth Library (as well as equivalent school and university evel provision, and a graduate and staff common room. There is a graduate-run research seminar.
The MA in World History, like all History MA programmes, combines advanced coursework, research training, and research experience. Half of the 180 credits required for the degree derive from taught courses, one-sixth from research training, and one third from the dissertation.Students can also choose from a wide range of existing taught options offered both within the history subject area and beyond.
Module details
The intellectual framework of the programme is provided by the core course unit, 'Colonial and Postcolonial Experiences: Theory and Historiography' some sections of which are offered jointly with the core course of the English MA in postcolonial studies. The specific history sessions provide an overview of postcolonial approaches in history and an introduction to existing historiography.
Typical optional course units include: 'History and Postmodernism'; 'The Humanitarian Subject: Humanity, Medicine and the History of the Body in the Nineteenth Century'; 'The (IR)resistible rise of the American Empire, 1941-1955'; 'Colonial Modernity and the Public Sphere'; 'Foucault; Is America Post-colonial?'; 'The New World's Encounter with Europe'; 'Supervised Reading'; 'The Cultures of the Hispanic Carribean: The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico'; 'Conquest and Colonisation'; 'Making Modern Mexico: Movements of Bodies and Borders'; 'Woman at the Crossroads' and 'Transnational Communities: Muslim Diasporas of Contemporary Europe'; 'Technologies of the Self: Prison, Medicine, and Madness in Africa'.
Research training centres, usually, on the course, 'Historical sources and methods', supplemented by the School-wide generic course, 'Skills Awareness in Graduate Education' which integrates various workshop elements, and the preparation of a Research Outline for the proposed MA dissertation.
By permission foreign-language training can be substituted for the 'Historical Sources and Methods' course: available in Mandarin and Urdu as well as modern European languages.