HI6051 - Ending the British Empire, 1930 – now

On this module you will learn through seminars, and through engagement with carefully selected primary sources and core readings. Across the module, these seminars and readings will introduce you to key themes in the history of British decolonisation, and the different ways in which it has been interpreted by scholars. Primary sources will afford insights into both how British authorities sought to justify and legitimise empire, and into how empire and its legacies have been critiqued by anti-colonialist thinkers and activists. Secondary readings will allow you to consider how scholarly approaches to the end of the British empire have changed over time, and to analyse the advantages and problems of different approaches to interpreting this history.

You will prepare for weekly seminars by undertaking set primary and secondary readings, which will be available through Blackboard. In seminars you will interrogate primary sources in detail, considering how they relate to secondary readings from a variety of leading scholars. Seminars will include a range of tasks and activities including presentations, a variety of group work, and written tasks. You will actively draw on your readings, seminar notes, and work from previous weeks to build up a detailed understanding of how and why the British empire ended, and of its legacies for the contemporary world.

You will be supported by your module tutors, who will lead seminars, and will be available for additional discussions about your progress in Feedback and Consultation hours and via email. You will receive formative feedback from module tutors in seminars to help you develop your thinking. You will be supported through the resources made available through Blackboard and in the library. Fellow students will support you, through collaborative group work in seminars, and your programme leader will give you a clear sense of how your work on this module relates to your degree as a whole.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Knowledge and understanding of how and why the British empire ended
2. Knowledge and understanding of legacies of the British empire and efforts to address them

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
3. Demonstrate a range of transferrable skills, including the ability to understand, analyse, and critique a range of sources and arguments; and to present clear and well supported arguments orally and in writing.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
4. Understand the role of positionality, and the ethical and political dimensions of writing the history of the end of empire.
5. Develop an understanding of how the end of empire has shaped the contemporary world.

1 x 3,000-word essay on how and why the British empire ended (MLOs 1, 3, 4, 5) (weighted 50%)
This essay will be written in response to a question chosen from a list provided by the module tutor. Students will be encouraged to draw on primary source material studied in seminars. Students will submit an AI coversheet with assessments and will be briefed in seminars on the appropriate use of AI.

1 x 3,000-word essay on the legacies of empire (MLOs 2, 3, 4, 5) (weighted 50%)
This essay will be written in response to a question chosen from a list provided by the module tutor. Students will be encouraged to draw on primary source material studied in seminars. Students will submit an AI coversheet with assessments and will be briefed in seminars on the appropriate use of AI.

Formative feedback for each assessment will be provided in seminars and through Feedback and Consultation hours.

N/A

N/A

How and why did the British empire end? And how did the legacies of empire continue to shape the world, even after it had virtually disappeared from the map? In this module we will consider two of the most pressing issues in history. Through studying a rich range of primary sources and cutting edge scholarship, we will consider how anti-colonial activism, a changing international scene, and crises in Britain itself interacted to end the biggest empire the world had ever seen. And we will consider how ideas and structures which had animated the empire lived on, producing and widening inequalities in Britain and beyond, as well as efforts to fight these imperial legacies. By the end of this module, you will have a detailed understanding of how and why the British empire ended – and the ways it has continued – as well as why this matters for the contemporary world.