HIS-20090 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

N/A

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

The history of British India comprised a series of encounters between white Europeans and a diverse range of Indian people. Western ideals -- political, religious, economic and cultural -- were trialled across the Indian subcontinent. For many Britons, the 'east' became a career. Missionaries and medics, soldiers and civil servants, engineers and architects all found opportunities in India denied at home. But cultural contact was not all one-way traffic. Indian ways of life and Indian people shaped British identity and policy in the east in almost every aspect of the encounter. This module focuses on those formative moments that shaped the making and, eventually, the breaking, of the culture of the Raj.

To examine the experience of Indian and British people during the consolidation of British rule; to calibrate the responses of Indian people to British administration, justice, and military action; to characterise the range of British interventions in India, in political, social, economic and cultural terms; to evaluate the scope for meaningful contact between communities of British and Indian people.

Intended Learning Outcomes

recognise and account for the different levels of relationships between Indians and the British in nineteenth century India
: 1,2
explain the different forms of cultural production at work in the Raj and their varied nature (on a spectrum from collaborative/affectionate to conflicting/violent): 1,2
read critically and identify key issues for seminar discussion and essay writing: 1,2
deploy effective and relevant arguments in written and oral forms: 1,2
analyze different kinds primary evidence that relate to the history of nineteenth century India: 1,2
demonstrate sound knowledge of key concepts and historical debates on colonial India beyond recorded lecture content: 1,2
apply research to write effective argument based responses to timed examination questions that are based on key historical debates of the British Raj: 2

Study hours

12 hours = lectures
24 hours = seminars/workshops
2 hours = timed, unseen exam
54 hours = seminar preparation /reading
28 hours = portfolio commentary research, writing and preparation
30 hours = examination revision

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment