HST6892: The Scramble for Africa
15 credits (semester 1)
Module Leader: Professor Ian Phimister
| Module Summary |
During the last 25 years of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, almost all of Africa was divided up into European colonies. The causes of Africa's colonial conquest are hotly disputed, involving as they do British, French, Portuguese, German, Belgian and Italian imperialisms, and a multitude of African states and polities. The module is based on a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Taken together, they locate Africa's partition within wider processes of globalisation, even as they engage with developments inside Africa itself.
| Teaching |
The module will be taught through a combination of lectures and seminars. While the lectures will focus on major processes, the seminars will concentrate on key problems and debates. The latter will turn in significant measure on the presentation of structured student papers, themselves developed over the course of individual reading and an individual tutorial with the module convenor.
| Assessment |
Students will prepare a short paper (not more than 3000 words).
| Intended Learning Objectives |
By the end of the unit, a candidate will be able to demonstrate:
- A sophisticated understanding of one of the defining moments of imperial and international history.
- The capacity to read original source material, and place it within the subject’s secondary literature.
- An awareness of how the subject can be approached from a wide variety of perspectives.
- An informed familiarity with related disciplines.
- An ability to think critically.