Britain and Slavery: Context
| Module title | Britain and Slavery: Context |
|---|---|
| Module code | HIH3325 |
| Academic year | 2020/1 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | Dr Ryan Hanley (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 16 |
|---|
Module description
Britain led the world in pursuing both slavery and its abolition. For some, this global system of theft and murder generated vast wealth and enabled access to influence and prestige at the highest levels of British society. For others, it represented a mortal evil that had to be stopped at any cost. In this module, we will examine attempts to make sense of Britain’s historical relationship to slavery and its impact on our lives today. Covering issues of race, revolution, economics, labour and memory, we will connect the past to the present, exploring how our reckonings with this violent history have changed since the age of abolition.
Module aims - intentions of the module
This module, along with its Sources co-requisite, examines the evolving relationship between colonial slavery and metropolitan life in Britain from the early eighteenth century to the present day. It gives you a chance to engage in depth with the extensive historiography surrounding Britain and slavery, introducing you to a range of approaches and ways of reading the primary material presented in the Sources co-requisite. It complicates familiar narratives of slavery and abolition by exploring the ways in which both sides of the discussion were linked to imperial expansion, racial thought, social hierarchies, and international diplomacy. Crucially, it interrogates how historians have helped to shape the discussion about slavery and abolition, from the celebratory narratives of the nineteenth century to the decolonial and intersectional approaches that characterise much recent scholarship. On this module you will have an opportunity to work with economic, social and cultural histories, as well as insights from the fields of English Literature, Sociology and Art History, helping you to make sense of a colonial entanglement that touched almost every aspect of British life. A survey of approaches to this aspect of Britain’s past also leads on to challenging ideas surrounding the contemporary legacies of slavery and abolition, and the ways in which these have been celebrated, remembered, forgotten, and covered up, and what we might be able to do about historical injustices.
Through engaging with the complex historiographies and controversies over different aspects of the Holocaust, the module aims to develop research, analytical, interpretative and communication skills that can be applied in further academic studies or in graduate careers.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Ability to evaluate the different complex themes in the history of Britains relationship to colonial slavery since the eighteenth century
- 2. Ability to make close specialist evaluation of the key developments within the period, developed through independent study and seminar work.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. Ability to analyse the key developments within the study of slavery and its impact on Britain, including in the contemporary world
- 4. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex issues.
- 5. Ability to understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner.
- 6. Ability to follow the changing causes of and responses to slavery, abolition and anti-slavery imperialism
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 7. Independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
- 8. Ability to digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
- 9. Ability to present complex arguments orally
Syllabus plan
This module focuses on a range of different source-types, documenting the relationship between Britain and slavery from the early eighteenth century to the present day. Organised broadly chronologically, it examines the following themes: slavery and the development of the British economy; the effects of slavery on migration to Britain and its demography; conceptions of human difference, especially the emergence of whiteness; slavery and British responses to the American, French and Haitian revolutions; the resistance of the enslaved, including violent uprisings, absconding, tool-breaking, infanticide, and publishing testimony; slave-produced commodities and consumer culture, including boycotts; the abolitionist movements; the role of antislavery in the expansion of the British Empire; the lasting legacies of British slavery; and the commemoration and forgetting of slavery in contemporary culture.
You will be introduced to the broad chronology and key controversies in the historiography of transatlantic slavery at the beginning of the course, along with some of the major developments in the historiography since the nineteenth century, including the impact of Eric Williams and CLR James. Each seminar we will explore a set of contextual readings which help to situate that week’s Source(s) and clarify a theme or important episode in the history of slavery in Britain. We will regularly include readings from outside the discipline of History, helping to gain new perspectives and approaches to the problems posed by this complex and methodologically challenging history. You will be expected to prepare for seminars by reading and evaluating the relevant materials in advance, and we will discuss the issues raised by them in the seminars.
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 44 | 256 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching activities | 44 | 22 x 2 hour seminars. |
| Guided independent study | 256 | Reading and preparation for seminars, coursework and presentations. |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seminar discussion | Ongoing through course. | 1-7, 9 | Verbal from tutor and fellow students. |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 70 | 30 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | 70 | 2 assignments totalling 4000 words | 1-8 | Oral and written. |
| Seen examination | 30 | 2500 words | 1-8 | Oral and written. |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio assignment | Portfolio assignment | 1-8 | Referral/deferral period |
| Seen examination | Seen examination | 1-8 | Referral/deferral period |
Re-assessment notes
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Surveys:
- Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause (Yale UP, 2017)
- Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge UP, 2009)
- Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (Verso, 2011)
- Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade (Picador, 1997)
Key Interventions:
- Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, 1939, repr. 2016)
- Catherine Hall, Macaulay and Son: Architects of Imperial Britain (Yale UP, 2012)
- Seymour Drescher, The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in British Emancipation (Oxford UP, 2002)
- David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Oxford UP, 1975)
- John Oldfield, Popular politics and British anti-slavery : the mobilisation of public opinion against the slave trade, 1787-1807 (Manchester UP, 1995)
- Clare Midgley, Women against slavery: the British Campaigns, 1780-1870 (Routledge, 1990, repr. 2005)
- Catherine Hall, Nicholas Draper, Keith McClelland, Katie Donington and Rachel Lang, Legacies of British Slave-ownership (Cabridge UP, 2014).
Interdisciplinary Perspectives:
- Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Harvard UP, 1982)
- Sarah Thomas, Witnessing Slavery: Art and Travel in the Age of Abolition (Yale UP, 2019)
- Brycchan Carey, British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
- Moira Ferguson, Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670-1834 (Routledge, 1992)
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11354
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| Module pre-requisites | At least 90 credits of History at Level 1 and/or Level 2. |
| Module co-requisites | HIH3324 |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 15/02/2016 |
| Last revision date | 19/08/2020 |