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Law, Politics and Society across the British Empire, 1750-1960: Sources

Module description

This module introduces students to the crucial role of law in governing, justifying and resisting imperial rule across the British empire, from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Drawing on a lively and growing inter-disciplinary field of research, it will encourage you to think of law not just as a body of rules or a set of institutions, but as related to social contexts, geographical settings, power, ethics, rhetoric and cultural practice. You will focus on a variety of primary sources, including reported and unreported judgments in legal cases, imperial statutes and colonial law codes, reports of special commissions, policy documents, parliamentary papers and debates, as well as philosophical treatises, political manifestoes, expert commentary on various topics, novels, poetry, journalistic and visual sources. All sources are in English or available in translation.

You must take this module in conjunction with Law, Politics and Society across the British Empire, 1750-1960: Context.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand of the different sources available for the study of law in the British empire, together with a very close specialist knowledge of those sources on which the students will focus upon in their seminar presentations and written work.
• 2. Differentiate between, and appreciate the specific uses of the different sources studied.
• 3. Follow and evaluate critically the often complex reasoning of specifically legal material, with attention to legal provisions and procedural rules

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Analyse closely original sources and to assess their reliability as historical evidence. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex texts.
• 5. Understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner.
• 6. Follow developments in the history of law in and across the British empire.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Study independently and as a group, including presenting of material for discussion.
• 8. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.
• 9. Present complex arguments orally.

Syllabus plan

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 4,000 word portfolio of source work, as in the original assessment, but replaces the individual presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation and which is the equivalent of 25 minutes of speech

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

• Clare Anderson, The Indian Uprising of 1857: Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion (London: Anthem Press, 2007).
• Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
• Martin Channock, The Making of South African Legal Culture, 1902-1936: Fear, Favour and Prejudice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
• Wael B. Hallaq, Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
• Nasser Hussain, The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law (Ann Arbor: Duke University Press, 2003).
• Marilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
• Lydia Liu, The Clash of Empires: the Invention of China in Modern World Making (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004).
• Lata Mani, Contentious Traditions: the Debate on Sati in Colonial India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
• Lawrence Rosen, Law as Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
• Martin J. Wiener, An Empire on Trial: Race, Murder, and Justice under British Rule, 1870-1935 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4574
• House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
• Hansard
• Times Digital Archive

Key words search

Law, Politics, British Empire, Colonialism, India, North America, China, Africa