Empire, Gender and Selfhood: Transgender History in Global Context 1750-1870

Code

HIST2058

School

History

Level

2

Credits

20

Semesters

Spring UK

Summary

This course introduces students to the history of people whose lives, bodies and identities cannot be neatly fitted into the categories of ‘male’ or ‘female’ that are predominant in the world today. The course looks at a wide range of people, including the ‘hijra’ in India, ‘fa'afāfine’ in Samoa, and ‘niizh manidoowag’, ‘winkt’ and ‘nàdleehé’ (often referred to collectively as ‘two spirit’) in North America, as well as European people who lived lives outside of the gender binary. Focused on the period between 1750 and 1870, the course is centred on the question of how European imperial expansion impacted societies that were not structured around a binary model of gender and on the people within them who did not belong to either ‘male’ or ‘female’.  
 
The module is taught through a combination of lectures and seminars. The lectures offer a contextual overview of the regions under study, their interconnections, and the theoretical and methodological problems of thinking about gender history in global and imperial contexts and in relationship to ideas of sex, sexuality and gender. In this respect, the course engages with recent interventions in Transgender Studies. The seminars focus on an individual case study and its related historiography. Students will be expected to come to the seminars having closely engaged with the set readings and be prepared and willing to discuss them in detail.

Target Students

Students must have taken HIST1001 or HIST1002. Also available to exchange students hosted by the Department of History and Liberal Arts students.

Classes

• One 1-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks
• One 2-hour lecture each week for 10 weeks

Assessment

• 50% Coursework 1: 2500-word essay
• 50% Presentation 1: Individual digital presentation

Assessed by end of spring semester

Educational Aims

Learning Outcomes

Intellectual skills: develop an understanding of ‘transgender’ history and be able to think critically about the relationships between modern imperialism and ideas of gender and sexuality.

Appreciation of the way that the meaning of gender and sexuality is historically and geographically constituted.

Ability offer close, analytical reading of historiographical discussions about gender identity, sexuality and modern European imperialism, as well as some analysis of primary sources;

Ability to think critically about difference and the relationship between imperial power and ideas of sex, sexuality and gender;

Ability to communicate complex historical and historiographical arguments clearly;

Ability to offer a coherent arguments in oral and written forms.

Conveners

• Dr Onni Gust