Windrush and the (Re)Making of a Nation: Myth and Memory.

Code

HIST3121

School

History

Level

3

Credits

40

Semesters

Full Year UK

Summary

In a series of weekly seminars this module takes a critical look at the historical construction and ascendance of the Empire Windrush, and the Windrush Generation, to national prominence in the UK, deconstructing the largely mythological narrative that currently persists around this symbolic historical epoch of Black arrival in Britain in 1948. Focused largely on four significant moments of invention from 1948 to the present, the aim of the module is to equip students with a much broader view of the British Empire that brings into focus a complex and long historical picture of encounter, inbound and outbound migration preceding and in this postwar moment, as well as the conflict and civil disobedience that is obscured by the somewhat quaint story of arrival captured in the Windrush narrative. 

Students will interrogate and evaluate a range of primary historical sources from the archive, including a range of oral histories, as well as the historiographical debates surrounding the Windrush in order to understand how national histories are constructed and the purposes they serve. A range of digital assets and digital history skills and methodologies will be embedded across the module – giving students the opportunity to develop their own digital archive related to the historical themes of the module.

Target Students

Available to level 3 or 4 single or joint honours History students and Liberal Arts students.

Classes

• One 3-hour seminar each week for 20 weeks

Assessment

• 30% Coursework 1: Topic based essay, 3,000 words
• 30% Coursework 2: Source-based assessment (3,000 words if written)
• 40% Coursework 3: Assessed presentation, synoptic (plus 1,500-word report if assessed seminar or poster, split 60/40 between the presentation and the report)

Assessed in both autumn & spring semest

Educational Aims

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and understanding. By the end of the module, in their assessed work, students should be able to:  

i. Explain and interpret trends in Modern Black History 

ii. think critically about continuities and differences across different case studies, themes or topics discussed within the module

Intellectual skills. By the end of the module students should be able to:  

i. draw on the latest scholarship to re-assess conventional assumptions and historical narratives 

ii. critically assess a diverse range of primary source material  

iii. develop a sophisticated understanding of the underlying assumptions that create disagreement and controversies between different historians  

iv. construct coherent and independent historical arguments of their own

Professional/practical skills. The module will develop students´ ability to:  

i. select, sift and synthesise information from a range of primary and secondary sources  

ii. identify and compare key arguments in those materials  

iii. use IT to access historical sources and information, and complete historical assignments

Transferable skills. The module will also develop students´ ability to:  

i. manage a large and disparate body of information  

ii. express themselves clearly, coherently and fluently in writing essays, source analyses and other written work, as well as within o 

iii. oral presentations 

iv. work and learn actively with others, including small group work both outside and within the classroom  

v. manage and take responsibility for their own learning  

vi. use IT for research and presentation purposes

Conveners

• Dr Nathan Richards