HIST 4339: Borderlands of Empire

Professor Chester

Spring 2011

Syllabus

Course Readings

Handouts

Announcements

International News Outlets

Further Information on Course Topics

Course Readings:

• Conan Doyle, Laqueur and Rubin, and Ngugi are available at the CU bookstore.
• Jones, "Boundary Concepts" (CU IP address required for access)
• Baud and Schendel, “Comparative History of Borderlands” (CU IP address required for access)
  • also available on e-reserve
• Honor Code Definitions

• History Department guidelines: Writing Papers, Referencing Papers, and Conducting Online Research

• Conan Doyle, "The Sign of Four"

Handouts (please note that these are handouts from previous semesters.  Dates and contents will be updated as the semester progresses.  Also, some images may not be included for copyright reasons)

• Borderlands Definitions; Book Review Guidelines; Turnitin.com Instructions; Writing Effective Emails (see p. 2) (12 Jan)

• Case Studies (14 Jan)

• Borderlands Characteristics I (19 Jan)

• Borderlands Characteristics II (21 Jan)

• Religious Borderlands (24/26 Jan)

• The Mughal Empire (26/28 Jan)

• British Expansion into South Asia (31 Jan)

• The 1857 Uprising; Primary Sources vs Secondary Accounts (2 Feb)

• Race and Literature (4 Feb)

• The Great Game (7 Feb)

• Orientalism (9 Feb)

• Sign of Four discussion (11 Feb)

• Roots of South Asian Nationalism (14 Feb)

  • What do you make of this Super Bowl ad that features a boundary?

• British Responses to Nationalism (16 Feb)

• The Rise of Gandhi (18 Feb)

• Library Session in Norlin E303 (21 Feb)

• The Run-Up to Partition (23 Feb)

• Partition and Aftermath (25 Feb)

• Introduction to the Middle East (28 Feb)

• Primary source discussion (2 Mar)

  • Primary Source Analysis Guidelines

• Primary source presentations (4 Mar)

• The Palestine Mandate (7 Mar)

• Pan-Islam (9 Mar)

• The Palestine Mandate (1920s-1930s) (11 Mar)

• The Palestine Mandate (late 1930s) (14 Mar)

• The End of the Palestine Mandate (16 Mar)

• Midterm (18 Mar)

• Spring Break (21-25 Mar)

• Society and Ethnicity in Africa (28 Mar)

• The "Scramble" for Africa (30 Mar)

• Rachel Kleinfeld talk (1 Apr)

• Paper draft discussion (4 Apr)

• Frank Islam guest appearance (6 Apr)

• Methods of colonial control (8 Apr)

• The Belgian Congo (11 Apr)

  • Le Grand Kalle, "Independence ChaCha" (1960)

  • Newsreel of Lumumba under arrest

• Sudan and the End of Empire (13 Apr)

• no class (15 Apr)

• Writing Discussion (18 Apr)

• In-class Free writing (20 Apr)

• Independent writing (22 Apr)

  • Check in or meet up with your writing partner

  • As you revise, consider these suggestions for "Predatory Reading"

• [to be updated]

• Paper polishing discussion (26 Apr)

  • Final paper guidelines

  • Paper polishing worksheet

• Citation Workshop (28 Apr)

• Legacies of Empire (30 Apr)

Announcements (be aware of potential bias in outside sites)

• Hansard (the record of British Parliamentary debates) is a useful primary source for many British imperial topics
• "The Colonial Curse" discusses African boundaries in relation to the Sudan referendum
• "Some Palestinian Jordanians Lose Citizenship" (NYT) relates to our discussion of the Palestinian refugee problem
• Midterm guidelines
• Midterm prep: see this model ID answer
• Here's an interesting NYT article on a contemporary porous border (the Afghan-Pakistani line).
• Please see these critical thinking resources
• As you prepare your review of Ngugi, take a look at these suggestions for writing book reviews.

• If you're seeking primary sources, take a look at Empire Online (CU IP address required for access).

• Listen to these recordings of Jinnah and Nehru's respective independence speeches.

• If you're looking for primary sources, consider the online Times of London database (1785-1985)

• Just for fun: sites about European and African tripoints

• This dynamic map of empires in the Middle East shows the extent of the Ottoman empire (starting in 1700)

International News Outlets (be aware of potential bias in outside sites)

• General: The Economist via Academic Search Premier (1990-present; CU IP address required)

• South Asia

• The Middle East/West Asia

• Africa

Selected Course Topics (be aware of potential bias in outside sites)

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