Class: Monday, 3:00 pm–5:45 pm

Location: Behavioral Sciences Building 161

Office hrs.: Wednesday, 1:00 pm–3:00, and by appointment, 1001 UH

Contact: mmogilne@uic.edu

This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the new agenda and new approaches in the modern history of empires and composite states. We will discuss recent literature that relativizes common wisdom about European forms of colonialism as the only true ones, and criticizes the juxtaposition of “modern” Western overseas empires to “traditional” contiguous empires (the Ottoman, the Russian, or the Habsburg). We will explore the influence of postcolonial theory on the study of empire, and discuss how new social and cultural histories of imperialism complicate the binary opposition of the colonizer and the colonized. We will dwell on poststructuralist concepts such as “imperial revolutions,” “languages of imperial self-description,” “imperial formations,” and “imperial situations.” Students will be encouraged to think comparatively and theoretically about empires as complex and heterogeneous societies and polities, and to apply the approaches of new imperial history to their own research projects.

Requirements: Active class participation, diligent reading for each class. You are expected to produce position papers based on the assigned reading for each class; to present one monograph in class (select from the reading in bold), and at the end to write an analytical 10-page paper covering one of the “paradigms” of new imperial history. The final paper is due via SafeAssign 12:00 noon, Thursday December 11. Weekly papers are due by e-mail to me each Sunday evening (by 6 pm); I am going to collect paper versions in class, so please have the printed versions of your papers ready each Monday.

Students will be evaluated on the basis of their work in class and attendance (30%); weekly position papers (15%), monograph presentation (15%), and their final paper (40%).

You are welcome to communicate with me on any question you may have about the class or your paper via e-mail or by coming to talk during my office hours (or by appointment).

Students of ALL imperial/colonial fields are welcome in the course!

Required reading: You may consider purchasing he following texts at any online vendor:

The New Imperial Histories Reader (London: Routledge, 2010);

A monograph of your choice (for the book review in class).

Before doing this, please study the electronic reserve list created for the course which contains most of the assigned reading: http://uic.docutek.com/eres/coursepass.aspx?cid=2984. Most of the assigned monographs are also available at: Daley Library, Reserve Reading Room, 1st floor: http://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uic/Search/Reserves?course=3351&inst=2376&dept=2&submit=Find

What is not included in the electronic reserve will be posted on blackboard. You can access articles in Ab Imperio by clicking on the “E-Journals” tab on the library’s homepage and searching by title. That will retrieve a link to Ab Imperio issues from 2000 to present. On the Ab Imperio website click “Contents” and find the issue you need.

All required monographs are available from the course reserve. Most of the reading is available at the electronic reserve course page.