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HIST2224 Colonialism, Sex and Gender: Historical Episodes

Later Year Course

Offered By School of History
Academic Career Undergraduate
Course Subject History
Offered in First Semester, 2012
Unit Value 6 units
Course Description

This course explores episodes in which categories of gender, race and sexuality interacted and shifted through colonial encounters. We will consider episodes in various parts of the globe and at different time periods, in which encounters between expanding imperial cultures and indigenous cultures combined to produce societies with racial and gender hierarchies, and in which gender and sexuality were sites of colonial anxiety, regulation and exploitation. Recent scholarship has shown how gender and race were crucial markers of colonial social order upon which governing regimes depended. 

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

  1. Analyze the ways in which hierarchies of gender, class and race have intersected historically under colonialism.
  2. Use specific historical examples to discuss connections among gender, sexuality and race.
  3. Reflect on and discuss specific instances of colonial societies in which imperial rule depended on categories of gender and race.
  4. Locate and use primary sources as historical evidence of how colonialism worked.
  5. Think, write and argue about how ideas of gender and race have changed over time.
Indicative Assessment

Primary source essay 1,500 words (30%); tutorial participation (10%); research essay 3,500 words (60%).

Workload

The course will be delivered via (streamed) lectures, face-to-face tutorials, and three monitored lecture/activity sessions.

Areas of Interest History
Requisite Statement

Completion of first year requirements for the HIST major (including EURO 1004), or by permission of the course convenor.

Recommended Courses

None

Prescribed Texts
  • Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel (eds.), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (1992);
  • Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities  (1994);
  • Julia Clancy-Smith and Frances Gouda (eds.), Domesticating the Empire: Race, Gender, and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism  (1998);
  • Tanya Dalziell, Settler Romances and the Australian Girl (2004);
  • Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton (eds.), Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History (2005).
Majors/Specialisations History and Gender, Sexuality and Culture
Academic Contact Professor Woollacott

The information published on the Study at ANU 2012 website applies to the 2012 academic year only. All information provided on this website replaces the information contained in the Study at ANU 2011 website.

Updated:   13 Nov 2015 / Responsible Officer:   The Registrar / Page Contact:   Student Business Solutions