HON 499 Honors Thesis Seminar Colonialism and Empire: The Making of the Modern World
Commonwealth Honors College, UMASS Amherst
This is a one semester thesis seminar, focused on the topic of colonialism and empire. European colonialism (post-1492 C.E.), and the establishment of empires, were processes that shaped the modern world, setting in motion the political, economic and social changes that we live with today.
In this class we critically examine narratives of colonialism and empire, and the ways that colonial histories/ stories are told. We read analyses from historiography, historical anthropology, and archaeology that challenge dominant colonial narratives. And we read postcolonial thinkers and historians, and consider how the voices of colonized people change the ways we understand colonial efforts and exchanges.
We also explore the ways that colonial projects and empires have shaped all aspects of contemporary life—from our ecology to our economy, our culture and religion, ideas about sexuality and gender, and our architecture and material lives.
How did colonialism use structural institutions like legal systems, schools, and government agencies to establish systems of inequality? How were new categories of race, class, and sex used to impose control and new social orders in colonized populations? How did colonized people resist these new systems, and how do colonized people continue to resist in the present day? What is neocolonialism, and how are its effects felt in independent postcolonial nations?
Many of the effects of colonialism and empire are material—reflected in everyday objects, art, maps. Other effects are intangible, but are expressed in statistical reports, pieces of music, short stories, or personal reflections.
