History 693F - S-Empire and Nation

This graduate seminar explores the history and historiography of British Empire in India from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. We will examine how Britain derived power, profit, and glory from its colony in India. We will also examine the ways in which religion, caste, class, and gender constituted the ideas and practices of anti-imperialist nationalism(s) in India. Readings will cover a wide range of topics including indentured servitude; the opium trade; colonial knowledge and power systems, British rule and gender relations; the Mutiny of 1857, Gandhian and subaltern strategies of resistance, and the partition of India in 1947. This seminar is designed to help prepare students for an exam field in British Empire as well as related fields such as global or comparative history, and transnational women's history. Prior knowledge of Indian history is neither required nor assumed for this course.

Open to Doctoral & Masters students only.