Focusing on contemporary and historical narratives, representations and theories about the ostensibly transparent and stable categories of "women and gender" "Britain and nation" and “modernity,” this course explores the ongoing production, circulation and refraction of discourses on not only gender and nation but also on race, empire and modernity since the mid-18th century. Assignments will incorporate visual and material as well as literary evidence and culture, and the course will consider the crystallization in this period of the discipline of history itself (and the practices that constitute and challenge it) as historically engendered.
This is a reading-, writing-, and discussion-intensive course. It aims, among other things, to enable students to develop their critical reading, analytical, expository and research skills, and the closely-articulated assignments are designed accordingly. Informed, active participation in class discussions is expected.
- Instructor of record: Madhavi Kale