SMC Core Curriculum Course Proposal Form Fall 2013
Electronically submit this course form and attachments to the Chair of the CCC by
October 1. Please submit a separate proposal for each desired learning goal.
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Name of Proposer: Aeleah Soine
Email address: ahs3@stmarys-ca.edu
Department/Program of Proposer: History
Name of Department/Program housing the course: History
Name(s) of Program Director/Department Chair: Myrna Santiago
Course Acronym, Number and Title: HIST 118: Victorian Empire
Proposal is for All Sections of the course: __X___
Proposal is for instructor’s section(s) (Pathways to Knowledge only): _____
8. Course Prerequisites (if any): none
9. Unit Value of Course: 1.0
10. Mark with an X the Learning Goal for which the course is being proposed.
Pathways to Knowledge (at most one)
Social, Historical, Cultural Understanding: _X__
Engaging the World (as appropriate, generally zero to two)
Global Perspectives: _ X ___
Teaching and Learning Narrative for Global Perspective:
HIST 118: Victorian Empire is an upper-level topics course targeting history majors
and minors, Victorian Era enthusiasts, International Area Studies majors
(particularly those in the new Global Studies track), and anyone else interested in
challenging theoretical, material, and cultural engagement with the historical study
of nineteenth century global imperialism.
Course Description:
The Victorian Empire will take students on a geographic, historical, and thematic
“tour” of the British Empire during the long reign of Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901).
We will explore the intertwined nature of imperial, national, and global identities in
“the empire on which the sun never set,” including comparative political
contestations over citizenship, race, and belonging; industrialization and class
conflicts; changing gender roles and sexual mores; military and diplomatic conflicts;
medical and scientific knowledge; and the flourishing of popular literature and
culture in such places as India, China, Australia, Ireland, the Caribbean, and Africa.
Readings and assignments will draw upon literature, images, films, and both
scholarly and primary texts from and about the Victorian Era in order to explore
theoretical and historical questions about the purpose, motivations, and impact of
such imperial ties on Victorian subjects—in Britain and around the world.
CCC Course Proposal Form
2013-2014
September 4th, 2013
Specifically, HIST 118: Victorian Empire, will ask students to…
Option #1: Analyze the process of globalization by using different theoretical
perspectives and debates on a broad range of issues (including issues of
dependence and interdependence)
A) …“analyze the process of globalization by using different theoretical
perspectives,” such as Marxist, feminist, post-structural and other social-historical
theories of imperialism. Was the British Empire constructed in a fit of absentmindedness, as Bernd Porter popularized, or were its citizens and subjects all
complicit in a more complex historical process of becoming “at home with the
empire,” which offered a variety of oppressions and opportunities for the people
who lived within the direct and indirect reaches of British colonial authority? This
course has been designated to fulfill upper-level course requirements in History and
International Area Studies, both the European studies tracks and as one of only a
few transnational and theoretical “issues and topics” courses offered in the Global
Studies track.
[Learning] Building upon theoretical readings [Hall & Rose, and pdfs] and in-class
discussions, the formal scholarly review assignment targets this learning outcome
directly by asking students to analyze competing theories of imperial conflict in
response to a) Catherine Hall’s theoretical reinterpretation of the “civilizing
mission” through the case of non-conformist missionaries and the colonial
government in Jamaica, or b) the theoretical and historical consequences of
distinguishing (or not) between “mutiny” and “revolution” in anti-colonial
resistance actions, such as the 1857 Indian Mutiny/First Indian War of
Independence.
B) “demonstrate understanding of debates on a broad range of issues relevant
to globalization,” the thematic range of topics and issues covered by this course
allow students to concentrate on global issues of personal interest to them,
including but not limited to human rights, cultural and economic racism, gender and
family roles, environmental controversy, and respect for religious pluralism.
Although the organizational framework of this course is centered in Great Britain,
European imperialism was an undeniable factor in “the process of growing global
interdependence” in the nineteenth century. For example, we read significant extracts
from Amitav Ghosh’s novels, Sea of Poppies, on the rise of the global opium industry
centered in India and River of Smoke, on the path toward the Opium Wars in China,
which highlight from multiple non-Western perspectives how characters were brought
together across classes and continents by the nineteenth-century global drug trade.
CCC Course Proposal Form
2013-2014
September 4th, 2013
[Learning] Primary document interpretations are brief but frequent, which intends
to help students practice this vital historical skill as well as to allow them to grapple
with firsthand perspectives representing a range of ideas and experiences brought
together around issues and events of global significance. In addition, the museum
exhibit analysis assignment will draw upon online exhibition sites (in absence of inperson opportunities) such as the Great Exhibition of 1851, which allowed national
and regional self-representation of historical and cultural traditions from around
the world, or the Anglo-Boer War Museum, which represents a particularly
controversial interpretation of the conflict from an anti-British, anti-imperialist
South Afrikaner (Boer) perspective.
C) “demonstrate understanding of issues of dependence and independence in
globalization.” This course teaches imperialism through a critical lens that seeks to
destabilize Eurocentric progress narratives of civilizing missions, white man’s burdens,
and exporting democracy. Rather, it emphasizes the historical processes of global
economic integration, cultural exchange, and the transnational migration of people,
goods, and ideas across nations and continents. One of the framing tasks of the first
phase of the course is to constantly interpret from primary and literary source texts
what Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days would have looked like from the
perspectives of the local hosts against that of the British traveler.
[Learning] Daily in-class activities, lectures, and readings continually make clear
that the empire is entirely interconnected and interdependent. Map activities lead
students to trace the transnational and global migration of people, goods, and
services throughout a vast network of imperial trade routes connecting not only the
British to their colonies but the colonies to one another. Through small group
presentations on illustrated children’s books related to daily life, students are asked
to think about the imperial and global context for what are often conceived of as
domestic or localized concerns from women’s suffrage and the Irish potato famine
to child labor and domestic service, but which are also part of a broader global chain
of changing conditions for the working classes, ethnic minorities, and women and
children in the metropole and across the empire. Many primary sources on the list
for interpretations facilitate comparative analyses by looking at how contemporary
historical figures drew parallels and sought cooperation among disparate groups
such as Irish and Indian nationalists, Anglo-American and non-western suffragists.
In addition, the historical issues of cause and effect are clear in the global changes in
imperial strategies following the American Revolution, the Indian Revolt, and the
Boer War. Students are asked to critically engage with the narratives put forth by
these displays to highlight the tensions in the global imperial relationships.
CCC Course Proposal Form
2013-2014
September 4th, 2013
Option #2: Demonstrate an understanding of the world from a specific nonU.S. and non-Western European viewpoint.
Because the geography of the Victorian Empire extends to India, the Caribbean, the
Pacific, the Middle East, East Asia, and Africa in the course of the nineteenth century,
this course is well poised to challenge students to recognize the distinctions and
interplay between Western and multiple non-Western perspectives on the global
impact of nineteenth century imperialism. For example, against Verne’s British hero
(whom we discuss as one competing representation of the idea British imperial
man) saving a potential victim of sati (widow immolation) in India, students read a
contemporary literary depiction of the socio-economic and cultural circumstances
under which a woman may driven to sati or the darker motivations and
consequences of Western moral outrage drove an anti-colonial resurgence of
defense for the controversial practice. The primary documents also offer such
perspectives as ex-slave narratives from Caribbean sugar plantations, Chinese
officials combating opium imports and Westernization, elected Irish MPs refused
their seats for being Catholic, speeches from the Pan-African movement, and the
rare memoir of an Indian widow and anti-colonial revolt leader.
[Learning]
Students use maps, online museum exhibits, non-Western texts, and primary
documents to rethink British/Western narratives of nineteenth century imperialism
from the diverse historical perspectives of global imperial subjects throughout the
semester. They are learning to critically engage with narratives reflecting political
power and privilege by contemplating, questioning, and undermining the dominant
imperial narratives and Western perspectives in a range of documents and artifacts
such as poetry, letters, textiles, stories, and firsthand accounts. Building upon lowerlevel historical skills, students must interpret primary sources against the polished
narratives provided by textbooks, lectures, and secondary sources.
A comprehensive take-home final provides a space for students to reflect upon their
individualized learning and to integrate the theoretical, empirical, and cultural
dimensions of the course. Students are provided with the final exam essay question
at the beginning of the course to help guide their thinking about the *big* theoretical
and thematic questions: What did it mean to be “At Home with the Empire”? How or
to what extent was this vision realized by the British Empire in the Victorian Age?
Consider why some colonies sought and were allowed or expected to become more or
less British than others, leading to both colonial emulation and anti-colonial
resistance. Specifically, how have scholarly and primary source perspectives shaped
our global and historical understanding of the Victorian Empire?
CCC Course Proposal Form
2013-2014
September 4th, 2013