Prospectus

nl en

Global Connected Histories in World Politics

Course
2024-2025

This seminar is earmarked for IP

Description

This course introduces students to the global connected histories of world politics through the exploration of the entangled histories of various processes, structures, and institutions that have historically shaped and constituted modern world politics and international order. As an alternative to Eurocentric histories of world politics, global connected histories examine the historical entanglements, interconnections, circulations and diffusions of ideas, knowledges, and practices between various actors and polities across various tempo-spatial realms – e.g., between Europe and Asia – that were made possible through trade, war, diplomacy, colonial expansions, empire-making, mobility, travel, migration, technology, and the dissemination of ideas and knowledge. The course consists of fourteen discussion-based seminars and is divided into two parts. The first part of the course explores what global connected histories are and how they can be studied through various approaches. Subsequent to this, the second part of the course proceeds to a tour d'horizon of various cases of global connected histories in world politics. These include the global connected history of sovereignty and territoriality, the constitution of international law from the sixteenth century onwards, the multicultural foundation of global capitalism in the early modern period, the connected histories of race and racialization, and the connected histories of empires and imperialism. In addition to these subjects, the course also explores the global connected histories of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Atlantic revolutions, the connected histories of women’s rights movements in world politics, the entangled histories of European colonialism and genocide in the nineteenth and twentieth century, the connected intellectual histories of cosmopolitanism, human rights and emancipation, next to the connected histories of anticolonialist and independence movements in Africa and Asia and decolonization in the twentieth century.

Learning Goals

This course has the following objectives:

  1. Teaching students to think and explore in non-Eurocentric terms the entangled and globally connected histories of various processes, structures, and institutions that have historically shaped and constituted modern world politics and international order.
  2. Teaching and introducing to students historical and political-sociological approaches through which global connected histories of processes, structures, institutions, and/or events in world politics can be analyzed and researched, whilst reflecting and critically evaluate these approaches
  3. Familiarizing and exploring with students various historically and globally connected processes, structures, institutions, events, and/or practices in world politics that have shaped contemporary international politics.
  4. Encouraging and motivating students to develop their own research ideas and guiding them in the conduct of their research for their research paper.
  5. Enabling students to critically reflect upon, recognize, and problematize Eurocentric and West-centric narratives and histories of and about world politics.

Mode of Instruction

The course will be composed of student-centered seminars. This means that students need to actively participate in their own education by doing the essential readings in advance of each seminar, attending the seminars, thinking about the core readings in a critical and reflexive way, and by engaging in constructive discussions during the seminars. Each seminar’s reading is accompanied by a question to orient the seminar discussions. Attending the seminars is mandatory and active participation and contributions to discussions is part of the final grade.

Assessment Method

The assessment of this course consists of three parts, each of which counts to some degree towards the final grade:

  • Active participation in class discussions (20%).

  • In-class oral presentation (30%).

  • Final Paper (50%).

Resit: The possibility for a resit is only available for the final paper, in case the final paper has been handed in by the assigned deadline and graded below a 5.5. There is no resit possibility for active participation in the seminars, which counts for 20% of the final grade, nor for the oral presentation. Students, therefore, need to attend the seminars, participate, and prepare the oral presentation on time and in accordance with its outlined criteria.

Literature

De in de cursus te gebruiken boektitels en/of syllabi. Waar deze te koop zijn en hoe de literatuur vooraf moet worden bestudeerd. Houd rekening met de regels voor het auteursrecht (Auteursrechten informatiepunt). De boetes zijn hoog!

The reading list and the course syllabus will be posted on Brightspace before the start of the course.

Registration

See Practical Information

Timetable

See 'MyTimetable'

Contact

Dr. Anahita Arian
E: a.arian@fsw.leidenuniv.nl