Admission requirements
This course is part of the (Res)MA History Programme. Students from within the specialization the course belongs to have right of way. It is not accessible for BA students.
Description
This Literature Seminar is part of the MA sub-specialization ‘Heritage and Postcolonial studies’. It offers students the unique opportunity of a training in critical theorizing on, and research approaches towards the politics and practices of knowledge production, heritage formation, and archives, in colonial and postcolonial situations.
We include, but also look beyond notions and problems of ‘the’ (colonial) archive, the museum, heritage sites, and other sites of research often referred to as ‘the field’. In the specialization, we gain insight into the power-relations that shaped knowledge, and the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, generated by archival and heritage formation at these sites, within and beyond the frameworks of (post-)colonial state formation.
Yet while devices to ‘read along the grain’ (Stoler) or ‘against the grain’ (Guha) still seem to take for granted that only by critical deciphering the colonial archive we can come closer to marginalized perspectives, in this MA-sub-specialization, we approach, and question, the notion of archives in a broader, dynamic way. We discuss alternative sources (like objects), archives, museums and sites, their social biographies, and other ways of studying them that may help us in this enquiry. These sources vary from material culture and heritage sites in public and private spaces to formal and informal associational archives and libraries.
You will learn to recognize and understand the role of various forms of knowledge and knowledge practices that can be traced back in different kinds of archives, the changing power relations in colonial and postcolonial knowledge production, and in the collecting histories and makings of heritage, museum collections, and archives, on their range and diversity, and on their problems and uses for historical research.
You will get familiarized with older and recent postcolonial and decolonial debates about how to manage archives and heritage in postcolonial times, and on how to make these accessible and open up for inclusive and transnational historical research regarding colonial and postcolonial history.
The seminar also addresses the problems of archiving in response to digitization, and within the framework of decolonization debates. What does the digitization era imply for the compilation, management, politics, and uses of archives? And how does it help bringing into light plural perspectives alternative to those directed by the archive?
Insights from this literature seminar will remain relevant for those students who wish to be trained as experts in the field of archival or heritage politics.
Course objectives
General learning objectives
The student has acquired:
The ability to analyse and evaluate literature with a view to addressing a particular historical problem;
The ability to give a clear and well-founded oral and written report on research results in correct English, when required, or Dutch, meeting the criteria of the discipline;
The ability to provide constructive feedback to and formulate criticism of the work of others and the ability to evaluate the value of such criticism and feedback on one’s own work and incorporate it;
The ability to participate in current debates in the specialisation;
(ResMA only:) The ability to participate in a discussion of the theoretical foundations of the discipline.
Learning objectives, pertaining to the specialisation
The student has acquired:
- Thorough knowledge and comprehension of one of the specialisations or subtracks as well as of the historiography of the specialisation Colonial and Global History, focusing particularly on how global (political, socio-economic, and cultural) connections interact with regional processes of identity and state formation; hence insight in cross-cultural processes (including the infrastructure of shipping and other modes of communication) that affect regions across the world such as imperialism, colonisation, islamisation, modernisation and globalisation (in particular during the period 1200-1940).
-in the subtrack Postcolonial and Heritage Studies: the history and politics of cultural knowledge production and heritage formation (including archives) in colonial and postcolonial situations, at local, transnational and global levels; insight into processes of cultural decolonization, questioning the nature, legacies and (dis-)connections of colonial power structures in present-day societies, regarding culture, heritage politics, Orientalism, museums, collecting, etcetara. Understanding heritage in the broadest sense – including archives, museums, historical sites, objects, sites of memory, rituals – as the prism to study these problems.
- (ResMA only): Thorough knowledge and comprehension of the theoretical foundation of the discipline and of its position vis-à-vis other disciplines.
Learning objectives, pertaining to this Literature Seminar
The student has acquired:
the ability to work with a broad and mobile notion of knowledge, archives and heritage;
the ability to analyse, compare and relate forms of knowledge, and processes of heritage formation including archives at multiple locations;
the ability to recognize, question, understand the role of multiple power relations and changing hierarchies, in knowledge production, and in the makings and uses of sites of heritage including archives.
Timetable
The timetables are available through MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
- Seminar (compulsory attendance)
This means that students must attend every session of the course. If a student is not able to attend, he is required to notify the lecturer beforehand. The teacher will determine if and how the missed session can be compensated by an additional assignment. If specific restrictions apply to a particular course, the lecturer will notify the students at the beginning of the semester. If a student does not comply with the aforementioned requirements, the student will be excluded from the seminar.
Assessment method
Assessment
- Essay
measured learning objectives: 1-6, 8-10 (ResMA also: 5, 7)
- Weekly written assignments
measured learning objectives: 1-2, 4, 6, ,8-10 (ResMA also: 5,7)
- Oral Presentation(s)
*measured learning objectives: 1-4, 6, 8-10 (ResMA also: 5,7 ) *
- Participation in group discussion
*measured learning objectives: 1-4, 6 , 8-10(ResMa also 5,7) *
Weighing
Essay: 40 %
Weekly assignments: 25 %
Oral presentation: 25 %
Participation: 10 %
Deadlines
Assignments and written papers should be handed in within the deadline as provided in the relevant course outline on Brightspace.
Resit
Should the overall mark be unsatisfactory, the paper is to be revised after consultation with the instructor.
Inspection and feedback
How and when a review of the written paper will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the results, a review of the written paper will have to be organised.
Reading list
The readings for this Literature Seminar will be made available 2 weeks in advance of the start. Requisite reading, ca. 90-120 pages of literature every week, is normally available at Leiden University Library. Some literature can be downloaded open access in the Library; other will be made available on reserved bookshelves at Leiden University, to be copied by students themselves.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Contact
For course related questions, contact one of the lecturers:
Marieke Bloembergen: e-mail Bloembergen@kitlv.nl; by appointment only on Tuesday-afternoons *). E-mails will normally be answered on Tuesdays.
Fenneke Sysling, e-mail: f.h.sysling@hum.leidenuniv.nl
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga.
Remarks
All other information.