2023/2024

Colonial and Post-Colonial Political Thought and Policy

Type: Mago-Lego

Delivered by: School of Politics and Governance

When: 1 module

Open to: students of all HSE University campuses

Instructors: Ksenia Gerasimova

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 30

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course surveys 500+ years of world history through the prism of encounters between “the West” and “the Rest,” beginning with the Age of Great Discoveries, including the famous trip of Christopher Columbus and the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Fernão Peres de Andrade in Ming China in 1517 till modern days. It provides deeper focus on the buzz words, such as colonialism, empirialism, decolonization, biocolonialism and neocolonialism. They appear in the literature and current media reports, but can the students properly address them? After the course it will be for sure. The course is of academic nature to provide the students with an opportunity to study in depth the classic texts that are key to understanding the development of the postcolonial and anti-colonial thought and explain the postcolonial discourse of international development. Conceptually, the course aims: 1) to analyze the main discourses that characterized the self-narration(s) that European colonial school built on their hegemonic world-view and actions; 2) to explore differences between postcolonial and decolonial discourses, focusing on the use of concepts such as civilization, colonization, sovereignty, hegemony, nationalism; 3) to introduce narrations as products of specific context(s) marked by peculiar conflicts/debates and 4) introduce students to a critical theory of historical geography and cultural representations. The final learning goal of this course is the writing of a full-length research paper based on a combination of primary and secondary sources. All the prior assignments, alongside individual supervision and consultation with the instructor, will guide the students on their path to the successful completion of this intellectually challenging task. The last two classes will be invited speakers from Thailand and Kenya. Learning Outcomes By the end of the course the student will be able to:

Learning Objectives

• Conceptually, the course aims: 1) to analyze the main discourses that characterized the self-narration(s) that European colonial school built on their hegemonic world-view and actions; 2) to explore differences between postcolonial and decolonial discourses, focusing on the use of concepts such as civilization, colonization, sovereignty, hegemony, nationalism; 3) to introduce narrations as products of specific context(s) marked by peculiar conflicts/debates and 4) introduce students to a critical theory of historical geography and cultural representations.  The final learning goal of this course is the writing of a full-length research paper based on a combination of primary and secondary sources. All the prior assignments, alongside individual supervision and consultation with the instructor, will guide the students on their path to the successful completion of this intellectually challenging task.
• develop comparative analysis skills

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Able to learn anthropological perspective on house as a method.
• A student knows the history of the discipline and subfields
• A student knows the main approaches in the field and can use the main methods in political science

Course Contents

• Introduction to the topic of the Great Geographical Discoveries as a new epoch
• Narratives and Contact Zones
• Type of encounters

Assessment Elements

• Case studies group work
  students should work in a group at the assigned case study
• Evaluation report/Policy brief

Interim Assessment

• 2023/2024 1st module
  0.4 * Case studies group work + 0.6 * Evaluation report/Policy brief

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Arab representations of the Occident : East-West encounters in Arabic fiction, El-Enany, R., 2011
• Beyond the Pale: The Jewish encounter with late imperial Russia, Nathans, B., 2002
• Chinese encounters in Southeast Asia : how people, money, and ideas from China are changing a region, , 2017
• Cultural encounters in the Arab Wold : on media, the modern and the everyday, Sabry, T., 2010
• Empires and Encounters: 1350–1750, , 2015
• The essential Wallerstein, Wallerstein, I., 2000

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Wallerstein, I. M. (DE-588)11862878X, (DE-627)035157690, (DE-576)163467552, aut. (2004). World-systems analysis an introduction Immanuel Wallerstein.