Postgraduate Course: Slavery, Forced Labour and Identity in African History (PGHC11150)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The history of modern slavery is primarily about an ever-widening circle of enslavement of peoples from Africa south of the Sahara. Whereas this is well known, what is less appreciated is the extent to which the slave trades were also bound up with the expansion of slavery as an institution within Africa. This course makes these linkages explicit, and pursues the topic through to the eventual ending of slavery in the colonial period. It examines the trans-Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades, indigenous forms of servitude and the replacement of slavery and pawnship with various forms of coerced labour in the twentieth century. Issue of identity will also be explored, not merely in respect of the distinction between slave and unfree, but also in the shaping of new religious and ethnic identities. Consideration will also be given to the slave voice, drawing on slave narratives such as the eighteenth-century autobiography of Olaudah Equiano. The course, which is overtly comparative, is structured around a number of key debates in a rapidly expanding field. Students will also have an opportunity to engage with relevant contemporary texts, including writings by abolitionists and anti-abolitionists and colonial officials. The course will deal with West, West-Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, although the balance between them may shift from one year to the next. |
| Course description |
Not entered
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
It is anticipated that students will emerge from the course with:
-A clearer understanding of how Africais experience of slavery relates to that of slave systems at other times and places;
-A greater sense of how the trajectories of different regions of Africa have been influenced by slavery;
-An enhanced ability to engage critically with historiographical debates;
-Improved presentation skills, given that the course will be run on the basis of seminars;
-A greater familiarity with the available source material and the advantages and pitfalls attached to each kind.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Course will take place in Paul Nugent's Office in the Centre for African Studies, 21 George Square. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Paul Nugent
Tel: (0131 6)50 3756
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Lindsay Scott
Tel: (0131 6)50 9948
Email: |
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