Postgraduate Course: Gender, Empire, and Labour in the Nineteenth Century: Perspectives from the Wider World (PGHC11520)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The nineteenth-century saw structural changes in technologies and relations of work across the globe. As the expansion of European empires contributed to the growth of an integrated world market, categories of labour went into transformation to reflect new roles for women and men in economic production. |
| Course description |
This course explores the gendering of labour markets in the nineteenth century from a perspective that is attuned to questions of local and individual agency as well as structural and institutional change. It sketches global patterns in nineteenth-century notions of work, skill, authority, and public/private spheres, highlighting the historical and ideological origins of 'feminine' and 'masculine' technologies and professions in non-European settings. It should be of equal interest to history students and those interested in any aspect of gender and trans-national and comparative analysis.
Although this course adopts a global perspective in examining the transformation of labour markets, it nonetheless has a geographical and thematical focus. The readings may include case studies from various parts of the wider world, including Japan, South Africa, and the Caribbean; but the majority will be concerned with the Ottoman Empire and India. In a range of activities that may be described as 'work', the priority will be given to free waged labour in the manufacturing sector, paid and unpaid domestic work, and unfree labour in the agricultural sector. Accordingly, lower-class women and men will play a large role in this course. The choice of locations and themes is not coincidental: the readings reflect gaps in the global historiography of work and gender. They also build bridges between regions that have so far been studied in isolation.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 History courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. Applicants should note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Critically situate a diverse body of scholarship on labour in a world-historical context
- Analyse, appraise, and critique secondary and primary historical sources on South Asia and the Middle East; identify parallels and contrasts between the histories of the two regions
- Demonstrate an in-depth and critical command of the body of feminist scholarship on labour, empire, and gender in the wider world
- Utilise non-textual resources such as sounds, images, and objects to overcome gaps in conventional sources
- Demonstrate a high degree of intellectual autonomy and integrity, and an ability to critically evaluate and improve the work of peers
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Reading List
1. Andreas Eckert, ed., Global Histories of Work (De Gruyter, 2018).
2. Kathi Weeks, The Problem With Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (Duke University Press, 2011).
3. Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker, eds., A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Westview Press, 1999).
4. Els Hiemstra-Kuperus, Lex Heerma van Voss, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, eds., The Ashgate Companion to the History of Textile Workers, 1650-2000(Routledge, 2016).
5. Samita Sen, Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry(Cambridge University Press, 1999).
6. Donald Quataert, 'Ottoman Women, Households and Textile Manufacturing, 1800-1914' in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, Nikki R. Keddie and Beth Baron, eds. (Yale University Press, 1992).
7. Judith E. Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1985).
8. Madeline C. Zilfi, Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
9. Madhavi Kale, Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Labour Migration in the British Caribbean (Philadelphia University Press, 1998).
10. Priyanka Srivastava, The Well Being of the Labour Force in Colonial Bombay (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
11. Philippa Lavine, ed., Gender and Empire (Oxford University Press, 2009).
12. Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton University Press, 2009). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Hatice Yildiz
Tel: (0131 6)50 2378
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Cristina Roman
Tel: (0131 6)50 4577
Email: |
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