Undergraduate - UnitATS2930 - Encounters and empire: Europe and the world

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	History
Offered	Not offered in 2013
Coordinator(s)	Dr Adam Clulow

Synopsis

From the medieval period onwards, expansion brought Europeans increasingly into contact with diverse cultures and civilizations. This unit explores how encounters between Europe and the world were transformed from the tentative and uncertain contacts that characterised earlier periods to the self-confident imperialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather than analysing the broad sweep of political history, we are interested in the leading edge of cross-cultural encounters: in travellers, diplomats, and slaves who 'crossed-over' to engage with new cultural worlds, in the tools that made these encounters possible and in the commodities that underpinned global exchange.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will:

gain a broad understanding of the historical timeline of European expansion
gain a clear understanding of key historical debates about the rise of the West
gain a thorough understanding of how cross-cultural encounters changed over time
gain a clear understanding of different theoretical approaches that historians have used to conceptualise Europe's encounters with the world
explore the evolution of historical debates over Orientalism
be able to recognize and analyse key historical themes in the history of cross-cultural encounters
learn how to work with archival sources
learn how to use visual sources (such as maps) effectively in research
have further developed their oral and written communication skills

Students successfully completing this unit at a Third Year level will have acquired, in addition:

independent research skills across a range of historical source areas.

Assessment

Class participation - 10%
Primary source analysis - 10% (500 words)
Submitted by the end of week 4
Image analysis - 20% (1000 words)
Research essay - 40% (1500 words)
Class test - 20%