History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | Empire and its Afterlives Module

cape town cropped

Empire and its Afterlives 3: Using primary sources to avoid simplistic narratives of history

By on November 5, 2021 in Learning in Focus, Public History

This is the third post in the Empire and its afterlives series. The introduction can be found here and the second installment here.   Several students mentioned current debates around #RhodesMustFall in South Africa and the UK and the idea of decolonising the curriculum, in order to reflect on what that might mean for the teaching of colonial history and its legacies. They had worked on a range of publications and reflections on the topic in class, and drew on their own reading as well to inform their discussions of the curriculum. Some students outlined ways in which black history and black political philosophy could be made a full part of […]

Continue Reading 0
Together_Art.IWMPST3158 cropped

Empire and its afterlives 2: How do you teach history with primary sources?

By on September 17, 2021 in Learning in Focus, Public History

This is the second post in the Empire and its afterlives series. The introduction can be found here. Primary sources represent a wide range of materials which historians can draw on, and students made the most of this diversity. The podcast episodes included discussions of armed forces recruitment posters, political speeches and pamphlets, as well as a board game, a novel, and a series of photographs by a renowned photojournalist. Two of the students selected a recruitment poster from the Second World War as their recommended source, but suggested different ways of including it into the English and Welsh curriculum. Drawing on two articles on active remembrance and military multicultural heritage […]

Continue Reading 0
SCALA_ARCHIVES_1039931700 cropped

Empire and its Afterlives 1: Applying the skills of the historian to the present

By on August 9, 2021 in Learning in Focus, Uncategorized

This is the first post in a series of four showcasing the work of second year students from across the University of Portsmouth Faculty of Social Sciences Click this link to see a video of George the Poet on the Benin Bronzes Empire and its Afterlives is a module available for second year students across History, Politics, International Development, International Relations and Languages. Newly created for the 2020/2021 academic year by Natalya Vince and Tony Chafer, it encouraged students to draw on research from a range of disciplines in order to better understand empires from a historical perspective, their legacies, and the way they are present and represented around us […]

Continue Reading 0