81961 - HISTORY OF COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL SPACES (1) (LM)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

At the end of the course students will reach an understanding of the social and cultural history of areas of the world that have been subject to modern colonial rule and that, in most cases, experienced a subsequent phase of political decolonization. Students will be able to critically engage in the study of different kinds of sources, using a comparative perspective. They will acquire the analytical tools needed to properly investigate the complex social, cultural, and political realities of colonial and postcolonial spaces. At the end of the course, students will also be able to deploy their analytical skills in professional activities linked with the popularization and public use of historical knowledge.

Contenuti

This course aims to analyze different aspects of global political networks in the context of entangled history. This year, the main focus of the course is the relations between international visions, empire and the environment. The course will discuss the ideas of main political thinkers, recent literature on the topic, and key concepts related to the interplay of the natural and political spheres on a global scale.

The course is divided into five thematic parts. In each part, students will be required to read and discuss one article or book chapter (additional readings available (these readings are marked in bold). Students may be required to do brief presentations of the readings in class or in small groups. All attending students are requested to prepare the required readings carefully, in order to be able to participate in class discussions. All the readings are uploaded in 'Virtuale' or available at the library.

The first part of the course looks at the histories of international political thought and the environment in the 19th century, focusing on the problem of imperial expansion and resource extraction.

The second part looks at different ideas of environmental international governance.

The third part examines key issues around resources, such as fossils and oil, as part of global political visions.

The fourth part examines ideas about water sources such as oceans, rivers and the international legal structures to govern them.

The fifth topic will be dedicated to the notion of ‘crisis’ and to ideas about planetary government of nature.

Part 1: International thought and the environment

1) Imperial Connections, industrialization and ecological critique
Amrith, S. (2024). The burning earth: An environmental history of the last 500 years. 

2) Settler colonialism and climate
Kennedy, D. (2017). "The perils of the midday sun: Climatic anxieties in the colonial tropics". In Imperialism and the natural world. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.

3) Race and anticolonialism

Frank Gerits, The Anticolonial Scramble for Africa, 2024. chapter 7.

4) Indigenous visions
Reed, G., Brunet, N. D., McGregor, D., Scurr, C., Sadik, T., Lavigne, J., & Longboat, S. (2024). There is no word for ‘nature’ in our language: rethinking nature-based solutions from the perspective of Indigenous Peoples located in Canada. Climatic Change, 177(2), Article 32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03682-w

Part 2: Economics

5) The market
Pierre Charbonnier, Affluence and Freedom: an environmental history of political ideas (Polity, 2021), chapter 7.

6) Limits to Growth

Part 3: Conflicts and resources

7) Fossil fuel
Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (Verso, 2016), introduction.

8) Oil
Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (Verso, 2011), introduction. 
9) War
J.R. Mcneill, “The biosphere and the Cold War”, The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol 3.(2010).

Part 4: Water

10) The Law of the Sea

Ranganathan, Surabhi, The Seabed and the South: From Stock Stories to New Histories of International Lawmaking. (2024) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment forthcoming,

11) Rivers
Yao, Joanne. The Ideal River: How Control of Nature Shaped the International Order. 1st ed.., 2022, introduction.

12) Contested ecologies

Philippe Sands, The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy (W&N, 2022).

Part 5: Crisis

13) Pollution
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962)

14) Planetary community
Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Planet: An Emergent Humanist Category (2019). https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/705298

15) The anthropocene

Bonneuil, Christophe., Fressoz, Jean-Baptiste. The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us. United Kingdom: Verso, 2016, introduction.

Testi/Bibliografia

Students may use this suggested bibliography to enrich their knowledge on the course themes, in addition to the indicated readings for each session.

Armitage, David. Foundations of Modern International Thought. Cambridge ;New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

———. ‘The Fifty Years Rift: Intellectual History and International Relations’. Modern Intellectual History 1, no. 1 (April 2004): 97–109. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244303000027.

Bartelson, Jens. Visions of World Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Bell, Duncan, ed. Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

———. The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Boer, Pim den, Peter Bugge, and Ole Wæver. The History of the Idea of Europe. Edited by Kevin Wilson and W. J. van der Dussen. London: Routledge, 1995.

Bosco, Andrea, ed. The Federal Idea. Vol. 1, The History of Federalism from the Enlightenment to 1945. London: Lothian Foundation Press, 1991.

———, ed. The Federal Idea Vol. 2, The History of Federalism since 1945. London: Lothian Foundation Press, 1992.

Campbell, Courtney J. ‘Space, Place and Scale: Human Geography and Spatial History in Past and Present’. Past & Present. Accessed 2 May 2017. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtw006.

Eggers, N., Pearson, J. L., & Almada e Santos, A. (2020). The United Nations and Decolonization. United Kingdom: Routledge

Hotta, Eri. Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Long, David. Towards a New Liberal Internationalism: The International Theory of J.A. Hobson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Macekura Stephen J. and Erez Manela eds. The Development Century: A Global History, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Manela, Erez, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

Mazower, Mark. Governing the World: The History of an Idea. London: Allen Lane, 2012.

Pedersen, Susan, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire. New York: Oxford University. Press, 2015.

Porter, Bernard. The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Owens, P. (2022). Women's international thought : towards a new canon. Cambridge University Press.

Owens, P., & Rietzler, K. (2021). Women's international thought. A new history. Cambridge University Press.

Sluga, Glenda, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

Sluga, Glenda and Patricia Clavin, Internationalisms: A Twentieth Century History, Cambridge Cambridge Univerity Press.

Metodi didattici

Frontal lectures, slides, students' presentations, class discussion, analysis of sources, database research.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Assessment methods

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending

Attending students will be evaluated through the final examination (100%).

The final exam is a paper on a topic of the student’s choice (12 credits). The student can choose to write the paper with Prof Rosenboim or Prof Bonazza, according to their topic of interest and to the professors’ availability. The topic of the paper and the research question must be agreed in advance with the professor. The length of the paper will be up to 6500 words including notes and bibliography. The paper must critically engage with the existing historiography on the chosen topic. The paper must be based on at least 6 academic secondary sources, which may include but not limited to the course’s bibliography. Proper use of the English language, adequate presentation and academic style will be part of the evaluation. The paper must have proper references in footnotes and a bibliography. For the references, Chicago Style is preferred but not mandatory.

Non-attending students are required to write the final paper (following the same guidelines as the attending students) and in addition to do a written exam. The written exam is based on 2 books, and includes 6 questions (3 for each book). The exam lasts 1.5 hours and will be taken in person at the computer lab.

During the academic year 2024/2025 there will be 6 available dates to undertake the exam. The dates will be published on the webpage of Prof. Rosenboim and Prof. Bonazza (each professor holds 3 exam dates).

The required readings for the written exam are:

Pierre Charbonnier, Affluence and Freedom: an environmental history of political ideas (Polity, 2021),

M’hamed Oualdi, A Slave between Empires. A Transimperial History of North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020)

 

 

Please note: The module is part of the integrated course Entangled Histories (12 credits). Students who attend this module, but did not attend Prof Bonazza's module, will have (in addition to the research paper) a short written exam (25% of the final mark) with 3 questions, based on this book:

M’hamed Oualdi, A Slave between Empires. A Transimperial History of North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020)

 

Exam sessions for the written exam and for the final paper (separately) are scheduled for the following months of the academic year:

- May 2026

- July 2026

- Sept 2026

- Nov 2026

- Jan 2027

- March 2027

* Regarding written exam for non attending students, some sessions will be published on the web page of Dr Rosenboim, and others by Dr Bonazza, from which you can choose freely.

Marking criteria:

Proper language and the ability to critically analyze relevant topics will lead to a good/excellent final grade (27-30L)

Acceptable language and the ability to resume relevant topics will lead to a sufficient/fair grade (22-26)

poor language and a superficial knowledge of relevant topics will lead to the minimum grade to pass the exam (18-21)

Insufficient linguistic proficiency and fragmentary knowledge of relevant topics will lead to a failure in passing the exam

 

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

database research, virtuale, seminari.

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who require specific services and adaptations to teaching activities due to a disability or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the appropriate office:

[https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students]

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Or Rosenboim