Interdisciplinary and decolonial history

Module Identifier: HY24320
Module Title: Interdisciplinary and decolonial history
Academic Year: 2027/2028
Semester: Semester 2
Co-ordinator: Dr Diana Valencia-Duarte
Reading List: View on Aspire
Other Staff: Dr Yi Li

Assessment

Assessment Type	Assessment details	Proportion
Semester Assessment	Blog entry: 1000 Words	25%
Semester Assessment	Project: 3000 Words	75%
Supplementary Assessment	Resit essay: 3000 Words	75%
Supplementary Assessment	Blog entry: 1000 Words	25%

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of new trends in history.
Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of interdisciplinary and its challenges and advantages.
Demonstrate an understanding of the challenges of decolonial history.

Brief description

History is one of the most universal realms of knowledge, being able to feed old and new conversations across many other different disciplines, studies and sciences. Reciprocally, scholars from other backgrounds have increasingly turned to history and the historical methods to find answers to many key questions within their areas of knowledge. This reality has posed new challenges to historians in the midst of a plethora of new concepts, methodologies, practices, perspectives and sources. The emergence of decolonial, antiracist, feminist, queer, indigenous epistemologies has also enriched the field.
This module introduces concepts such as interdisciplinarity, decolonial history, history with gender, racial or generational perspectives, participatory methodologies, living memory in contemporary history, quantitative history, or digital humanities among others. It aims to engage students into experimenting and ‘playing’ with novel and original forms of doing history and with critical ways to approach historiography, scholarly literature and primary sources, with confidence.

Aims

This module aims to make students more aware of new trends in history which had led the discipline to break boundaries between diverse areas of knowledge and absorb new theories and ideas for the analysis of the past. It will also promote creativity and critical thinking in the study of history.

Content

Weekly 2-hour seminars:

1. Introductory session: Interdisciplinarity in/of history
2. ‘New’ historical subjects and sources
3. Quantitative methods for history
4. Histories from below and the critique to positivism
5. Historical memory and research through creation
6. Decolonising history and decolonial history
7. Antiracist and anticolonial historians
8. Digital humanities for historians
9. Herstories and queerstories: gender and genderational analysis
10. Non-linear histories: Participatory methodologies

Module skills

Skills type	Skills details
Communication	Oral and written communication skills will be developed through seminars and feedback on written work. These skills will be assessed through assignments.
Improving own Learning and Performance	Written work will be returned in tutorials where advice will be given regarding the improvement of research and techniques and essay writing skills
Information Technology	This module aims to develop digital skills to work with methodologies of digital humanities for historians and principles of Big Data for historians.
Personal Development and Career planning	This module will develop oral and written skills. It will also prepare students for careers which involve the research, critical analysis and presentation of material relevant to a particular problem or set of problems
Problem solving	Students are expected to note and respond to historical problems which arise as part of the study of this subject area, and to undertake suitable research for seminars and essays.
Research skills	Students will be required to carry out research for seminars and written work.
Subject Specific Skills	This module is designed to introduce new trends in history that range from decolonisation to digital tools, providing a base of knowledge and understanding that will support future innovative research.
Team work	Through module activities, including small group deliveries as part of the seminars.

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 5