Gender and Empire

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This upper-level history course examines gender as an important lens through which to understand questions of empire, colonialism, and anti-colonialism, with a focus on the British, French, and US empires from the 18th century to the present. Students will explore the relationship between ideological and material structures of power and historical experience, and examine the relationship between categories such as race, class, religion, and gender in imperial contexts. We will be concerned with the deployment of femininities and masculinities to justify imperial ventures and to establish clear lines of demarcation between ruler and ruled. We discuss the intricacies and contradictions of colonial relationships across genders, and the impact on changing understandings of intimacy on both sides of the equation. We examine colonial policies in several areas - including the regulation of medicine and public health, sexuality, education, citizenship, secularism, and the law - as well as how people accommodated and challenged these policies as part of larger social and political transformations. Finally, we consider the ways in which processes of decolonization and nation-building were influenced by the gendered legacies of imperialism, including a discussion of 21st century parallels.