Radicals and Revolutionaires

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

What does the world look like when viewed from the perspective of those who seek to challenge the status quo? How do provocative and disruptive ideas emerge, take root and ultimately re-shape the world around us? And why do others become contested, discredited or otherwise unappealing? Join us on an exploration of key moments in global history where challenges to dominant ideas, social norms, political hierarchies and cultural behaviours have shaken accepted truths, myths and realities. This course offers an introductory thematic overview to nine critical moments from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries, travelling around the globe to explore histories of political revolution, abolitionism, feminism, anti-capitalism, environmentalism, queer identities, decolonisation, political violence and anarchy. Each week, we will encounter individuals, groups, communities and states who have sought to confront the mainstream by proposing radical social and political alternatives, often in places that have been left out of traditional historical narratives. We will examine case studies in South and Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. In doing so we consider how thinking about global connections can revolutionise our own understandings of history and of our place in the world.