Sp. Topics: Pioneer Landscapes

Uitgebreide vaknaam	Special Topics: Pioneer Landscapes
Leerdoelen	Aims of the course: - to foster an understanding of the variety of colonial experiences in the Americas. - to consider how individuals, groups, and communities faced the challenges of settlement . - to explore how relationships between metropolis and colony shaped success and failure. - to study the discourses of the success and failure of colonial projects. - to explore different analytical methods for studying social relations. - to gain experience and skill in interpreting primary sources and critiquing scholarly literature. - to hone skills in oral presentation and discourse. - to practice and to improve skills in written communication and argument. Learning outcomes: At the end of this course, students will earn a passing grade if they can: - offer a skillful analysis of the varied factors that shaped colonial settlement. - demonstrate an understanding of the changing character of colonial projects over time. - examine “success” and “failure” using different analytical perspectives. - demonstrate an understanding of contemporary debates about the colonial experience. - analyze primary and secondary sources in a thoughtful, skillful way. - contribute actively and constructively to discussion. - write clear, well-argued essays that employ evidence from contemporary sources and refer to relevant scholarly publications.
Omschrijving	Accounts of the colonization of the Americas often represent Europeans’ success as inevitable. Colonizers had “guns, germs, and steel” and native peoples were bound to give way before them. But most colonial projects failed, sooner or later. Although their names may have been scrubbed from maps and memory, many defunct colonies had legacies that lasted long after they expired. This course examines the history and literature of failed colonies in the early Americas and beyond. It considers why most settlements initially struggled with survival, why some collapsed after promising starts, and why others only appeared in visionary proposals. It considers the difficulties colonizers faced in building new societies, polities, and economies in unfamiliar environments among wary and often hostile neighbors. Alongside this analysis of causes and effects, the course considers historical representations and the cultural legacies of these failures. It explores the fact-based fictions of colonizer-castaways, the arguments of early critics of colonialism, as well as the moral, political, and imperial lessons that contemporaries learned from failure.
Uren per week	4
Onderwijsvorm	werkcollege (2x2 uur werkcollege)
Toetsvorm	essay, wekelijkse opdrachten
Vaksoort	bachelor jr 2
Coördinator	M.L. Thompson
Docent(en)	dr. J. Pelgrom , M.L. Thompson
Entreevoorwaarden	Toegang tot het tweede jaar, d.w.z. minimaal 45 ECTS behaald uit de propedeuse van de BA American Studies.
Opmerkingen	80% Mandatory attendance in seminars. Students are expected to participate actively in discussions during seminars and to duly carry out all assignments. This module can be taken as an elective. Major students take precedence.
Opgenomen in	Opleiding Jaar Periode Type Ba American Studies 2 semester II b keuzegroep