Module HIST57630: Race, ethnicity and conflict in twentieth-century Sudan

Department: History

HIST57630: Race, ethnicity and conflict in twentieth-century Sudan

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• To enable students to study at an advanced level the nature of racial and ethnic conflicts in twentieth-century Sudan which will thus enable students to acquire specific learning outcomes of the programme as whole including:
• a specialist knowledge of imperial history
• bibliographic skills
• an understanding of historical debates
• advanced skills in writing history
• general skills of the historian

Content

• This module will cover the history of group conflict in the Sudan during the twentieth century, and will draw selectively on the literature for other parts of Africa to provide a theoretical and comparative background for the study of events in the Sudan. The course will reflect current debate on these subjects, and the particular interests of the student. Topics may include: the role of the colonial state in fostering ethnic and racial divisions; the importance of group affiliation in the mobilization of political constituencies since independence; the relationships between education, religion and the construction of ideologies of group identity; the role in the civil war of an historicizing discourse of racial antagonism; and the place of ethnicity in warlordism and factionalism in the south of the country.

Learning Outcomes

• Students should acquire an understanding of the theoretical debates over group identity in African history and should become aware of the boundaries of current knowledge relating to the subject.
• Students should acquire detailed knowledge and critical understanding of one topic chosen in conjunction with the supervisor.

• Students should be able to undertake a programme of intensive reading directed at a number of topics, and should be able to participate in regular discussion of issues arising from the reading with their supervisor.
• Students should then be able to produce an extensive piece of writing on this agreed subject.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

Discussion of work in progress. Written or oral comments on any other agreed written assignment, such as a book review or exploratory essay. In addition, supervisors will normally read and provide written comments on not more than one draft of work being prepared for summative assessment.