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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2019/2020

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of History, Classics and Archaeology : History

Undergraduate Course: The Bandung Moment: Revolution, Anti-Imperialism and Afro-Asian Connections in the Global Twentieth Century (HIST10391)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of History, Classics and Archaeology CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits40 ECTS Credits20
SummaryIn 1955, leaders of the newly independent states in Africa, Asia and the Middle East gathered in Bandung in Indonesia for a conference which they hoped would mark the beginning of a new world order. Twenty-nine countries were present, representing over 1.3 billion people, a majority of the world's population at the time. This course takes the 'Bandung moment' as a starting point from which to explore the theme of anti-imperialist thought and action and Afro-Asian solidarity in the global history of the twentieth century.
Course description The course starts by setting the Bandung conference in its immediate context - in Bandung, in Indonesia and in the political context of the Cold War and the birth of the post-colonial world. We then move away from the conference itself to consider the roots of anti-imperialist thought and Afro-Asian solidarity from the late nineteenth century, before moving on to explore anti-imperialist thought from a series of angles including revolution and violence, socialism and economic thinking, religion, culture and universal human rights, with an eye to comparisons and connections across time and space. Running through the course will be an interrogation of competing ideas of freedom, its meaning and the best path towards its realization.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.
Before enrolling students on this course, Personal Tutors are asked to contact the History Honours Admission Administrator to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 50 3780).
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, command of key themes in the history of anti-imperialist thinking, the Bandung moment and the emergence of the Afro-Asian world and the global South.
  2. demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, an ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon current historiographical debates around the meaning and significance of the Bandung moment .
  3. demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, an ability to understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material.
  4. demonstrate, by way of oral presentations, seminar participation, coursework and examination as required, the ability to develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence.
  5. demonstrate independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers.
Reading List
Selected primary sources
George McTurnan Kahin (1956) The Asian-African Conference (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press

Wright, Richard, The Colour Curtain: a report on the Bandung Conference, London: D. Dobson, 1956

Selected secondary sources
Amrith, Sunil, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013

Burke, Roland, Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010

Finnane, Antonia and McDougall, Derek, Bandung 1955: little histories, Caulfield East, Vic: Monash University Press, 2010

Hoffmann, Stefan-Ludwig, Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, Esp. Introduction and Chapters 5, 7, 11 and 13

Lee, C.J., Making a world after empire: the Bandung moment and its political afterlives, Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 2010

Mackie, Jamie, Bandung 1955: non-alignment and Afro-Asian solidarity, Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006

Mazower, Mark, No Enchanted Palace: The end of empire and the origins of the United Nations, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009

Mrazek, Rudolf, A certain age: colonial Jakarta through the memories of its intellectuals, Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2010

Prashad, Vijay, The Darker Nations: a people's history of the Third World, New York: New Press, 2008

Shimazu, Naoko, 'Diplomacy as Theatre: Staging the Bandung Conference of 1955', Modern Asian Studies, 48, 1, 2014, 225-252
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsBandung
Contacts
Course organiserDr Emma Hunter
Tel: (0131 6)50 4034
Email: Emma.Hunter@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Alexandra Adam
Tel: (0131 6)50 3767
Email: alex.adam@ed.ac.uk
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