Course Catalogue

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This course offers an overview of Black communities by focusing on past and contemporary cases from the Americas, the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom. From Colonial Brazil to present-day Toxteth District in Liverpool, its main purpose is to provide students with an opportunity to learn about the Black experience beyond the conventional framework of slavery studies.

1 x 1hr lecture and 1 x 1hr seminar per week for 10 weeks. This is one of the Honours options in History and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.

Available to all students fulfilling requirements for Honours entry into History, and by arrangement to visiting students or students of other Honours programmes who qualify under the University's 25% regulation.

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Source Analysis (1,200 words) 40%
Research Essay (2,500 words) 60%

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

This course aims to:

■ Learn about past and contemporary Black communities in the Diaspora including comparative analysis of similarities and differences.

■ Critically engage with the legacies of those communities through an afrodiasporic framework

■ Understand the meaning and importance of concepts such as quilombismo and marronage to study the Black experience

■ Promote student-led discussion that will strengthen their confidence and skills through source criticism, analysis, and interpretation.

■ Develop skills in interpreting primary sources and writing based on an interdisciplinary dialogue with current research from in the fields of History, Sociology and Social Anthropology.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Identify key aspects of Black communities in the Diaspora

■ Explain how communities emerged and evolved through time and in different contexts

■ Critically analyse primary sources and relate them to relevant literature to produce convincing arguments

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.