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This introductory module surveys the entire sweep of Africa's history, north and south of the Sahara, from the emergence of civilizations to the present day. Themes covered include Ancient Egypt and Nubia, Christianity and Islam in Africa, state and society in Sudanic and in Bantu-speaking Africa, slavery and the slave trades, colonisation and the postcolonial period.

This module introduces students to the history of the part of the world that was profoundly influenced by the Chinese cultural sphere through a gendered lens. Chronologically, it covers the periods of early state formation and the rise of the first unified empires, the centuries of political and religious plurality of the first centuries of the common era, and the heyday of Chinese civilization following the 'reunification' in the Sui/Tang and the social and economic transformations of the Song dynasty. We will look at this history through the experience of women from different walks of life and study how women were represented in different kinds of texts, from the Classics to biographies of exemplary women and tales of the strange. This perspective will provide a focused and engaging way to learn about the ideological foundations and hierarchical and patriarchal social structures that supported the expanding Chinese states.

This module is an introduction to the history of the late medieval, early modern and modern era Middle East. It begins roughly around the time when Islamic empires became the dominant powers in the region and explores thenceforth the political, social, and cultural developments up to the present. While the module is structured around events that are primarily of military and political nature, it gives ample importance to the broad social and cultural currents, as well as the circumstances of everyday life as shaped by the former. Throughout the semester, we will also (re)visit, question, and complicate some of the main concepts and debates, such as modernity and the decline thesis, that have informed the field in the past decades.

South Asia (comprising of present-day India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives) has a history stretching back millennia. This module introduces the historical processes that shaped the society, culture, economy and political landscapes of the subcontinent over this long period. We begin with the Harappan or Indus Valley civilization and conclude with the English East India Company’s conquest of Bengal, a moment that marks the beginning of the colonial period. Students will study the principal historical themes, debates and controversies that have concerned scholars over the decades and thus build a foundation for further study of the history of South Asia at more advanced levels.

This module explores the variety of approaches to history through the ages, from positivist histories of the nation state and the study of changing economies and societies, to postcolonial and subaltern histories, it introduces the wide range of sources through which we study the past, including both secondary accounts produced by historians and the primary sources on which they rely.

This module supports students with their transition to Higher Education. It delves into the study of Humanities, with a focus on questions concerning the colonial genealogy of Humanities and the ways of decolonising Humanities, and skills acquired in the various disciplines in the college. Students learn to identify and describe the skills they acquire in this module and during their studies in the Humanities. Students are introduced to research, reading, listening, writing, performance and communication skills through multiple disciplinary lenses, addressing the planetary questions of this age. They compare different disciplinary approaches and are encouraged to reflect on interdisciplinary approaches to studying the Humanities, grounded in different regions. This enables students to make more informed decisions in the designing of their individual educational journey. Students practice their skills and reflect on their skills through real-world projects, drawing on critical content from all disciplines in the College of Humanities at SOAS.

As it was a century ago, Southeast Asia as a region continues to be one of the hotspots of great power rivalries. Much of the world’s trade runs through the region, it is on the fringe of the Chinese economic power-house, and is a major focus of the US pivot back to Asia. As a result, longer term historical developments and shorter term regional developments have important implications for the balance of world power. Even so, these developments remain poorly understood by world policymakers. This module examines the region’s historical emergence from 1830 to the present, roughly two centuries, with a focus on explaining how its intersection with the prevailing global forces has shaped the region as it exists today.

What role do the internet and its associated tools and devices play in facilitating movements for social justice? This first-year module will use examples of prominent digital-driven campaigns and causes from all over the world, from geopolitical conflicts to environmental movements to indigenous and decolonial rights campaigns - to examine the role of digital communications tools and platforms in bottom up" democratic movements, and the challenges associated with these approaches. Do technologies such as AI have a role to play in assisting social justice, or do they merely constitute surveillance? The module may examine formats including social media text, images and video, and podcasting, and these skills will also be covered."

H102 World History - Global Connectivities explores the history of globalization from the perspective of interregional processes. It conceives the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas and the Vasco da Gama first ever recorded circumnavigation around the globe as just one step of the way, not as the starting point of globalization. We proceed chronologically from the Bantu expansion in Africa to the twenty-first century. But we also compare the processes of connectivity from different parts of the world by theme, ie. trade, conquest, religion, language, knowledge production, etc. We will look at empires and nations, trade and industry, social movements, religion, culture, and ideas. We will explore the impact of European colonialism on the way in which we understand the world and its history, and we will examine how the rise of Western dominance is a relatively recent development. The module will provide a framework within which you can situate particular regions and periods, as well as an introduction to themes that you might want to explore further. It is designed to work alongside, and help you to get more out of, the introductory area studies modules in Year 1 in the History course at SOAS, ie. Africa, East Asia, South Asia, South-East Asia, and the Middle East. It also will push you to explore further some of the debates encountered in H101 Approaching History.

Based around the three broad themes of Religion, Trade and Empire, this module examines a series of individual objects in context from across Asia and Africa to explore the role of material and visual culture in understanding the history of global connectivity. Each case-study will demonstrate the transmission of ideas, motifs, materials, objects and people within Asia and Africa and in interaction with Europe, over around 1500 years from the 2nd-3rd to the 18th centuries CE.

This module introduces students to the methods and approaches to historical research. We survey the ways in which historians have approached the past -- from event-driven narratives, through the structural analysis of economy, society, and culture, to contemporary debates about postmodernism, postcolonialism, and presentism.

This module introduces students to the history and legacy of the Atlantic slave trade in Africa from ca. 1500 to the present. This includes societies across the Sahara in North Africa, from Senegambia down to Angola on the Western side of the continent, and from South Africa up to Tanzania on the Indian Ocean Eastern side. It gives a political and economic understanding of key social and cultural developments. Students will explore how the responses of African peoples to Atlantic transformations shaped in fundamental ways the continent and its roles in World History, globalization, and capitalism. Lastly, we will examine how the fight for freedom and abolition connects with the histories of emancipation, decolonization, and the making of Modern" Africa in the contemporary period."

This module will explore the structures and processes by which colonialism was established in South Asia. It will examine how the land was transformed into a colonial territory and the impact this had on peasants and forest-dwellers.

This module explores gender in historical perspective, combining a general introduction to gender history with a case-study based on the specialisation and research expertise of the tutor. The module provides a detailed introduction to the positioning of history as a discipline vis-à-vis gender studies.

This module therefore seeks to understand violence from a non - Western perspective - to understand how it emerges from particular historical circumstances and how it produces different consequences in different periods and geographical, cultural, ethnic, and even religious contexts.

This module explores an ongoing cultural encounter, which has historically been only rarely marked by conflict.’ Key themes to be covered include the origins and early development of Islam in China, from Tang China’s ‘Silk & Sea Routes’ to the Mongol empire.

This module asks how we came to approach politics as the measuring of success according to a certain set of goals, such as development, peace, and security.

The module is designed to equip students with a broad range of theoretical and practical approaches to the study of museums. It examines the strategies and practices by which museums interpret, organise and display objects – especially non-Western objects – within diverse cultural contexts.

This course offers a transdisciplinary look at contemporary cultural products and cultural modes of production in South and South East Asia. Combining the theoretical framework of British Cultural Studies (Hoggart, Hall, During) with the post-colonial discourses that have underpinned the study of culture in South and South East Asia, the course will explore how particular cultural practices in both regions relate to wider systems of power as embodied in belief systems, ethnicities, caste, national and transnational politics, language, and gender. Working from non-essentialist views of culture as constantly changing sets of practices and processes, the course will seek to introduce the students to reading/readings of cultural texts and use these exercises as engaged approaches to a critical understanding of the cultures of both regions, as well as the continuities and discontinuities between them.

This module will introduce students to the history of the Middle East between 11th-13th century. While there will be emphasis on the period of the Frankish invasions of the Levant (Crusades), it will also deal with wider issues within the period. Topics will include a comparison of ideas of holy war, crusades and jihad, the economic and political importance of Mediterranean trade during the period, the nature of Frankish settlement in the Levant, the environment,  the environment, a comparison of Frankish and Muslim elites, and the impact of the Mongol invasions from 1218 onwards. We will also address some lasting memory and impact of the Crusades in the centuries that followed the end of the Crusader states in 1291. 

This module discusses the formation, administration and culture of empires in the Near and Middle East and their interaction with each other from the earliest known civilisations to 651 CE. This period covers the empires of the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Elamites as well as the succession of Iranian empires. Topics that will be covered in greater detail include the culture of writing, oral traditions, royal propaganda, state structures and administration, and multiculturalism.

This module allows students to synthesise their learning in a single project that demonstrates their fulfilment of the programme’s learning outcomes. It integrates their academic knowledge with experiences beyond the classroom and combines their developing knowledge, skills, and personal interests. The project is conceived, designed, and carried out independently, with support and supervision.

Partition and independence in 1947 are critical events underlying the modern history of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kashmir.  This module examines the histories of nationalist and imperial politics that are held to account for the partition of British India. Throughout the sessions there will be reflections on the continuing importance of the divisions caused by partition occupying the states in the present day. Students will become familiar with the historiography of colonialism and nationalism, and gain an understanding of cultural, political issues involved in the politics of governing different groups, the politics of identity, its various sources and dimensions as well as international geopolitics. The module assumes a basic knowledge of the history of South Asia, which can be acquired with additional reading.

This module examines the history of apartheid in twentieth-century South Africa, widely regarded as the historical experience that represents one of the world's most extreme forms of racial oppression. By using a combination of primary and secondary sources, the module traces the social, economic and intellectual origins of apartheid. The module further examines the nature of state policy and is especially concerned to investigate the lived experiences of black South Africans under apartheid rule. We conclude with an examination of the forces that led to the end of apartheid, the nature of post-apartheid society, and the legacy of apartheid in the world. 

The core objective of this course is to analyse primary sources which shed light on the role of Shanghai as a city representative of the decentralised and at times anarchic situation in China during the 1920s and 30s. The city’s origins as a byproduct of the Unequal Treaties after the Opium War of 1840 will be elucidated, as much as the wealth that was created by means of the opium trade and of an unparalled agglomeration of weath. This wealth was not infrequently created by means of illegal activities, leading to the collusion between criminal syndicates, the Chinese government and Western businesses and officials which altogether made Shanghai the hallmark of lawlessness in Republican China.

Starting with the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire, both in its Balkan and Middle Eastern territories, has been a hotbed for revolutionary activity. The Greek Revolution of the 1820s gave birth to the first ethno-religious nation state that the world saw, while the contemporaneous Wahhabi rebellion announced to the world the emergence of a new, puritanical brand of Islam. Manifold and roving resistance movements in the second half of the nineteenth century merged into a formidable revolutionary force both in Iran's and the Ottoman Empire's respective Constitutional Revolutions, whereas the Mahdist uprising in the 1880s Sudan gave way to subsequent anticolonial resistance movements and action in the region. This module takes these explosive moments as its point of entry to understand the complexities of revolutionary change in the region. Using primary sources, such as contemporary press coverage, consular correspondence, and other archival material, as well as visual and material sources, this module delves into the historical intricacies of a revolution (successful or otherwise) as way to look into and understand the world we live in today.

This special subject explores histories of interconnection between two vital bodies of water: the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean has linked East Africa, Southern Arabia and South Asia. The Red Sea, relatively understudied, is a space which has linked Arabia, Yemen, the Levant, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia over the ages. This module will consider the nineteenth century, including late Ottoman expansionism, in the Red Sea alongside the ‘early modern’ period that preceded it. It will include a study of key port cities like Qusair, Jeddah, Mokha, Massawa, Suakin, Zeila. It will reconsider social and political changes taking place in the region through following the movement of people (whether traders, pilgrims, or the enslaved) and commodities (such as timber, coffee and grain) between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean worlds. In doing so, it attempts to reconstruct social and political histories beyond the confines of the nation-state, while reimagining geographies that supersede the regional divide between the Middle East and Africa.

This module is about cultural and social change in Africa in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It covers the entire continent, north and south of the Sahara, as well as considering the cultures of the African diaspora. The aim to is explore African cultures and societies across the established divide in the continent's modern history between the era of colonial rule in the first half of the twentieth century and that of renewed African sovereignty from around the 1960s. A range of social changes are examined, but the focus will be on the history of popular and visual cultures, including artistic production in the fields of music, dance, theatre, film and plastic art. A central concern is to think about the historical processes that have shaped contemporary society and culture today.

This course is an introduction to urban history, exploring how cities have been shaped and in what ways urban dynamics have transformed human society. The idea is to examine urban history as a process in which economic, social, political, cultural, and morphological changes are interrelated, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of urban history.

This module embrace those frameworks but also challenge their limitations for understanding the history of the non-western world and the interconnectedness of global history. This module challenges students to explore new research methods, as they need to think creatively about source materials that can shed light upon the histories of regions about which there are often few historical records.

The course examines the historical context of Islam in Britain, beginning with early Muslim migrations and settlement in the 19th century, through to the institutionalisation of Islam in Britain in the early twentieth century and the emergence of community leaders. Within this framework it will cover the different ethnic, sectarian and doctrinal approaches to Islam belonging to and/or adopted by migrants and second generation Muslims. The course proceeds to look at the various issues that have arisen, uniquely, out of this context and in response to world events.

The module examines the history and historiography of the early modern Muslim world, focusing on the three empires of the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals. Using the preexisting historiography of the period as an opening point, the module asks to reexamine key concepts such as 'empire', 'global history', and 'early modernity'. With this, the module will challenge the central position of European empires and trading companies to the historiography of the early modern world and the assumed link between early modern endeavours to 19th-20th century Colonialism.

This course is designed to develop students’ understanding of key moments in modern Japanese history from the collapse of the Tokugawa hegemony (the 1850s) to the end of World War II (1945) in regional and global context. It examines social and political epochs such as the rise of the Meiji government, the social and political contexts of modernisation, the process of nation-building, the establishment of an overseas empire and the rise of militarism, and the Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars.

The module is intended to complement modules such as ‘History and Culture of Korea to the Late 19th Century’ and ‘Culture and Society in 20th Century Korea’ (which focuses on South Korea) to provide BA Korean students with a more comprehensive overview and understanding of the Korean peninsula and how it has developed, especially since the Pacific War.

This module provides a historical overview of the Israel-Palestine conflict, from late Ottoman Palestine, through the 1948 war and the establishment of Israel, to the Oslo accords. The module interrogates the historical dynamic in Palestine/Israel and its contestations through social and cultural history. It brings a variety of voices and perspectives, often contrasting and contradictory, on the conflict and its underlying causes.

This module integrates perspectives from our department’s three fields–history, religions, and philosophies–and beyond, to take an interdisciplinary critical approach to questions on ‘Political Islam.’ Grounded in historical chronology, and balancing geographical specificity with a transregional view, it begins by problematizing the categories of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’. At the same time it shows how these, and other, conceptual categories emerged across various sociopolitical settings from the early modern period to now.