Dr. Christer Petley and Dr. Priti Mishra, A conversation about teaching Empire In History Seminar

In his critique of imperial histories, Franz Fanon argued that “The settler makes history; his life is an epoch, an Odyssey”. Imperial histories of the non-west are histories of the colonizer rather than the colonized. Our task in teaching empire in the classroom is to decolonize the discipline of history itself. Often, in our efforts at orchestrating such decolonization we are faced with difficult conversations with students about the aptness of imperial descriptions of the colonial and post-colonial actors and places. For instance, how do we respond to students who argue that the current political crisis in Zimbabwe corroborates that the colonial arguments about African ‘savagery’ and inability to sustain democratic rule? In this conversation about difficult questions, Christer and Priti hope to explore how to counter such claims while taking the student’s question seriously.