Oxford Students in the Age of Empire

Overview

What you will study

The Oxford Students in the Age of Empire course offered by University of Oxford brings to you a history of Oxford in an age of Empire, told through its student body. Zooming out first to think about how microhistories can be used to tell a global history, it asks how we find and locate hidden figures in history. Course participants will have the chance to engage with primary sources including visual records, autobiographical excerpts and archival documents to understand how they can be used for historical analysis.  

The course goes on to examine the experiences of the earliest students of colour at Oxford, some of whom faced intense racial discrimination. Many students from the colonies saw the cementing of their anti-colonial convictions through debate and discussion at Oxford. There was also space for unlikely allies, friendships and intimacies to develop. Intersectional analysis indicates close attention must be paid to the interplay of race, class and gender. There is a key focus on the histories of the first Indian and Black women who studied at the University – including Cornelia Sorabji, Kofoworola Ademola (née Moore) and Merze Tate.