Geography

Black Lives Matter: Postcolonial and Decolonial Representations

Module code: 006GR
Level 5
15 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Essay

On this module, you'll use postcolonial and decolonial theory to explore visual and material cultures in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Inspired by the legacy of Stuart Hall, the module investigates how Black Lives Matter and examines how the value of black lives and culture has been undermined by prevailing race and racism over time.

You’ll engage with ‘Black Theory,’ a set of authors who address postcolonial and decolonial politics and highlight the costs of imperial and colonial values on black lives. Each lecture will use cultural texts to critically analyse eurocentric perspectives of other worlds, peoples, and places.

The module focuses on visual, material, and narrative cultures through which race and ethnicity are negotiated in everyday spaces, their historical roots, and how these continue to shape everyday encounters and discourses. 

By exploring specific historical and contemporary examples, you'll see how representations of race and racism change over time and in different places.

Module learning outcomes

• Demonstrate a critical understanding of black, postcolonial and decolonial theory.
• Demonstrate an understanding of how ‘race’ is an unscientific concept and mythology
• Demonstrate understandings of decolonial and postcolonial critiques of visual cultures at museums, art galleries and everyday life
• Demonstrate understandings of decolonial and postcolonial critiques of material cultures at museums, art galleries and everyday life