Humanities teaching award for innovative Oxford and Empire project

On Friday 8 June 2018, the newly launched 'Oxford and Empire' project was awarded a Teaching Award by the University of Oxford's Humanities Division. This undergraduate programme was developed by Erica Charters, William Whyte, and Tim Livsey with the support of the Oxford Centre for Global History. Designed as a programme for History undergraduate theses, 'Oxford and Empire' will enable students to research the colonial history of Oxford, as made manifest through its buildings, statues, and other forms of material culture.

Oxford and Empire provides a reading list, and guidance and encouragement for undergraduate students to research the legacies of empire in Oxford's own built environment for their undergraduate thesis. It also trains potential supervisors, including DPhil students and Early Career Researchers, with funding from the Humanities Division Diversity Teaching Fund for a training workshop for potential supervisors.

Key outcomes of the project will include:

• Excerpts from students' research to be displayed on plaques at various sites in Oxford
• 3D digital models of six Oxford monuments or objects from the built environment, chosen by undergraduates as the basis for their dissertation research, to be created and  incorporated into the University of Oxford's Cabinet digital platform allowing access to the research to reach beyond Oxford. Use will also be made of high resolution 2D images of Oxford maps and artwork to contextualize models.

These forms of display and digitization will ensure the long-term visibility and accessibility of both the students' research and the thoughtful contextualization of the role of empire and colonialism's legacy in Oxford.

Undergraduate students will benefit through substantial research into material culture and its relationship with colonialism, through their experience of translating their research into public history, and through their direct engagement with the general public. At the same time, undergraduates and their supervisors will add substantially to the public understanding of Oxford's imperial past while contributing to the diversity agenda of the University.

Students and supervisors interested in the project are invited to contact empire.project@history.ox.ac.uk for further information.