Graduate pedagogy at the intersection of colonial histories and digital methods

Abstract

The influence of digital methods on pedagogy has been primarily discussed in terms of undergraduate education. However, basic advances in digital humanities, including digitization, multimedia projects, social media, and common online applications can fundamentally transform graduate student teaching in ways that are particularly useful for empire and colonial histories. Standard digitally infused practices have not yet been applied to facilitate radical changes in pedagogy. Digital methods can be used to enhance graduate cohorts by enabling a community of learners in and outside the classroom; expand the definition of scholarship to challenge traditional academic hierarchies; draw regular connections between global colonial processes; question the ethics of writing imperial histories; and shift assessment practices away from students’ performance for the professor and toward individual self- reflection and communally defined standards. Together, these digitally enabled methods define scholars of colonialism far beyond their expertise in a specific historic field’s scholarly canon.