An honours history course at the University of Edinburgh students were told to establish trading companies and colonies that competed with other Atlantic powers.
The main focus of the course is the initial inroads that Scotland made into the Atlantic.
Students can propose either “a new colony or plantation, a company or a trade network” that they have designed themselves.
According to the University’s Degree Programme of Study, the assignment is worth 30% of the grade.
The course charts the “chronology and historiography”, alongside a significant use of primary sources, which come from the time that the course is focused on.
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As a main component of this course, the students have to complete a 1200 Word Atlantic Proposal.
In the proposal advice for the assignment, as seen by The Student, the piece of writing is fictional and must be similar to what has been discussed in class.
Students must discuss proposals and give relevant details, whilst using some elements from the contemporary proposals that have been looked at in class.
The proposal must be reflective of language used in the articles.
This comes after the Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre was occupied by students from the Staff-Student Solidarity Network Edinburgh, Youth In Resistance Edinburgh, and the Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society in 2022.
They cited the decolonisation of the curriculum as a reason for the occupation.
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The Student asked the Course Organiser, Dr Esther Mijers for comment, who said that in the early weeks of the course students look at a variety of Atlantic proposals from the Seventeenth Century.
The essential elements of the Atlantic proposals are picked by students, and compiled onto a document that is put onto Learn, so students are aware of how the proposal would have looked.
There are also discussions regarding the structure, and who the potential writers and audience could have been.
The guidance for the assignment is “co-created” and is used alongside the marking criteria to enable students to create their own proposal.
David Smith, who is an honours student who is taking the course, told The Student:
“I think (the assignment) is a way of seeing whether we’ve been listening to what’s being discussed in class, and use it in practice.
“Also, as a history student, I believe Dr Mijers set it as a change of pace, as you aren’t required to footnote… so in some sense, it relieves you of your other assignments, as there’s less importance in researching and analysing.”
“Edimburgo – Old Medical School” by TonioMora is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.