Connected Histories: Decolonization and the 20th Century
April 26-27, 2019: a conference organized by the International History Workshop at Yale University
Keynote Speaker: Professor Barbara Keys (University of Melbourne)
In the past few years, the project of writing global history has become increasingly celebrated. Many historians argue for the utility and indeed necessity of globalizing history. Others still remain concerned about what a global optic can occlude.
This conference invites senior and emerging scholars to interrogate what the “global turn” can offer to histories of decolonization and anti-colonial thought in the twentieth century. This would involve moving beyond the direct connections between colony and metropole and to think about other connected and conceptual geographies and terrains. We understand decolonization to encompass not only the formal transference of powers, but also the larger processes by which individuals and societies confronted the legacy and violence of empire – in political memory, intellectual thought, and public history.
The planning committee therefore invites papers on the following topics:
- Intellectual genealogies of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary ideas, as well as their transmission across space and time
- Decolonization and its transnational debates
- Connected visions of violence
- Public memory and the legacy of empire
- Law, Legality and Decolonization
- Nodes, networks and hubs of transnational/trans-imperial activism
- Gender and internationalism
- Transnational efforts to challenge the global “color line”
- Transnational histories of the counter-revolutionary right
- Mapping international connections: prospects and possibilities from the Digital Humanities
- Methods in global intellectual and cultural history
We are especially interested in papers that challenge the boundaries of older geographies, inviting projects that offer new ways to connect the history of the Global South to that of Europe and North America; move between and across different imperial spaces and work through alternate transnational fields such as literature, art and the law. Projects that emphasize the lateral connections within and across Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean are also encouraged.
The conference will be based on a colloquium model. It will include a keynote address, a plenary lecture, and five thematic panels. Thematic panels will be decided upon the shared interests of the participants.
We will cover accommodation and food while at New Haven. We also have some funding support available for domestic and international travel.
Deadline for abstract submissions: November 1, 2018
Email submissions to: connectedhistoriesyale2019@gmail.com
Questions? Email charlotte.kiechel@yale.edu or zaibunnisa.aziz@yale.edu