CFP: Re-figuring the South African Empire: International Conference in Basel

Re-figuring the South African Empire: International Conference in Basel

9-11 September 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS

www.zasb.unibas.ch/empire
Department of History and Centre for African Studies, University of Basel (Switzerland), in collaboration with the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS) and the Swiss Society for History (SGG)

This conference investigates histories of imperialism, colonialism and nation-building in the Southern African region, in the context of a critical reassessment of South Africa as a state and nation. The overall aim is to understand the region's history from its margins and to shift perspectives away from the teleological narrative of the emergence and consolidation of a modern South African nation-state throughout the 20th century. The necessity and relevance of this attempt to bring into question some of the core assumptions of South African historiography is reflected in the debate about the second volume of the new Cambridge History of South Africa on the 20th century, published in 2011. This prestigious volume presents the history of South African society and its state without contextualising its regional legacies of colonialism and hegemony. It makes hardly any mention of South Africa's de facto seventy-five year-long colonial rule over Namibia. Namibia experienced colonialism for a much more extended period than many other African colonies, while South Africa acted as a colonial power much longer than, for example, Germany or Italy. Yet South Africa is rarely theorised as having been a colonial state attempting to build an empire.

The conference deepens the debate about these crucial issues and situates it in the new scholarship on empires, cultural histories of colonialism and post-colonial critique. These arguments have unsettled the simplistic notion of a centre-periphery dichotomy in relations between Europe and the wider world, and have moved the debate into transnational, entangled or shared histories of all sorts. Yet attention paid to the building of empires in the shadows of European imperialism remains scant. The Southern African example is a striking reminder of the complexities throughout the 20th century of South African regional domination amidst multiple colonialisms as well as nationalisms.

As much as our interests are directed towards a revision of some of the parameters of South African historiography, the conference will likewise explore the production of history, memory and memorialization. South African colonialism, expansion and hegemony resonate in South Africa's post-apartheid society and in the wider memory landscapes and practices of post-colonial Southern Africa. Here again the conference seeks to engage with a regional perspective, and to explore the ways in which the legacies of South Africa's imperial history continue to generate a condition of coloniality which affects the socio-political order as much as it engenders the production of knowledge in South Africa itself and throughout the entire region.

Conceptual outline

The conference does not view the South African empire as an empirical entity, let alone as a historical fact. Rather it engages with empire as a theoretical concept which unsettles some of the certainties in South African historiography and opens up productive spaces for the re-figuration of Southern African histories. We thus seek papers and presentations from and on the Southern African region and have therefore identified a number of themes, concepts and lines of inquiry with which the conference aims to engage.

Nation and Empire

New histories of empire have emerged from a critique of historiographies dominated by the category of the nation and narratives of teleological progression from empire to colony and nation-state. South African historiography has uncritically replicated the paradigm of the nation around the subjects of late 19th century British-Boer antagonism, early 20th century unification and nation-building and internal colonialism articulated through segregation and apartheid. In contrast to such self-referential historical narration, this conference seeks out papers which explore the entanglement of the emergence of a distinct idea of the South African nation with its imperialist, developmental and increasingly military outreach into its neighbouring countries such as Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

On the other hand we invite reflections on various articulations of the nation and nationalism in Southern Africa, which in one way or the other speak to the recurrence of imperialism in its metropolitan as much as regional forms.

Marxist historiographies of the 1960s and 1970s articulated strong positions on South Africa's imperialism in the region, yet their concerns seem to have fallen into oblivion. While the conference panels will link up with these discussions, their arguments will need to be tuned to more recent concerns within Southern African historiography and recent discussions in methodology and theory.

Imperial Economies

The main domain in which South African imperialism has been acknowledged in historical scholarship has been labour migration, which forced hundreds of thousands of men, and to a lesser extent, women from within South Africa itself, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi into South Africa's urban centres, farming sectors and mining economies, most prominently on the Rand. These histories remain important and powerful in terms of their transnational perspective, yet the conference proposes to expand the discussion, not only to urban areas, mines and other centres of migration outside South Africa, but also beyond the dominant axes of urbanisation and mining and to consider further economies based on the trade of slaves, stock and goods, small industry, specialised skills and diverse commodities. Itinerant traders, commercial hunters, caterers or refined manufacturers as much as printers, publishers, and artisans surface here, disclosing transnational and trans-regional circuits of cloth, furniture, tools and technologies, high-priced merchandise or daily consumer goods. On another level, the large-scale operations of multinational (not only mining) companies, often based in South African metropoles, need to be conceptualised, together with issues of (economic) plunder and capital formation outside their respective areas of operation. The workings of the South African developmental state in the region, for example with regard to large-scale construction projects of dams and hydro-electric power stations, can be added here. The exploration of the complexity of such an imperial economy will enable a qualification of South Africa's hegemonic position as the centre of economic growth, industry and urbanisation, and yet complicate the directions and vectors of economic activity and practice. In particular, for this section, the conference seeks papers which address the multiple avenues and agencies of economic modernisation and transformation in the empire's hinterlands, in which migrant labourers and their return investments seem to have acted as crucial agents and brokers.

Empire Spaces

South Africa's spatial order has conventionally been explained in terms of segregation, legislation, a so-called "security complex", and changing attitudes towards nature. Indeed, the ways in which urban and rural spaces have been conceptualised, enforced and administered according to the requirements of the mining industries and the system of migrant labour, the demands of a commercial agricultural sector which maintained a privileged community of 'white' settlers, and the differences and divisions determined by segregation and apartheid throughout the 20th century, are remarkable and remain visible in the present. Papers assembled here will address a wide range of spaces, among them mining compounds, the architecture of apartheid cities, 'native townships', rural African reserves and military zones, borders and boundaries of many sorts. In contrast to conventional scholarship, these issues are to be addressed in a transnational perspective, exploring the proliferation of urban and rural design and planning, the demarcation of nature reserves and the declaration of military buffer zones from the perspective of the constitution of a South African imperial space in the sub-region.

Imperial Knowledge

One of the arenas in which South African nation-building articulated itself prominently was the realm of knowledge production. The South-Africanisation of science and of institutions associated with the production of scientific knowledge, such as universities, archives, libraries, scientific societies and museums, has long been acknowledged. In an almost emancipatory tone, the emergence of South African science has been narrated as a process through which the centres of knowledge production and expertise shifted from their metropolitan locations in Europe to the former South African colony and nation in the making. Less attention has been paid to the political economies and geopolitics of knowledge production within Southern Africa or to the significance of South Africa's hinterlands and peripheries, among them most importantly the Namibian colony, as resources and laboratories of imperial knowledge production. The conference hence invites contributions which investigate the ways in which the imperial space was constructed by economies of collecting, the operations of field sciences, the development of scientific taxonomies, the birth of scientific institutions, including museums and archives, and the development of professional scientific careers within the framework of a regional history.

Bio-politics of Empire

By the late 19th century, state institutions, metropolitan as much as colonial ones, showed growing interest in the documentation, identification and classification of their subjects. Therein the body of the citizen and/or subject emerged as the matrix around which forms and institutions of governance were enacted and specific kinds of knowledge modelled. Documentation, identification and classification of individuals and social groups in colonial Southern Africa throughout most of the 20th century was firmly grounded in essentialist notions of race and racial segregation, which hierarchically juxtaposed constructions of purified, superior forms of whiteness to the alleged degeneration of blackness and the iconic figure of the native. In as much as the organisation of society along racial lines was the raison d'être of segregation and apartheid in South Africa - and for that matter moved to the core of South African nation-building per se - racism and its underlying archives offered the idiom through which the South African state articulated and legitimised its imperialist project, pushing its frontier of white supremacy far beyond its national borders. The papers assembled here will explore how South Africa's imperial expansion complicated the problem of racial classification and difference, as much as the inconsistencies, contradictions and interstices within the expanding system of racial classification itself. Ultimately, the dynamics generated by imperial expansion and epistemological instability precisely offered the very few spaces for alternative, at times subaltern subjectivities.

Imperial Materialities, Imaginaries and Aesthetics of Empire

New histories of empire have shifted attention away from politics and economics towards 'softer' factors that made up the world of experience, the everyday, and the senses. Empires materialised, and the study of specific artefacts and objects provides a more textured sense of people's worlds and livelihoods. The conference aims at addressing experience, the everyday and the sensual through the lens of materiality and asks whether, and to what extent, specific objects and designs conveyed a sense of a social and cultural space of empire.

Papers concerned with the circulation of 'small objects', such as consumer goods, official documents, street signs, uniforms or mass produced print matters, and 'large objects', such as cars, buildings and monuments, infrastructure and public transport are invited to investigate the composition of an imperial lexicon that linked people in a shared, cultural and symbolic South African imperial space. Also important in this respect was the enactment and staging of 'the empire' through public rituals, celebrations and festivals, as such bridging the realms of the political and popular. The papers assembled here will explore these imperial imaginaries through e.g. various forms of visuality, such as photography, cartography, landscape painting, calendars, or cartoons, and they will likewise investigate diverse forms of popular culture, music, literature and art in order to elaborate on the question of the aesthetics of empire.

Abstract submission

The thematic foci presented above lay the ground for the organisation of the conference. Panels and papers will be organised accordingly. We invite participants to submit abstracts (max 1 page) and short information on authors by 4 February 2013 to afrika-tagung@unibas.ch  Acceptance of abstract submissions will be notified by email by the end of March 2013. Papers need to be submitted to the conference organisers by the end of August 2013. - For all information concerning the conference see our website: www.zasb.unibas.ch/empire

Funding and Formalities:

Participants can apply for a limited amount of funding covering travel and accommodation costs. The application needs to be submitted together with the abstract submission. We privilege applicants from African countries and colleagues without permanent positions. To qualify for funding a paper has to be submitted by the given date. - Switzerland is part of the EU Schengen Visa agreement. It is the responsibility of the participants to clarify visa arrangements. Kindly approach the conference organisers for the necessary documentation required.

Publication

The organisers plan to publish the conference proceedings, and different options are being considered. A selection of the papers will be included in a special issue on the South African empire of the Journal of Southern African Studies in 2015.

Contact

For further information please contact the organisers: Lorena Rizzo: lorena.rizzo@unibas.ch  Giorgio Miescher: Giorgio.miescher@unibas.ch; Dag Henrichsen: dh@baslerafrika.ch

This conference is organised on behalf of the South African Empire Research Group. Members of the group are Martha Akawa (University of Namibia), Dag Henrichsen (Basler Afrika Bibliographien & University of Basel), Luregn Lenggenhager (University of Zürich), Giorgio Miescher (University of Basel & University of the Western Cape), Ciraj Rassool (University of the Western Cape), Lorena Rizzo (University of Basel & University of the Western Cape), Jeremy Silvester (Museums Association of Namibia), Anna Vögeli (Basler Afrika Bibliographien & University of Basel), Marion Wallace (British Library).

The Research Group was supported by the Swiss South African Joint Research Project (SSJRP, University of Basel).

Lecture: Archives of the Commonwealth Journalists' Association

Senate House Library Friends: Archives of the Commonwealth Journalists' Association

06 February 2013, 18:00 - 20:00

Venue: Dr Seng T Lee Centre for Manuscript and Book Studies
Senate House Library
4th Floor, Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1

David Clover (Institute of Commonwealth Studies Librarian and Head of Research Librarians - Senate House Library): 'Preserving and Protecting Press Freedom – Insights from the archive of the Commonwealth Journalists' Association'

The 1980s and early 1990s were a time of civil and political upheaval in the post-colonial developing world. The recently catalogued archives of the Commonwealth Journalists' Association provide insights into some of the challenges of reporting within those countries, as well as progress made in supporting and encouraging the expression of an independent and free press. This talk will discuss the collection within the context of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies collections and highlight how institutional records of a pan-Commonwealth non-governmental organisation can add to our understanding of this period of a movement towards increased democracy in the post-independence period.

If you would like to attend, please contact Senate House Library office: shl.officeadmin@london.ac.uk

tel. 020 7862 8411.

‘A charred and battered peninsula’: artistic reflections on the Dardanelles and other sites of memory

New Zealand Studies Network presents:
Professor Paul Gough
‘A charred and battered peninsula’: artistic reflections on the Dardanelles and other sites of memory
6.00 to 8.00 p.m. Friday 18th January
Birkbeck, University of London (Room Malet St 254)

To book: please email info.nzsn@gmail.com

In an illustrated lecture Paul Gough will reflect upon his sojourns in the 1990s in the memory-scapes of Gallipoli, exploring the charred headlands of the Dardanelles Peninsula, the once-hidden trenches and dug-outs of New Zealand troops; and then in France, Belgium and Salonika. The resulting drawings and paintings were shown at New Zealand House in London and at the National War Memorial in Wellington. Gough has also written about the way war artists learned to describe emptiness and abandonment. His lecture will focus on how New Zealand artists have articulated their vision of war and peace.

Professor Paul Gough, painter, broadcaster and writer, has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, most recently in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and is represented in several permanent art collections. His research interests lie in the processes and iconography of commemoration, the cultural geographies of battlefields, and the representation of peace and conflict in the 20th/21st century. Paul Gough has worked for ITV, BBC and C4 on creative arts programmes ranging from dance to drama, poetry to painting. He is currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at UWE, Bristol

Please reply to info.nzsn@gmail.com if you wish to attend.

CFP: Public Service Broadcasting in Africa: Continuity and Change in the 21st Century

CALL FOR PAPERS: Public Service Broadcasting in Africa: Continuity and Change in the 21st Century

Conference organised by Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster, with support from UNESCO and BBC Media Action

 

Saturday 2nd March 2013

 

University of Westminster,
Regent Campus
309 Regent Street,
London, W1B 2UW

 

 

The Future of Public Service Broadcasting in Africa

 

Public service broadcasting is still important for Africa and other developing regions. There are, however, questions about the next generation of public service broadcasting and issues about the continued relevance of the public service broadcasting model. Are we witnessing the disappearance of BBC-type of public service broadcasting in Africa? There is increasing evidence that this may be so.

The growing dominance of community, private and commercial broadcasting in countries such as South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana is calling for a rethink of a license-fee funded broadcasting model and a switch of ads to these broadcasters, damaging the financial base for public service broadcasters, and more and more closures.

 

As for TV, the younger generation is switching to viewing on platforms other than the TV set. As license fees are mostly based on the TV set within a household, this reduces willingness to pay the license fee. Additionally, as more and more channels appear, the audiences for PSBs are eroding in many African countries.

 

Public Service radio is still strong in countries such as South Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Congo, Liberia, Sudan, Nigeria and Kenya but in others it has evolved into commercial models, with little informational content.

 

In many parts of Africa, state broadcasters still have public service broadcasting aspirations, but the reality is all too often government control.

 

Nonetheless, the need for trusted information about national and local developments is as crucial as ever, as is the need for programming to celebrate national cultures, explain social change projects, and to offer relevant, quality entertainment for all ages and ethnic groups.

 

For all these reasons, new thinking on public service broadcasting in Africa is urgently needed. This is why the University of Westminster is inviting students, researchers, academics, practitioners, policymakers and thinkers to look ahead and identify how public service broadcasting can be helped to survive and develop in the years ahead.

 

The themes explored in the one-day workshop are likely to include:

1. The concept of public service broadcasting in a changing Africa
2. New funding models for public service broadcasting in Africa
3. Public service broadcasting and censorship in Africa
4. Public service broadcasting funding models in Africa and sustainability
5. Audiences for public service broadcasting in Africa
6. Political pressures on public service broadcasting news in Africa
7. Regulation of public service broadcasting in Africa
8. New formats for Public service broadcasting in Africa
9. Young African audiences, new ICTs and public service broadcasting
10. Politics of managing public service broadcasting stations in Africa
11. Alternative models to public service broadcasting in Africa
12. Political, social and cultural roles of public broadcasting in Africa

Abstract Submission

 

Please send a 300-word abstract by 24 January, 2013. Successful applicants will be notified by 31 January, 2013. They must include the presenter's name, affiliation, email and postal address, together with the paper’s title. Please send abstracts to Helen Cohen at journalism@westminster.ac.uk

 

Programme and Registration

 

The fee for registration (which applies to all participants, including presenters) will be £99, with a concessionary rate of £49 for students, to cover all conference documentation, refreshments, lunch and administration costs. Registration will open at the end of January 2013.

 

 

Related Event

 

Please note that the above event is preceded by a related one-day workshop on “New Thinking on Public Service Broadcasting for the Next Generation” that is also organised by Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster, with support from UNESCO and BBC Media Action. It will be held at the University of Westminster, Regent Campus, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW, UK, on Friday 1 March 2013, 9am-6.30pm.

 

Confirmed Speakers Include:

Akinori Hashimoto,Head of News Production Division, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)

Deane James,Director of Policy and Learning, BBC Media Action

Elizabeth Smith,former Secretary General, Commonwealth Broadcasting Association

Greg Dyke,former BBC Director General (keynote speaker)

Ingrid Deltenre,Director General, European Broadcasting Union

Kip Meek,Special Adviser, Everything, Everywhere and ex Ofcom

Sally-Ann Wilson,Secretary General, Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA)

 

For more information contact Helen Cohen, Events Administrator H.cohen02@westminster.ac.uk Registration will open at the end of January 2013.

 

 

CFP: 14th Annual Researching Africa Day Workshop

Call For Papers: 14th Annual Researching Africa Day Workshop

Saturday, 23rd February 2013
St Antony’s College, Oxford

Researching Africa Day provides graduate students with the opportunity to network with fellow researchers, exchange information, discuss research strategies and develop ideas in a constructive, stimulating and engaging environment. The workshop is open to all graduates working on Africa within the disciplines of history, politics, economics, development studies, literature, anthropology, social policy, geography, public health and the natural sciences.

The title of this year’s workshop is:

Researching Africa: The Flow of Research?

This year's workshop interrogates the process of researching Africa. We hope to explore how research progresses, as well as examine the issues and obstacles that confront researchers at various stages. We aim to question the idea that research always follows a sequence that begins in the library and ends on the word processor. We have divided the workshop into four panels that follow the accepted chronology of research, and we invite papers that either investigate these stages (from the acquisition of material to its presentation), or challenge their relationship to one another, in order to understand the 'flow' of research as it actually is.

The four panels are outlined as follows:

1) Accessing

How do we access material? From gaining ethical clearance, to finding our ‘field sites’ and negotiating ‘gatekeepers’, what issues and difficulties do we experience as researchers in Africa?

2) Acquiring

How do we acquire material? From archives and life histories, to images and data-sets, what choices does the researcher make in the process of collection?

3) Interrogating

How do we interrogate our material? From grounding personal experience to the application of theory, how do we make sense of what we have gathered during fieldwork?

4) Presenting

How do we present our material? From the format to the content, what dilemmas are faced and what impact do we make as researchers?

We invite papers on the panels outlined above. Presentations should be between 12 and 15 minutes, followed by a discussion between the panelists and the audience. Please send a title and abstract of your paper of 200 words by 25th January 2013.

We welcome participation from students beyond Oxford. While the cost of travel is not normally reimbursed, appeals for assistance with travel expenses will be considered in exceptional circumstances. We have limited funding and encourage speakers to pursue funding opportunities at their home institutions first. Accommodation for those who wish to stay the night may be available at certain colleges at your own expense.

Contact: edward.teversham@stx.ox.ac.uk

CFP: Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World: Historical Perspectives

Call for Papers: Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World: Historical Perspectives
Friday 19 July 2013 at King's College London

Hosted by Menzies Centre for Australian Studies and Department of History, King's College London

Convenors: Dr Shirleene Robinson and Dr Simon Sleight

Symposium Aims and Themes

Although it is a comparatively recent field of study, the history of young people is a burgeoning field of inquiry, with the potential to illuminate many social and cultural aspects of the past. Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World will provide a scholarly forum for discussion of the lived experiences of children and the construction of modes of childhood in the context of the British World. We are particularly interested in locating children, childhood and youth in a broader social context and in acknowledging young people as active historical agents.

Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World takes place on 19 July 2013. The symposium's London location provides an ideal site to reflect on the historical reach and limitations of the British World and to place young people's experiences into transnational context. It is hoped the symposium will establish research networks and a basis for further investigation and discussion. The conference organisers will aim to publish a selection of conference papers in 2014.

While other submissions are welcome, papers might potentially address themes such as:

* Regulation and childhood
* Children's spaces
* Ego histoire and archives of childhood
* Interdisciplinary approaches to the history of young people
* Images of children
* Literary childhoods
* Violence and childhood
* Urban and rural childhoods
* Intersections between race and childhood
* Indigenous childhoods
* Gender and childhood
* Childhood and trauma
* Narratives of childhood
* Parent-child relations

Submission Guidelines

Proposals should include:
- Paper title
- 250-word abstract
- Biography of 50-100 words
- 2-page CV

Deadline: 31 December 2012; notification of acceptance: 14 January 2013

Submissions should be sent to:

shirleene.robinson@mq.edu.au and simon.sleight@kcl.ac.uk

Remembering Bristol’s Empire: Archives, Artefacts and Commemoration

Remembering Bristol’s Empire: Archives, Artefacts and Commemoration


Workshop - Thursday 13 December 2012

Senate Room, Senate House, Tyndall Avenue, University of Bristol

Prompted by the transfer of the collections of the former British Empire and Commonwealth Museum to Bristol Museums and Bristol Record Office, this workshop will offer an opportunity to discuss the collection, preservation and use of archives and artefacts from Bristol’s (and Britain’s) imperial past.

9am-11am – Roundtable – ‘Remembering Empire: Perspectives from Bristol Academics’

11am-11.30am – Coffee

11.30am-1pm – John McAleer (University of Southampton) and Sarah Longair (British Museum/Birkbeck) – ‘Objects of Empire: Museums and the British Imperial Experience’

1pm-2pm – Lunch

2pm-3pm – Katherine Prior – ‘Collecting Empire: Lessons from the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum’

3pm-4pm – Roundtable – Sue Giles (Bristol Museums), Richard Burley (Bristol Record Office), Tim Cole (History, UoB), Simon Potter (History, UoB)

4pm-5pm – Drinks, Student Common Room, 11 Woodland Road

There is no charge to register for this event, but please email Dr Simon Potter, University of Bristol if you wish to attend – simon.potter@bristol.ac.uk

This event has been funded by a grant from BIRTHA at the University of Bristol.

Public Lecture: Contested Memories: the Shahid Minar [Monument] & the struggle for diasporic space, 28th November 2012

The Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies Annual Lecture


Contested Memories: the Shahid Minar [Monument] & the struggle for diasporic space

Public lecture at SOAS:


Speaker: Professor Claire Alexander (Dept. of Sociology, University of Manchester)

Date: 28 November 2012Time: 5:00 PM -7.00 PM

Venue: SOAS, Russell Square: College Buildings Room: Khalili Lecture Theatre


Drawing on new empirical research conducted in East London as part of a project on ‘the Bengal diaspora’, this lecture explores the struggle over Bangladeshi identity in Tower Hamlets as exemplified in the monument of the Shahid Minar and the related celebration of Ekushe (Martyr’s Memorial Day), which is usually held to mark the beginning of the Bangladesh national liberation struggle. Bringing together theories of diaspora consciousness and memorialisation, the paper explores the ways in which rituals and memory work both as a form of continuity with the homeland and as a method of claims-staking for minority groups in multicultural spaces.

Organiser: Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies

Contact email: rg32@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: 0207 898 4434

http://www.soas.ac.uk/migrationdiaspora/seminarsevents/annuallecture/28nov2012-contested-memories-the-shahid-minar-and-the-struggle-for-diasporic-space.html

CFP: Connected Histories of Empire, 15-16 July 2013, Bristol

Call for Papers: Connected Histories of Empire, 15-16 July 2013, Bristol


Centre for the Study of Colonial & Postcolonial Societies, University of Bristol

Over the last two decades, scholars have begun to characterise the British Empire as a complex patchwork of interacting and dynamic agencies, rather than as a homogenous monolith. As a result, the traditional spatial framework based on a stable division between the metropole and the periphery seems increasingly outmoded. Instead, historians, literary critics, scholars of globalisation, and philosophers have been writing about the webs, networks, and circuits in which people, objects, and ideas moved. This conference will interrogate the idea of an empire of connections, considering the possibilities opened up by thinking in terms of global interaction, as well as the challenges of incorporating the myriad interconnections of empire into coherent historical narratives.

The conference is the culmination of a year of events at the University of Bristol which have focused particularly on the memorialisation and commemoration of the British Empire. As scholars have begun to uncover the intricately woven interconnections of empire, a central concern of the conference will be to consider how this might influence how empire has been, and is, remembered and memorialised in Britain and elsewhere.


The organisers would like to invite proposals for papers and panels that speak to the following broad themes:

• The commemoration and memorialisation of different imperial sites, events and phenomena
• Links between imperial port-cities/global cities
• Flows of people, goods (physical and cultural), and cash
• The movement, preservation and display of imperial artefacts and archives
• Imperial networks and imperial careering
• Imperial audiences and public spheres
• The links between global history and imperial history

And would like to encourage broad discussion of connections and comparisons between different modern empires: proposals need not be restricted to the history of the British empire. Papers are welcomed from a range of academic disciplines.

To apply please send a 250 word abstract to the organisers at connectedhistoriesofempire@yahoo.co.uk  by 14 January 2013.

Conference organisers:

History: Ms Emily Baughan, Prof Robert Bickers, Prof Peter Coates, Prof Tim Cole, Dr Simon Potter, Dr Jonathan Saha, Dr Rob Skinner

Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies: Dr Matthew Brown, Dr Joanna Crow

English: Dr John Lee

Archaeology & Anthropology: Prof Mark Horton

18th Commonwealth Law Conference, 14-18 April 2013, Cape Town, South Africa

The conference programme for the 18th Commonwealth Law Conference is now available at http://www.commonwealthlaw2013.org/

Current topics include

• Anti-Bribery and Corruption in the Corporate World
• Intellectual Property in the Developing World 
• New Frontiers of Competition Law: Role of Non-Competition Considerations in Adjudication of Mergers and Takeovers 
• Privatising the Courts: Alternative Dispute Resolution 
• Legal Aspects of the Mining and Extractive Industries
• Government Lawyers Exposed 
• Separation of Powers: Constitutional and Media Perspectives 
• Human Trafficking: Commerce and Slavery in the Commonwealth
• LGBT: Decriminalisation and the Role of Lawyers 
• Pitcairn Island – Mutiny on the Bounty: Violence against Women as a Cultural Norm 
• Playing Fair? Sports Law in the Commonwealth 
• Information, Secrecy and Wikileaks 
• Forced Marriages: What Should the Legal Response Be? 
• Defamation Law Reform: Thresholds, Defences and the Value of Free Speech 
• Cyber Security in the Commonwealth 
• Immigration, Migration and Refugees in the Commonwealth – the Legal Response
• How ‘International’ is the International Criminal Court?

Keynote speakers confirmed are: Dr Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and
Justice Dr Willy Mutunga, Chief Justice of Kenya

Rev. Samuel Marsden, Satan, and respectability of character in New South Wales and New Zealand

The New Zealand Studies Network presents Emeritus Professor Andrew Sharp

A New Zealand Studies Network (UK and Ireland) seminar Friday 30th November 6pm at Birkbeck
Room tba (ask at reception)

Rev. Samuel Marsden, Satan, and respectability of character in New South Wales and New Zealand

The years 1817-23 were very troubling for Samuel Marsden both in New Zealand and New South Wales. In New South Wales he fell foul of Governor Lachlan Macquarie. In New Zealand his relationships with the first two sets of missionaries in the Bay of Islands were uneasy. In Sydney the New Zealanders seemed evidently uncivilised and a danger to Europeans; but in the Bay, as well as inspiring fear among the missionaries and their helpers, they also inspired sexual desire (at least in some). The talk describes the way Marsden and his European contemporaries thought and talked about these matters, especially the way they prided themselves on their status and (the religious among them) feared Satan, the 'Prince of Darkness'

Andrew Sharp is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Auckland and Chair of the NZSN. He will soon take up the 2013 University of Waikato/Creative New Zealand Residency Award to complete a book on the opinions of Samuel Marsden and his contemporaries in New Zealand, New South Wales and England. It will be called Civilisation and the Prince of Darkness.

Please book through NZSN to avoid disappointment. info.nzsn@gmail.com  Website NZstudies.com

Event at Warwick University: Thomas Glave - Scenes from a Jamaican Childhood

Jointly hosted by

Warwick University’s Hispanic Studies department and the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies

Thomas Glave - Scenes from a Jamaican Childhood
Thursday 22 November, Ramphal Building R.0.14, 5.30 pm

This presentation will journey through meditations on coming of age, social class, gender, sexuality, and relationships with the dead in Jamaica, by way of the author's personal reflections.

Thomas Glave’s most recent work appears in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, Callaloo, and in several anthologies, including Kingston Noir and Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, both published in 2012. Glave has been Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor at MIT, and is a 2012 Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge.

Thomas Glave is editor of the anthology Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles (Lambda Literary Award, 2008).

He is the author of Whose Song? and Other Stories; Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent (Lambda Literary Award, 2005), and The Torturer’s Wife (Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist, 2008). Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh is forthcoming from Akashic Books in summer 2013: http://www.akashicbooks.com/amongthebloodpeople.htm


This event is free and open to all.

For any inquiries, please contact Fabienne Viala: F.Viala@warwick.ac.uk

John Coffin Memorial Lecture: "The Queen in Australia": rebranding the British Commonwealth in the Pacific

John Coffin Memorial Lecture


Friday 23 November 2012

Jane Landman (Victoria University): '"The Queen in Australia": rebranding the British Commonwealth in the Pacific'

6.00pm: The Beveridge Hall, Senate House, University of London

Introduced by Brian Winston (University of Lincoln)

Moving images of British monarchs traverse the history of film and television, from documentary footage of Queen Victoria dating from 1897, to the Commonwealth Film Unit’s extensive archive of royal visits to far flung colonies, to Madonna’s recently released W.E. on the Wallis Simpson-Edward VIII romance. This Jubilee year seems the appropriate time to consider the historic past and current effusion of film and television representations of the British monarchy.

To mark this occasion, Jane Landman will consider a classic of colonial cinema, the Commonwealth Film Unit’s documentary of the Royal Tour of 1953-4, "The Queen in Australia". Extravagantly praised at the time for its contribution to ‘world affairs’, this tribute to the Crown stages each floral genuflection as the act of a unified free world, marshalling Fijians, Tongans and New Zealanders as well as Australians into a Cold War homage to both Elizabeth II and the king of the British Documentary Movement, John Grierson. Dr Landman will bring to this presentation her acuity and expertise in the iconic repertoire of national narrative in postwar Australian film and television.

This lecture will be hosted by the Institute of English Studies in collaboration with the University of London Screen Studies Group, and in association with the IES conference "The British Monarchy on Screen" (23-24 November 2012), which will further debate the starring role of royalty in our viewing lives, with presentations from international film and television experts on topics ranging from the broadcasting of royal weddings to the cinematic casting of the sovereign.

Jane Landman is Senior Lecturer at the School of Communication and the Arts, Victoria University. She is the author of The Tread of a White Man’s Foot: Australian Pacific Colonialism and the Cinema (Pandanus Books, Canberra, 2006), and (with Chris Ballard) ‘New Guinea Patrol’: Documenting Australian Colonialism, forthcoming in 2013. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the monograph series on Australian film, Moving Image, and guest editor of the Journal of Australasian Studies. Dr Landman's current research concerns the role of the cinema in the process and cultures of colonialism and decolonization, with current focus on the series of government documentary films made in the Territories of Papua New Guinea in the 1950s and 1960s. These are films that visually report on those policies and practices of development that were part of Australia’s trust responsibilities, and Dr Landman’s research traces the political, institutional and administrative negotiations that determined the semantics and rhetoric of the visual and aural modes deployed to represent the Australian work of development of the Territories and its peoples. Broader research addresses a comparative understanding of imperial mass communications in the colonised - then decolonising - western Pacific, with specific focus on Australia and various British-derived colonial administrations.

Free and open to all, and followed by a wine reception. If you would like to attend please notify IESEvents@sas.ac.uk

Enquiries: Jon Millington, Events Officer, Institute of English Studies, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel +44 (0) 207 664 4859; Email: IESEvents@sas.ac.uk

Debate: 20 years of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines – is a mine-free world still a realistic goal?

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Landmines and Unexploded Weapons of Conflict
Chairman: Pauline Latham OBE MP

 

Debate: 20 years of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines – is a mine-free world still a realistic goal?

When – 6:30 pm, Monday 19th November, 2012.
Where – The Mandela Room at the Commonwealth Club, Northumberland Avenue, London WC2N 5AP.

 

Chairman: Stuart Hughes, Diplomatic Producer BBC News

 

Panel

• Nick Roseveare MBE, Chief Executive, Mines Advisory Group (MAG)
• Agnes Marcaillou, Director, UNMAS New York
• Chris Austin, Head of the Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Department at DFID
• Steven Smith, Chief Executive, Action on Armed Violence
• Judy Grayson, Head of the child protection section’s work on armed violence and weapons, UNICEF New York.

Special Guest:  Sir Bobby Charlton – founder of the landmines charity ‘Find a Better Way’

 

 Places are strictly limited so book your place now (click on link http://www.thercs.org/society/252). Cost is £15, of which £10 will go to Find a Better Way, plus booking fee.

 

Activity

 

A high level debate, in association with the Royal Commonwealth Society looking back over the past twenty years – and forward to the huge amount of work still needing to be done. The debate will be followed by a drinks reception kindly sponsored by Explore Worldwide adventure holidays and the CIPR international Group.

 

Background

 

"Millions of people live with the fear of landmines. And every day people die or suffer horrific injuries from abandoned weapons left behind after conflict".

 

2012 marks the 20th anniversary of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. In October 1992, six NGOs held the ICBL’s founding meeting, with the goal of ridding the world of landmines. The odds were long, the challenges immense, but five years of intense lobbying and negotiations later the Ottawa Treaty came into existence. The Ottawa process was – and still is – seen as a model for how civil society groups can help resolve some of the pressing issues of our time, and that there is a place for “global citizen diplomacy.”

 

We need to re-awaken awareness of the continuing and often indiscriminate use of landmines and improvised explosive devices and their unacceptable humanitarian and developmental consequences – by openly exploring the successes and failures of the last 20 years. Two decades ago, the ICBL proved that NGOs could put issues on the international agenda and drive change. But 20 years on, what is the future for the ICBL and the wider mine ban movement? How does the movement remain energised and motivated – and how will it continue to attract donors in the years ahead? Is true universalization of the treaty realistic when major powers such as the US, Russia and China remain outside it? Is “virtual compliance” enough? Is it time for the ICBL to celebrate its successes and move onto other issues?

 

Contact

 

Nigel Ellway, APPG Co-ordinator,

Mob: 07586 329335

nigel.ellway@parliament.uk

Events at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies

The Menzies Centre for Australian Studies organises a research seminar series throughout the academic year with events being held weekly during term time. The seminar series is a fantastic opportunity for the centre to welcome academics from a broad range of disciplines working on Australian subjects and to exchange research ideas and new discoveries.


All Wednesday seminars take place at the Strand Campus, King’s College London. See individual listings for room details.

Wednesday 7 November 2012
K0.18, King's Building – please note change of room from previous announcements
18.15

David Lowe (Deakin)
‘The Uses of History by Australian Politicians’

Wednesday 14 November 2012
S0.11, Strand Building
18.15

Toby Davidson (Macquarie)
'Francis Webb: Australian Poet, English History'

Wednesday 21 November 2012
S0.12, Strand Building
18.15

Carl Bridge (KCL)
*** ‘Australia and the Dardanelles Commission’
Followed by Book Launch

Launch by John Darwin (Nuffield College, Oxford) of new book Media and Empire (OUP) by Simon Potter (Bristol Uni, ex Rydon Fellow)

CFP: CSAE 2013 Conference on Economic Development in Africa

CSAE 2013 Conference on Economic Development in Africa


St Catherine’s College, Oxford, 17-19 March 2013


Keynote speaker: Edward Miguel, Director of the Center for Effective Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley

Dinner speaker: Marcelo Giugale, Director of Economic Policy and Poverty Reduction Programmes for Africa, World Bank

Call for papers

Papers addressing economic analysis of the broad issues relevant for economic development in Africa are invited for the CSAE 2013 conference. Papers on countries other than those in Africa are welcome, providing they deal with issues central to African development.

All abstracts for consideration must be submitted via the online submission site at

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/conference.cgi?action=login&db_name=CSAE2013

Further details on student submissions and funding possibilities at http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/conferences/

Deadline for submissions Friday 30 November 2012


Enquiries should include the reference ‘CSAE conference 2013’ and be addressed to:

e-mail: csae.conference@economics.ox.ac.uk

postal address: CSAE, Dept of Economics, Oxford University, Manor Road Building, Manor Rd, Oxford, OX1 3UQ, UK

Commonwealth Research Seminar Series

Commonwealth Research Seminar Series


All seminars are on Wednesdays and begin at 1730

TERM 1

14 November 2012
Ben Muda, Commonwealth Business Council, London: Malaysia at Fifty: The Commonwealth in Malaysia's Foreign Policy
Filippo Menozzi, University of Canterbury, Kent, The Boundaries of Politics: Arundhati Roy's Transversal Activism

12 December 2012
Lanver Mak, Visiting Fellow ICwS, Unveiling the Veiled Protectorate: The Untold Stories of British Labourers and Criminals in Egypt, 1882-1922
Maria Mut Bosque, Visiting Fellow and PhD student, ICwS, Gibraltar: National Identity and Language Issues

TERM 2

16 January 2013
Peter Fraser, Visiting Fellow ICwS: An exemplary life: Arnold Hamilton Maloney and Trinidadian intellectual history
Giorgios Charalambous, Visiting Fellow ICwS: The Cypriot Left in Government: A Preliminary Assessment

13 February 2013

Bill Clarance, Visitng Fellow ICwS: Understanding Leonard Woolf : his role in decolonization
Paulo Rigueira, Doctoral Student ICwS: Globalisation & Human Rights: A Conceptual Approach


13 March 2013

Mandy Banton. Senior Fellow ICwS: Title TBA
Yiannos Katsourides, Visiting Fellow ICwS: Political conflicts in Cyprus in the 1940s and 1950s


TERM 3

17 April 2013
Abess Taqi, Doctoral student, ICwS: Arab perspectives on Western efforts to promote democratic reform in the Arab world
Sue Onslow, Senior Fellow ICwS, The Commonwealth & election monitoring: the Zimbabwe success story?

15 May 2013
Shihan de Silva, Senior Fellow ICwS: Connecting the Portuguese Burghers to the Commonwealth and Beyond: Language Matters
John Cowley, Fellow ICwS: Numberless Are The Sands On The Seashore : 'The Real Bahamas' and the field recording experience (1935-1965)

12 June 2013
Susan Williams, Senior Fellow ICwS, and Dr Luke McKernan, Lead Curator, Moving Image, The British Library: The screening of decolonisation: from book to film

Convenors: Susan Williams (susan.williams@sas.ac.uk) and Shihan de Silva (shihan.desilva@sas.ac.uk )

Witness Seminar: Localisation of the Civil Service in colonial territories before and immediately after independence

Institute of Commonwealth Studies and OSPA (Overseas Service Pensioners' Association) Witness Seminar: Localisation of the Civil Service in colonial territories before and immediately after independence

Event Programme


Thursday 25 October 2012
In the Senate Room, Senate House, South Block, Malet Street, London. WC1E 7HU

11.00-11.15 Registration, tea/coffee

11.15-11.30 Welcome and introduction by Professor Philip Murphy (ICwS)

11.30-1.00 Session One: Education and Training  
Chair: Dr Tamson Pietsch (Brunel University)

Eric Cunningham: (Education Officer, Gold Coast 1952 – 62) Gold Coast localisation: a long history, and reflections on my own experience.
Professor Michael Lee: (University of Manchester; Seconded to Uganda, and Makerere University College) The contribution of Makerere College to Localisation in East Africa.
Peter Wood: (Tanzania 1957 – 69; Oxford University 1969 – 90, ODA and international consultant; Commonwealth Forestry Association (Vice-President) The role of the Commonwealth Forestry Institute, Oxford, in professional education and training.

1.00-2.00 Sandwich Lunch

2.00-3.30 Session Two: Training for the Localisation of Public Administration
Chair: Professor Philip Murphy (ICwS)

Wyn Reilly: (Tanganyika 1956-62; IDPM, University of Manchester. Involved in Public Administration and Training in numerous countries). The Administrative Training Centre, Mzumbe, Tanganyika and management training at IDPM, Manchester and overseas.
Colin Fuller: (Kenya 1956-68; Kenya Institute of Administration, then IDPM, Manchester). Africanisation of the Civil Service in Kenya with special reference to the Administration.
Chris Cochran: (Solomon Islands 1967-82; Public Service Office and then Commissioner for Labour) Localisation of the Public Service in the Solomon Islands 1960-82, either side of Independence in 1978.

3.30-4.00 Tea/coffee


4.00-5.30 Session Three: The Politics of Localisation
Chair: Dr Georgina Sinclair (Open University)

John Ducker: (Aden 1960-67; then with World Bank in Africa and Central Asia). A Comparative Study across the colonies generally.
Simon Gillett: (Served in Cameroons 1960; Bechuanaland/Botswana 1965-72). The political context of Localisation and Government Policies in the Bechuanaland Protectorate and Botswana.
Michael Waters: (Western Pacific –GEIC 1972-76; Hong Kong 1976-97, Civil Service Branch dealing with localisation and handover, and Deputy Political Advisor to the Governor). The security, political and nationality issues affecting Localisation in Hong Kong.

5.30-7.00 Drinks reception

To register and pay online for this event, please click here.

Registration form

Postgraduate & Early Career Scholars Research Training Workshop

Postgraduate & Early Career Scholars Research Training Workshop


Wednesday 5th December 2012, 1pm to 6pm, at Royal Holloway University of London

The Society for the History of Women in the Americas (SHAW) is organising a research training workshop for postgraduates (MA students and PhDs) and early career scholars (defined as within five years of PhD graduation). The event is intended to be a “one-stop-shop” where attendees can take part in a variety of training and development workshops, get advice and feedback on their own work and meet with other researchers. The event is targeted primarily although not exclusively at those interested in the Americas, with both an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. We particularly encourage those just starting out in postgraduate research to attend. We also hope that the sessions will appeal to those making the transition from postgraduate research into the next stage of their academic careers, who often find that there is a dearth of research training catering to their particular position.

The event has five elements:

1) Training and development workshops. Sessions include:

Getting published, Teaching as a postgrad, Using social media, Applying for funding, Conference organisation, Job search and CV writing, Being a part-time postgrad, Coping with academic stress, Working with your supervisor & mentoring others, Remaining research active post-PhD graduation

2) A “drop-in surgery” for advice

3) The chance to present one’s research project in poster format and receive feedback on it (optional)

4) A “marketplace” showcasing publishers, scholarly organisations and societies etc

5) Networking and socialising opportunities, including a drinks reception kindly supported by The Paul Mellon Professorial Fund

The cost is £20. The deadline for registration is Wednesday 14th November 2012.

To register, or if you have any questions, please contact the organisers (Dr Dawn-Marie Gibson, RHUL; Dr Rachel Ritchie, Brunel University; Ms Imaobong Umoren, Oxford University) via shawsociety@gmail.com

Bloomsbury Festival: 20th-21st October 2012

The Bloomsbury Festival 2012 will take place on the weekend of the 20th October celebrating the cultural organisations, community groups, creative individuals and iconic institutions of this little-known corner of central London.

From dance to drama, poetry to performance, art to architecture and workshops to walks it’s already promising to be another exciting year with programming taking place across the whole area

Below are listed some exhibitions and talks celebrating some of the Institute's library and archive collections. For a full listing of events please explore: http://www.bloomsburyfestival.org.uk/

Exhibition: Ruth First's Extraordinary Life
Sat 20 Oct 11:00-17:00 at Senate House

Sun 21 Oct 11:00-16:00 at Senate House

Anti-apartheid activist Ruth First dedicated her life to “the liberation of Africa for I count myself an African, and there is no cause I hold dearer”. She was passionate about achieving justice in South Africa, but her perspective was international. First saw activism, solidarity work, research and writing as essential activities for a revolutionary. She was assassinated in 1982 by a letter bomb sent by the South African secret service. The Institute of Commonwealth Studies is digitising this extraordinary woman’s papers. This exhibition of Ruth First’s papers, photographs and archival material at Senate House offers an introduction to both First herself and her important works, which retain their relevance, especially in the light of recent democracy movements across northern Africa and beyond.


Talk: A Revolutionary Life

Sun 21 Oct 11:00-11:30 at Senate House

This talk introduces Ruth First and offers an insight into her multifaceted, revolutionary life as an international scholar, activist and writer, and wife and mother

Talk: Introduction to the Ruth First Archive


Sun 21 Oct 14:00-14:30 at Senate House

This talk will introduce the archive of Ruth First's collection of papers, included her collected writings, published journalism, correspondence and notes.

Talk: Ruth First and Bloomsbury

Sun 21 Oct 15:00-15:30 at Senate House

Following her arrest under the South African 90-day law, Ruth First was barred from her profession as a journalist; she went into exile and moved to London. This talk discusses First's intellectual associations with Bloomsbury.

Exhibition: Campaigning for Independence, Equality and Freedom


  Sat 20 Oct 11:00-17:00 at Senate House
Sun 21 Oct 11:00-16:00 at Senate House

The political archives held in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies library encompass more than 270 boxes of political pamphlets, newsletters and posters from over 60 countries, mainly dating from the 1960s and 1970s, the period when many of these countries were making the transition to independence. The Southern African region is particularly well represented, with materials from an extraordinarily wide variety of different political parties, trade unions and pressure groups having been preserved. This exhibition reveals how these materials are used to convey different messages in different ways and provide an historical insight not found in official archives and records. Curated by Benjamin Coleman and David Clover.