Conference- Empires: Towards a Global History

Empires: Towards a Global History

University of Delhi, Delhi, December 3-5, 2017

Empires have had an enduring influence on global history. They have functioned as major geopolitical units and as preeminent arenas for the circulation of ideas, techniques, goods and people. However we may describe or define empires, diversity and heterogeneity remain crucial features, in terms of political formations as well as relationships (tributaries, settler colonies, chieftainships, for example); and because they straddled varieties of economic structures (agrarian, pastoral, trading, urban and rural), ethnicities and populations. Precisely because of their heterogeneity, empires have facilitated connections, circulation, and commerce within and across their boundaries. Empires often endured beyond and across different ages, competing and coexisting with rival empires. They were forged and dissolved by forces that were both internal and external to their presumed territorial boundaries.

This conference is premised on the idea that empires drew their strength from a global systemic architecture of hegemony and dominance.  The objective of the conference is designed to emphasize how imperial interactions served to reinforce empires within their global scaffolding. “Towards a Global History of Empires” seeks to delineate different strands and interconnected themes that explain both empires’ persistence as well as their mutations over time.

The Conference is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and the Department of History( UGC- Centre of Advanced Studies), University of Delhi, Delhi and is part of a series of academic initiatives of the Global History Network, a network of global history institutions including East China Normal University, Shanghai; the International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands; Lab Mundi at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil; Department of History, University of Delhi,the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, Harvard University, USA,  Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal, and the University of Göttingen, Germany.

Coordination:

Department of History, University of Delhi

Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, Harvard University

 

PROGRAM:

 

Day 1: December 3^rd

9:00-9:30- Inaugural Session

Chair: Sunil Kumar, Department of History, University of Delhi, India
Sven Beckert, Harvard University, USA
Prabhu. P. Mohapatra, Department of History, University of Delhi, India

9:50 - 11:00- Session 1: Commodities and Empire I

Chair: R Gopinath, Department of History, Jamia MilliaIslamia

1. Global Cotton and Local Initiatives: A View from the West African Savannah, 1740-1780
   Jody Benjamin, History University of California, Riverside, USA
2. Standard Cocoa: Trans-Imperial Plantations And The Making Of The Global World
   Marta Macedo, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal
3. Migration, Commodity Production and the Maistry System in Colonial Burma c. 1880-1940
   Ritesh Jaiswal, Harvard University

11:00 - 12:30 - Session 2: Commodities and Empire II

Chair: Karin Hofmeester, International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands

1. Mysore and Coorg Coffee in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries
   Sharmila Shrivastava, Hansraj College, University of Delhi, India
2. Oiling the Extractive Machine: The Rise of Soy as a Tool of Imperialism in East Asia
   Rachel Steely, Harvard University, USA
3. Art as Commodity in the Empire: British Envisioning of India
   Sonal Singh, Department of History, University of Delhi, India

2:00- 3:30 - Session 3: Technologies of Empire

Chair: Farhat Hasan, Department of History, University of Delhi, India

1. The Global Power of Cables. Imperialism and Submarine Telegraphy (1866-1902)
   Andrea Giuntini, Department of Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
2. Network of knowledge and technology: Colonial civil engineers in the Philippines in the second half of the nineteenth century
   Ros A. Costelo, University of the Philippines/ PhD Student Consejo Superior de       Investigaciones Cientificas-Universidad Complutense de Madrid
3. Analyzing the Impact of Indian Tariff Policies on the British Empire’s Trade and Commercial Relations with India during the Interwar Period (1918-1940)Blessy Abraham, Department of History, University of Delhi, India

3:45- 5:15- Session 4: Peripheries, Frontiers, Crossings

Chair: Babacar Fall, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal

1. Brazil and its Worlds: An Analytical Inventory of Brazil's Position and Global Connections within the World Arena of the Early Nineteenth Century.
   João Paulo Pimenta, Lab Mundi, University of São Paolo, Brazil
2. Straddling Nation and Empire: Australia and Japan on the Asian Periphery
   Mark Lincicome, Director, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, USA; Director, Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies, Japan

Day 2: 4^th December

9:30- 11:00 am - Session 5: Ideas in Movement

Chair: Raziuddin Aquil, Department of History, University of Delhi

1. The Left Book Club and its associates: towards a global history of the Book trade as a path of circulation of socialist ideas during the inter-war period.
   Matheus Cardoso da Silva, Estate University Julio de Mesquita (UNESP), Brazil
2. Vauban in the Colony: The New Fort William in Eighteenth-century Calcutta
   Kaustubh Mani Sengupta, Bankura University, India
3. Schooling the Empire: Towards a Global History of the Bell-Lancaster Method
   Akash Bhattacharya, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
4. Circulation: Knowledge, Practices and Objects of Science in the Colonial Plantation c. 1834-1910
   Madhwi, University of Delhi, India

11:15- 12:45 pm - Session 6: Dwelling in the Imperial City

Chair: B.P. Sahu, Department of History, University of Delhi, India

1. The Bungalow in 20th Century India: The Legacy of the Empire in Colonial and Post-Colonial Times
   Miki Desai and Madhavi Desai, CEPT University, India
2. Milan-Madrid-Mexico: Global Urban Network and Cities in Spanish Empire
   ZHU Ming, East China Normal University, China
3. Reclaiming Urban Space: Solidarity and Resistance at the ‘Nexus of Empires’ Shubhankita Ojha, Harvard University, USA

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM – Keynote Address: Sugata Bose, Harvard University - Between Empire and Nations: Changing Meaning of Sovereignty and Borders
The talk will be chaired by Madhavan K.Palat

Day 3: 5^th December

9:30 am-10:30 am- Session 7: Empire and Anti-Colonialism

Chair: TBA

1. From Punjab to America and Back: Ghadar Movement and the Integration of Global and Indian Anti-Colonialism
   Sunny Kumar, Department of History, University of Delhi, India
2. The Globalization of Anti-Colonialism: The Movement for Colonial Freedom and African Nationalism
   Daniel Gorman, University of Waterloo, Canada

11:00-12:30- Session 8- Travel and the Margins of Empire

Chair: Radhika Singha, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

1. On the Circulating Notion of "Barbarian" across Ming/Qing China and the Early Iberian Empires (16-18 centuries)
   Ana Carolina Hosne, The National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina
2. Territorialization Processes in Open Inter-Imperial Frontiers: the Río de la Plata in the Crossing of the Iberian Empires (XVIII-XIX centuries)
   Lucía Rodríguez Arrillaga, Universidad de la República, Uruguay; Laboratório de EstudossobreoBrasil e o Sistema Mundial, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
3. The Three Princes of Broach: Indian Travelers on the Move Between Bombay, Istanbul and London (ca. 1790)
   Rahul Markovits, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

2:00- 3:30 pm - Session 9: Reflections on Global History
Chair: TBA
Panelists: Sven Beckert, Harvard University, USA
            Mamadou Fall, Université Chiekh Anta Diop, Senegal
            Mathias van Rossum, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam

4:00-5:00 - Session 10: Plenary Session– Teaching Global History
Chair: Upinder Singh, Department of History, University of Delhi