The Global History Network, the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the Foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris, and the Institute of Advanced Study in Saint-Louis, seek papers for a conference on Colonial Cities in Global Perspective, to be held in Saint-Louis, Senegal, from December 10-12, 2018.
For over four centuries, the colonial city served as interface between the imperial powers and the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It functioned as fortified outpost, administrative center, trading portal, in some case as collection point for the overseas shipment of slaves, and always as a site of cross-cultural learning and experience. Coastal colonial cities exhibited tremendous diversity and common traits, shaped by the interaction among imperial governors and merchants, colonial capitalists and peasant laborers in their agrarian hinterlands, indigenous and immigrant populations, and highly diverse and challenging physical environments. In many ways their global role anticipated the role that urban theory has established for the contemporary global city—both as the market and industrial pole for a rural hinterland, and a site in an archipelago of cosmopolitan entrepots linked with their metropoles and developing a unique fusion of services and clienteles.
For more details and submission guidelines, please see the full Call for Papers.