Tag: Lecture

Professor Hakim Adi Lecture: Affirming the History of African and Caribbean People in Britain (March 7)

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Join us at the University of Exeter on March 7th, 2024 at 6:00 PM for a powerful celebration of the rich history of African and Caribbean communities in Britain!

Newman Red Lecture Theatre, Stocker Road Exeter EX4 4QD

In 2023 Hakim Adi’s African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History was shortlisted for the prestigious Wolfson History Prize. In the same year, and despite developing and supervising probably the largest cohort of Black postgraduate history students in the country, his ground-breaking MRes in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora was terminated and he was dismissed from his post at the University of Chichester.

Continue reading “Professor Hakim Adi Lecture: Affirming the History of African and Caribbean People in Britain (March 7)” →

Decolonising Europe #12: Decolonising the Non-Colonisers?

Published on by CIGH Exeter

This the 12th session of the successful Decolonising Europe Lecture Series. In this session the gaze is towards Eastern Europe. Where is Eastern Europe in the history of global colonialism? This session explores why Eastern Europe has been largely absent from mainstream histories of global colonialism and studies of postcolonialism and decolonialism.

Date 17 February 2021
Time 16:00 -17:00

The region’s integration into capitalism meant integrating into an evolving global colonial-racial system. Eastern Europeans were often racialised as inferior and ‘uncivilised’ while their region became a dependent hinterland and colonial arena of various imperialist projects. However, Eastern Europeans also supported global colonialism, (re)produced white supremacy and Eurocentric or colonial worldviews, partook in colonial expeditions and accumulated colonial collections, and strove to acquire colonies and build empires. The region’s contradictory historical relationship with colonialism is laden with the tensions and challenges of ‘in-betweenness’: being part of ‘white Europe’ and striving to ‘catch up’ to the West, but being ‘not-quite-white’ and a (semi)periphery of the core. This tension facilitated various strategies of globally manoeuvring between rebel anti-colonial alliances and comprador colonialist positions.

How do these contradictory histories inform current debates about anti-racism and decolonisation? What are the challenges of decolonial politics in a postsocialist region where “white lives matter”? Can we decolonise the ‘non-colonisers’?

This event is co-organized by ACES and Zoltán Ginelli to foster dialogue on Decolonising Eastern Europe. Please follow the group Decolonizing Eastern Europe on Facebook and Twitter for existing debates and collaborations on the topic.

Zoltán Ginelli is a critical geographer and Independent Researcher from Budapest (Hungary), currently working on his book on the global history of the ‘quantitative revolution’. He is member of Karl Polanyi Research Centre and the Dialoguing Posts Network. During 2015–2019, he worked as Assistant Researcher in the Leverhulme Trust and AHRC research projects 1989 After 1989 and Socialism Goes Global. He is co-curating with Eszter Szakács the exhibition Transperiphery Movement: Global Eastern Europe and Global South for the 2021 OFF-Biennale Budapest. Zoltán is founder admin of Decolonizing Eastern Europe (Facebook, Twitter) and blogs at kritikaifoldrajz.hu.

James Mark is a Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He has recently been part of projects aimed at rethinking Eastern European history in the context of global Empires and their ends. He was Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Research Leadership Award (2014 – 2019): ‘1989 after 1989: Rethinking the Fall of State Socialism in Global Perspective’; and an Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) funded project; ‘Socialism Goes Global: Cold War Connections Between the ‘Second’ and ‘Third Worlds” (2015-19).  He is the author of The Unfinished Revolution: Making Sense of the Communist Past in Central-Eastern Europe (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) and co-author of Europe’s 1968: Voices of Revolt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); 1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe and co-editor of Alternative Globalisations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World. A co-written work reframing Eastern European history as part of a global story of Empires and their ends will be published with OUP later this year.

Click here for further details and to register

Confronting Catastrophe: International Disaster Assistance and Twentieth Century U.S. Foreign Relations – A Talk by Prof. Julia Irwin (4 July)

Published on by CIGH Exeter

We are delighted to welcome Professor Julia Irwin (University of South Florida), who will be at the University of Exeter on a Visiting International Academic Fellowship on July 4. During her visit, she has kindly offered to give a lecture entitled ‘Confronting Catastrophe: International Disaster Assistance and Twentieth Century U.S. Foreign Relations.’ Her talk is in association with Exeter’s Centre for Imperial and Global History, the Centre for the Study of War, State and Society, and the Centre for Medical History.

When: Thursday, 4 July, 3-4:30pm

Where: Laver LT3 (University of Exeter, Streatham Campus)

Abstract: Prof. Irwin’s talk examines the history and politics of U.S. foreign disaster assistance in the 20th century. More specifically, she considers the ways that the U.S. government, military, and private organizations have historically responded to major natural disasters abroad, and critically analyses the political implications and diplomatic significance of these humanitarian efforts.

Bio: Prof. Irwin is Associate Chair in the History Department at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on the place of humanitarianism and foreign assistance in 20th century U.S. foreign relations and international history. Her first book, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening (Oxford University Press, 2013), is a history of U.S. relief efforts for foreign civilians in the era of the First World War, exploring both the diplomatic and the cultural significance of humanitarian aid in these years. Her work has appeared in The Journal of American History, The American Historian, Diplomatic History, First World War Studies, The Bulletin of the History of Medicine, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Moving the Social, History of Education Quarterly, and Nursing History Review. She was also the senior editor of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia in American History (2014-16). She is now writing a second book, Catastrophic Diplomacy: A History of U.S. Responses to Global Natural Disasters, which analyzes how U.S. State Department agencies, branches of the U.S. military, American charities and relief organizations, and the American public have responded to foreign disasters caused by tropical storms, earthquakes, floods, and other natural hazards throughout the twentieth century.

Keynote Lecture by Paul Kennedy – The Second World War at Sea, from Top to Bottom: A Braudelian Look at the Allied Victory

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Centre for Maritime Historical Studies Keynote Lecture

Professor Paul Kennedy, CBE (Yale University)

‘The Second World War at Sea, from Top to Bottom: A Braudelian Look at the Allied Victory’

When: Wednesday 20 March, 2019, 1700-1830

Where: Amory C417 (University of Exeter, Streatham Campus)

All Welcome

Paul Kennedy is one of Britain’s leading historians. Perhaps best known for his seminal publication The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, his earlier work focused on the history of the Royal Navy and the wider contexts in which it operated. Paul’s book The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, published in 1976, examined the diverse elements that contributed to a nation’s exercise of naval power, including geopolitics, economics and logistics. This was a landmark publication, and one of the first academic works dealing with naval history to intervene in and enlighten wider historiographical debates; it was recently re-issued with a new introduction to coincide with the 40th anniversary of its publication. Paul continues to write and publish on the intersections between naval history, international relations and grand strategy. Paul was made a CBE in 2001, elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003, and was awarded the Caird Medal in 2005 for his contributions to naval history.