[Marxism] Call for Papers - Empire and Imperialism -- postgraduate conference

[Christopher Carrico <ccarrico@xxxxxxxxxx>]

For what its worth...   For other grad students on the
list.  Its funny, but most of the non-academics on this list
probably have a more rigorously defined idea of
what "Imperialism" and "Empire" mean than most of the
academics who will submit papers to this, but so it goes....

CALL FOR PAPERS

"Critical Perspectives on Empire and Imperialism: past and
present"

Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference at the Department
of History, University of Essex, UK, September 24-25, 2004.

Classical notions of empire and imperialism emphasise the
political and economic domination of a group of states by a
metropolitan power and the policy which seeks the extension
of this domination through colonisation, military coercion,
treaties and other means of gaining ascendancy. Historians
have often tended to treat empire and imperialism
as issues of the past and not the present. However, the
current preoccupation with concerns like globalisation and
the 'war on terrorism' as conceived by the United States of
America and its Western allies, indicate a reordering of
global power relations in such a way that the concepts of
empire and imperialism are gaining new currency in
contemporary historical and political debate. The continuing
appalling difference in economic, social, political and
technological conditions between the former imperial powers
and the former colonies also suggests a relevance of empire
and imperialism to present life.

In the academic world, the last two decades or so have
seen a shift in focus from a rather narrow concentration on
economics and politics towards approaches that include all
aspects of social life, particularly those of culture and
identity. This has added to a more complex understanding of
the historical and present relations between metropoles
and (former) colonies, and has particulary shed new light
on movements of resistance and opposition to empire and
imperialism.

This conference seeks to extend the debate on empire and
imperialism by inviting contributions from as wide a
disciplinary background as possible. We welcome proposals
for papers from postgraduate students from within and
outside the United Kingdom. We hope for contributions
from history, sociology, political science, language and
literature, economics, international relations, law,
philosophy, development studies etc. Contributions that seek
to combine historical insights with contemporary
perspectives are particularly welcome.

Papers should relate concepts of empire and imperialism to
fields and issues such as economics, politics, international
and civil wars, foreign relations, international business
and multinational corporations, culture, identity, nation,
race, ethnicity, class formation, labour, migration,
gender relations, terrorism, genocide, human rights and
religion. The conference aims to focus on themes such as:

Conceptual and theoretical approaches to empire/imperialism
and their application to historical and contemporary analysis
- How empire/imperialism affects (and has historically
affected) people's lives economically, socially, politically
and culturally both in the metropoles and in the periphery.
- Resistance to empire/imperialism.

Abstracts of proposed papers should be of about 300 words
in length and sent by email to: Dagmar Engelken and Yomi
Kristilolu, hist-grad-forum@xxxxxxxxxxx, by July 30, 2004.

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