How Empire Mattered: Imperial Structures and Globalization in the Era of British Imperialism

How Empire Mattered: Imperial Structures and Globalization in the Era of British Imperialism

Dates: April 4-5, 2003

Location of conference: Home Room, International House, UC Berkeley campus

Sponsors: Center for South Asia Studies, Department of History, Townsend Center for the Humanities

This conference examines the era of British imperialism as one of significant globalization, in implicit comparison with the contemporary world. To what degree did the "international framework" provided by the British empire matter in shaping the contours of the globalizing process? The papers address metropolitan debates and discourses, political and economic developments in particular colonies, comparisons between colonies, as well as the importance of imperial ideologies in giving rise to global change. The papers link the state, both imperial/colonial and its nationalist/postcolonial successors, with various forms of power--ideological power, political power, and cultural/epistemological power more generally. In joining these fields of analysis, the conference's goal is to articulate a vision for the future of the "new imperial history," one that emerges out of the scholarly training and tradition that the participants have received at Berkeley.

Papers will available beforehand and at each panel, paper presenters will have 5-10 minutes to discuss the main aims of the paper and the discussant will have 15-20 minutes to offer critical suggestions.

Doctoral dissertations supervised by Dr. Thomas R. Metcalf, Professor of History and Chair, Center for South Asia Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

Friday, April 4, 2003

8:30 -- 9:00	Tea, coffee, etc.

9:00 10:45	Global Frameworks: legal regimes, revenues, and irrigation Chair: Lynne Withey, University of California Press Nasser Hussain, Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, and History Departments, Amherst College: "Habeas Corpus in Colonial India" Draft paper available as a MS Word document. John Richards , History Department, Duke University: "Imperial Tribute and Indian Revenues under the East India Company, 1762-1859." Draft paper available as a MS Word document. There is also an accompanying MS Excel spreadsheet containing charts, available here. David Gilmartin, History Department, North Carolina State University: "Imperial Rivers: Irrigation and British Visions of Empire." Draft paper available as a MS Word document Discussant: Sudipta Sen, Syracuse University

10:45 11: 00	Tea, coffee, etc.

11: 00 12:45	Imperial Visions: Vocabularies of Contact and Exchange Chair: Catherine Asher, Art History, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Sandria B. Freitag, Director, Monterey Bay History and Cultures Project, UCSC: "Visual Vocabularies in 20th Century India: Negotiating the Imperial and the Local." Draft paper available as a MS Word document. Peter Hoffenberg, History Department, University of Hawaii: "John Lockwood Kipling, W. H. Griggs and the Journal of Indian Art and Industry." Draft paper available as a MS Word document Vahid Fozdar, History Department, University of Washington, Seattle: "Imperial Brotherhood: Indian Freemasonry and Global Networking During the British Raj." For draft paper, please contact fozdar@u.washington.edu. Discussant: Lisa Trivedi, History Department, Hamilton College

12:45 2:00	Break for lunch

2:00 3:30	A Dying Empire?: Anticolonial Campaigns and 20^th Century Global Ideologies Chair: Frederick Asher, Art History, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Kevin Grant, History Department, Hamilton College: "Letting Us Die by Inches Frightens Them: Hunger Strikes in Britain and the Empire, c. 1909-1922." Draft paper available as a MS Word document Durba Ghosh, Women’s Studies, Wellesley College: "Britain’s Global War on ‘Terrorism,’ the 1920s." Draft paper available as a MS Word document Discussant: Krystyna von Henneberg, History Department, UC-Davis

4: 00	Christopher Bayly, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Naval and Imperial History, St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge Ideologies of the end of the Raj: Simla, Burma and the World, 1942-46. Chair: Tom Laqueur

Saturday, April 5, 2003

8:30 9:00	Tea, coffee, etc.

9:00 10:30	Colonial Maladies Chair: Rachel Sturman, Society of Fellows and History Department, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Dane Kennedy, History Department, George Washington University: "Diagnosing the Colonial Dilemma: Tropical Neurasthenia and the Alienated Briton." Draft paper available as a MS Word document Alice Bullard, History Department, Georgia Institute of Technology: "Postcolonial Psychiatry: The Legacy of ‘L'Oedipe Africain.’" Draft paper available as a MS Word document Discussant: Lisa Pollard, History Department, University of North Carolina-Wilmington

10: 30 10:45	Tea, coffee, etc.

10:45 12: 15	Comparing Colonialisms Chair: Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago Anne Keary, History Department, University of Utah: "Pacific Histories: Missionary Projects, Colonial Translations." Deana Heath, History Department, University of California, Berkeley: "Transnational Histories: The Pitfalls, Perils, and Possibilities of Comparative Colonial Projects." Draft paper available as a MS Word document Discussant: Carina Johnson, History Department, Pitzer College

12:15 1:00	Closing Remarks by Dr. Thomas Metcalf, Chair of the Center for South Asia Studies at UC Berkeley