Postcolonial Empires:
Institutions and Historiographies

Alternate Wednesdays in term, 17:00 - 19:00
CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge

Conveners

Rachel Bower (English)
Manar Makhoul (Asian & Middle Eastern Studies)

Our seminar group aims to be a site for inter-disciplinary research within the field of postcolonial studies. From its inception, the field of postcolonial studies has drawn on the work of historians, anthropologists, philosophers and cultural and literary theorists working in various languages and in relation to various geographical regions.

We will continue to pursue the question that formed the basis of our initial project: does postcolonial theory¬ remain relevant to analytical and critical investigations of twenty-first century empires, commercial, cultural and geographic? Building on this, our new sub-title gestures towards the direction of our second year work which asks how postcolonial theory might be relevant in examining historiography, looking at how postcolonial theory helps us to explore physical, material, social, geographical and textual histories.

Our key questions include:

-    Who speaks for the past?
-    Who narrates, who is narrated and who is excluded?
-    Who is responsible for making history accessible?
-    How do we interpret history through institutions?
-    Why do we collect?
-    How do archives function as national projects?
-    What is the relationship between memory, the archive, memorialisation and the museum, and why is this important for rethinking history in a postcolonial context?

Our questions require an interdisciplinary mode of address, and are relevant to the CRASSH theme for 2009-10, looking at a ‘sustainable, renewable, or ‘future’ university’ as we seek to look at how institutions, including the university, are sites of  ‘cultural encounter and transformation'. We will continue to examine the state of our common theoretical framework, and also to determine how it has impacted upon the various disciplines to which we belong.

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Administrative contact: Esther Lamb (Grad/Fac Programme and Office Manager)

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