The Department of History will host an international and interdisciplinary workshop on “Theorizing Anti-Colonialism” on March 3 and 4.
The two-day event will feature speakers from Canada, China, faculty members from other SUNY campuses and several Fredonia faculty. They will discuss the issue of anti-colonialism within a global context and the possibility of further collaboration. The workshop has been made possible with the support of a SUNY Network of Excellence grant and Fredonia Convocation Series funds.
The workshop is part of a research project, “Building an Interdisciplinary Approach to Study Chinese Views of the Global Past,” co-organized by Dr. Xin Fan from Fredonia, Dr. Tze-ki Hon from SUNY Geneseo and Dr. Kristin Stapleton from the University at Buffalo. The two-day event is open and free to students and the public. On-campus events will take place in the Williams Center Rooms S204ABC.
The workshop schedule includes:
Thursday, March 3:
A Fredonia Convocation Series event from 4 to 6 p.m. hosted by Mary Beth Sievens, associate professor and chair of the Department of History. The guest speaker Dr. Qingjia Edward Wang from Rowan University in New Jersey and Peking University in China, who will present on, “Why Chopsticks? Their Culture, History and Sphere.”
Friday, March 4:
Panel One, a round table discussion, “Rethinking Anti-Colonial Theories,” from 8:45 to 10:15 a.m. Randolph Hohle, associate professor of Sociology at Fredonia, will present on “A Relational Approach to Anticolonial Theory.” Dr. Stapleton will discuss, “Colonial and Anti-Colonial Issues in regard to Cities of the Global South.” Dr. Ryan Jones from SUNY Geneseo will be talking about, “Global Sexology in East Asia: New Research from Towards a Global History of Sexology.” Panel one will be moderated by Dr. Fan, an assistant professor in the Department of History.
Panel Two, “Knowledge, Power and Politics,” will take place from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Dr. Jacqueline Swansinger from the Department of History will discuss, “Whose Post-Colonial? Moroccan identity, language, and ‘imagined community’.” Dr. Megan Brankley Abbas from SUNY Geneseo will present on, “Is the Discipline of History Secular?: Muhammad Rasjidi and the Fight against Western Academic Imperialism.” Chiara De Santi, visiting assistant professor of Italian at Fredonia will talk about, “Eurocentric and Colonialist Perspectives in Moravia’s 1956 Uzbek Travelogues.” Dr. Stapleton will be the moderator.
Panel Three, “Revolution as Resistance, Resistance as Revolution” will be from 1 to 2:30 p.m. John Staples, associate professor of History at Fredonia, will discuss “Russian Peasant Rebellions as Anti-Colonialism.” Quian Zhu from New York University-Shanghai will present on, “Nations Below Wind: Chinese Leftists and Anti-colonial Internationalism in Southeast Asia, 1939-1943.” Peter McCord, visiting assistant professor of the Department of History at Fredonia will talk about “Anti-colonialism and Agriculture in Vietnam.” The panel will be moderated by Dr. Wang.
Panel Four, a round table discussion, “Future Research and Collaboration,” is from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. Tom Lam from the University of Toronto will discuss, “Amid the Colonial Debris: China and India in the Global History of Science and Technology.” Dr. Hon from SUNY Geneseo will address, “Building an Interdisciplinary Approach to Study Chinese Views of the Global Past.” Dr. Swansinger will moderate the panel.
Closing remarks will wrap up the workshop by 4 p.m.
