Oxford Centre for Intellectual History Graduate Conference 2026
After Empire: Intellectual Life in a Post-Imperial World
Date: Thursday 28 may
Time: 09:15-17:40
Venue: New College, The New Space
The Oxford Graduate Conference in Intellectual History will take place on Thursday, 28 May 2026 at The New Space at New College, Oxford.
Programme
9:15 - 9:30: Welcome and Introduction by our student led conference committee
9:30 - 10:40: Panel I - Systems and Networks - Chaired by Mikayla Apicella (Reuben College, University of Oxford)
Blaine Patrick Werner, Jr. (University of Virginia), 'Revisiting Curators of the Buddha (1995): Ambivalence, Critical Agency, and the Upside of Melancholy for Living in the Shadow of Empire'
Simon Werner (European University Institute), 'Transnational knowledge networks, Cold War politics, and the making of modernization theory in late colonial Africa'
11:00 - 12:00 Keynote Speech: Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Princeton University), 'Empires and Mass Enslavement: The Challenges for Intellectual History'
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch Break
13:30-14:40: Panel II - Structures 1: Social - Chaired by Philip AI-Taiee (University College, University of Oxford)
Natalia Lanko (SciencesPo, Paris), 'The Political Economy of the Levant Company, c.1800'
Duanran Feng (The Queen's College, University of Oxford), 'Dissembling empire in the Church: Theological Difference in the Independence Movement of the West City church, Beijing, c. 1919-27'
14:40 - 15:10 Coffee Break
15:10 - 16:20: Panel III - Individuals - Chaired by Yanxuan Zheng (Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford)
Swetabja Mallik (University of Hyderabad), 'Orphaned by Empire: Intellectual Formations and Post-Imperial Displacement'
Nilakshi Das (Institute of Historical Research), 'The Commonwealth and the politics of student mobility as a post-imperial project,1950-2000'
Stefano Glenn Torrigiotti (Scuola Normale Superiore), 'Neither Ruins nor Liberation: Muhammad Iqbal's Payām-e Mashreq and the Post-Imperial Moment (1923)'
16:30 -17:40: Panel IV - Structures 2: Political- Chaired by Robert Taylor (New College, University of Oxford)
Floris de Ruiter (Leiden), 'Aurobindo's Theory of Violence and the Limits of India's Post-Imperial Statist Peace'
Finian Smyth (Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford), 'Structural Dependency, Fiscal Rules, and post-Keynesianism's Global Context
For any questions or queries, please get in touch with the convenors via oxford.ihconference@gmail.com
