Global Convergences: European Encounters And Cultural Interactions

9:30 – 5:30, Wednesday 14th February 2007, 107, Building W6A, Macquarie University

Conveners:
Professor Angela Woollacott and Dr Adrian Carton

This is an international one-day symposium co-hosted by the IUEU Centre and the Department of Modern History at Macquarie University in association with the Department of History at Otago University, New Zealand.

Since 2004, researchers at the University of Otago in Dunedin and researchers in the Department of Modern History at Macquarie have discussed their mutual interest in studies of the impact of the European encounter in the wider world. New scholarship in transnational and postcolonial studies is enabling us to rethink the cultural interactions and social legacies of that encounter in ways that go beyond the vertical ‘centre’ versus ‘periphery’ model of traditional imperial studies. Cultural transmissions across national boundaries and the global circulation of new identities, ideas and forms of knowledge as a result of the colonial encounter are empowering historians to consider the ways in which the European presence was acted upon and transformed, as well as the ways in which hybrid cultural forms and institutions shaped colonial landscapes. It has become clear, for example, that the two groups of researchers are investigating linked questions about the legacies of the European encounter in places such as Australia, New Zealand and India in a broader global context where issues of race, gender and sexuality are pivotal. Moreover, it has also become increasingly more useful to consider Tony Ballantyne’s notion of European empires as relational webs in this context where horizontal relationships between colonies, such as Australia, New Zealand and India, were important pathways for cross-cultural exchange. A core group of researchers from the Department of Modern History at Macquarie and the Department of History at Otago are now poised to come together to explore the various ways in which the European encounter forged new societies in a global context as well as to ponder new historiographical approaches to the impact of colonialism itself.

Further information: contact adrian.carton@humn.mq.edu.au or 9850 7041

Click to view/download Symposium Flyer (378kb) Program and Abstracts (71 kb)

This symposium is open to anyone interested in attending. Seats are limited so please register your attendance with Xinni Du before Friday 9 February 2007.