4-5 September 2025, Prague
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences,
1st floor, room 214a, Jilská 1, Prague
PROGRAM
Thursday 4th September
1000-1015: Introduction
1015-1230: Conceptual
- Empires of Incorporation, Empires of Extraction
Gurminder K Bhambra, University of Sussex
- The Modern State as Empire: A Part Apart
Rahul Govind, Delhi University - (Post)Neoliberalism, Ethnonationalism, and the Migration State
James Hampshire, University of Sussex
1230-1400: LUNCH
1400-1700: Cultural
- Colonialism without Colonies: The Case of Central Europe.
Markéta Křížová, Charles University
- Ambiguities of Race and the Politics of Extraction
Aleksandra Lewicki, University of Sussex
- The Small Nation States of Central Europe: Czech Reflections on Colonial Legacies, Modern State and International Dynamics
Jan Balon, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
Friday 5th September
1000-1215: Geopolitical
- The Colonial Origins of the Failure of ‘Un-Nationalism’
John Holmwood, Nottingham University
- The League of Nations Minority Regime and the Legacy Problem
Elizabeth Craig, Sussex Law School
- ‘Small Nations’ – Europe’s Great Enemies…
Peo Hansen, Linköping University
1215-1345: LUNCH
1345-1515: (De)colonial walk: Traces of coloniality in the Prague public space
Markéta Křížová, Centre for Ibero-American Studies, Charles University
1530-1700: Discussion of Future Plans and ongoing collaborations
Organised by Dr Jan Balon, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences and Professor Gurminder K Bhambra, University of Sussex
Funded by the research programme Strategy AV21: Anatomy of European Society, History, Tradition, Culture, Identity; and the University of Sussex
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Context
The nation-state is the primary methodological unit of analysis across much of the social sciences, especially political science and sociology. Its emergence is associated with the rise of a modern world (understood in Eurocentred terms) and a corresponding decline of empire as a political form. Indeed, the very conceptual framing of modernity locates empires and nation-states on either side of a divide, a divide that is understood as both temporal and cultural and which has increasingly been called into question. This workshop will address post-imperial/-colonial legacies in Europe. It has three strands: conceptual, cultural, and geopolitical.
The conceptual strand will address differences among types of empires encompassing empires within Europe (e.g. Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian) and overseas empires of Europe (e.g. British, French, Dutch). We will distinguish empires of incorporation and empires of extraction (including mixed types). In this context, central and Eastern Europe is a deeply contested space, including in relation to the rise of new empires after the Russian revolution and new post-imperial legacies.
The cultural strand focuses on the different forms of ethno-nationalism and contestation of difference associated with the demise of the different empires within Europe and the populations movements entailed. It also involves consideration of the emergence of a new politics of identity associated with the migration of former subjects of European overseas empires. It addresses issues of representation within cultural institutions as well as popular imaginaries.
The strand on geopolitics locates the politics of imperial competition and national state formation as a key feature of what has become the ‘long twentieth century’. Here the workshop traces developments from the Russo-Turkish war and the Berlin conference in the late nineteenth century through two world wars, the formation of the European Union and its expansion following the collapse of communism to identify continuities and reversions in international conflict from central and eastern Europe through to the Middle East.