Founded in 2018 as the Postcolonial Seminar, this forum brings together colleagues in the School of English and Drama, the School of History, and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film who share expertise in the study of empire and its contemporary afterlives. Collectively, they are interested in anti-colonial political thought, global processes of decolonization, and the study of colonial, postcolonial and Indigenous cultures, societies, literatures, and languages in regions including the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, the Americas, Australasia, and Britain.
The forum has already helped to position Queen Mary at the forefront of the fields of postcolonial and Global South studies by hosting guest lectures, reading groups, and work-in-progress sessions, as well as films and book launches. To date, speakers have included Jennifer Wenzel (Columbia University), Ania Loomba (University of Pennsylvania and IHSS Global Professorial Fellow), Yair Wallach (SOAS), Jeanne-Marie Jackson (Johns Hopkins University), Roanne Kantor (Stanford University), and Nasser Mufti (University of Illinois). Recent events have included a poetry reading with Wiradjuri-Australian poet Alison J Barton, a screening of the 2020 film Expedition Content followed by a director Q&A, and the launch of Rachael Gilmour’s 2020 Bad English: Literature, Multilingualism, and the Politics of Language in Contemporary Britain. Above all, the collective provides a crucial space for interdisciplinary dialogue in which colleagues have been able to workshop and develop current research ahead of publications.
The forum members are now developing the collective into a hub where they can collaborate on interdisciplinary funding bids, launch new public-facing projects, and extend our conversations to wider audiences. They hope to grow our membership to include colleagues from other HSS Departments and Schools and to provide support and opportunities for PhD students seeking experience in presenting their research and organizing events. They also aim to develop a bank of cross-disciplinary modules on topics such as global culture and media, global environmental studies, and migration and refugee studies, which could be included in programmes across Schools and Departments. Finally, the forum wishes to expand their existing connections with organizations beyond the University, focusing particularly on knowledge exchange with local communities.
Dr Rehana Ahmed
Dr Swati Arora
Dr Nadia Atia
Dr Ed Charlton
Professor Rachael Gilmour
Dr Leslie James
Dr Kasia Mika
Dr Ananya Mishra
Dr Chris Moffat
Dr Nikolaus Perneczky
Dr Shital Pravinchandra
Dr Nisha Ramayya
Dr Charlotta Salmi
Dr Hannah Scott Deuchar
Dr Rebekah Vince
The forum would be delighted to have more members. If you would like to join, please email: rehana.ahmed@qmul.ac.uk or h.scottdeuchar@qmul.ac.uk.
Image: From the mural ‘Matir Tan – The Land is Calling’ by Mohammed Ali (see: https://www.artofmohammedali.com/work).