Conferences

Department of History, University of Texas at Austin

NATIONALISMS

Africa’s histories and politics reveal trends of nationalism in response to colonial conquest, anti-colonial resistance, movements of liberation, neo-colonialism, and post-colonial developments, as well as the emergence of African nationalist theories. Used in social, political, and economic spheres, nationalism and its effect augment dimensions of heightened complexity. The 2020 Africa Conference intends to critically examine the highly intricate and contested processes of nationalism and its significance for African societies and for African diaspora across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean.

The primary aim of the conference is to reflect on the varying and varied forms of nationalism and the manner in which they have developed. Simultaneously, the conference intends to create an intellectual space for examining the politics and economics of nationalism that marginalize, exclude, disempower, and denude certain groups, while giving privilege, authority, and power to others. Beyond the specific emphasis on Africa, the overarching focus of the conference is to engage with different theoretical inflections that have emerged in the existing scholarship on nationalism as well as to probe the ways in which they have been challenged and reformulated within the circles of academic and policy discourses.

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