KNHG-najaarscongres 2010 ‘A New Dutch Imperial History’
On Friday, October 1st, 2010 the Royal Netherlands Historical Society (RNHS) will organize the conference ‘A New Dutch Imperial History. Connecting Dutch and Overseas Pasts’.
The conference ‘A New Dutch Imperial History’ aims to integrate colonialism and imperialism into the historiographical debate in the Netherlands. Speakers at the conference will seek fresh connections between the history of the colonies and that of the Dutch metropole, and explore the potential of new approaches in imperial history to the Dutch historical practice. Such issues are not only of interest to a small circle of specialists, but also to the wider community of historians of the Netherlands.
In recent years, the history of empire in particular has received fresh attention from historians in Great Britain and France. The central issue in the British ‘New Imperial History’ is the connectedness between the European metropoles and the different parts of their empires. Avoiding European-centred narratives of a dominant metropole and peripheral colonies, historians have looked for a more balanced interpretation of the reciprocity of social and cultural influences, and have developed the concept of a single imperial space as an analytical framework. In France, recent research has focused on the cultures of imperialism and explored the moral dimensions of the colonial relationship in the past and the present. These developments in neighbouring countries offer important stimuli to the Dutch historical community.
Keynote speakers from Great Britain (Alan Lester) and France (Romain Bertrand) will expound the latest developments in the field of the new imperial histories. Other participants will be asked to explore the issue of connectedness, reciprocity and colonial identities in the Dutch colonial world. They will do so by examining several themes of both Dutch and Dutch colonial history, including migration networks, the circulation of information and knowledge and the influence of the empire on culture and moral values.
The conference will have four panels: 1) Migration circuits; 2) Information and cultural networks; 3) Imperial values and 4) Imperial knowledge. In a round table debate, specialists on colonial as well as Dutch metropolitan history will be invited to reflect on the prospects of linking up their pasts into an integrated narrative.
The conference will take place in the National Library of the Netherlands (KB) in The Hague.
The conference fee is € 30,- (€ 25,- for members of the RNHS and € 15,- for (PhD) students) and includes lunch. The conference fee should be transferred to account number 6934391 (IBAN: NL25 INGB 0006 9343 91, BIC: INGBNL2A) of Nederlands Historisch Genootschap in The Hague.
Registration by way of an e-mail to: info@knhg.nl, or by telephone: +31 (0)70 3140363.
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