Ontario, Canada

Subject FieldsBiography, Colonial and Post-Colonial History / Studies, Political Science, Sociology
Call for Papers for a panel on “Critical/ Anticolonial Theories as Objects of Historical Inquiry”
Critical Studies Network of the Social Science History Association (SSHA)
Toronto, Canada
Deadline for abstract submission: February 11, 2024
Co-organizers: Veda Kim (Ohio Wesleyan University) and Nabila Islam (Brown University)
We are seeking abstracts for a panel on “Critical/ Anticolonial Theories as Objects of Historical Inquiry.”
The panel will be part of the newly established Critical Studies Network at the Social Science History
Association (SSHA), under the leadership of Rebecca Jean Emigh (UCLA) and Fatma Müge Göçek
(Michigan) and graduate student organizer Nabila Islam (Brown University). More information about the
Critical Studies Network will be shortly available here.
While the recent critical/ anticolonial turns in disciplines like history, sociology, political theory, and
others are a welcome change, this panel asks us to treat critical/ anticolonial theories themselves as
objects of historical inquiry. We often take up the task of historicizing and contextualizing canonical
theories from the Metropole. We critique their universalizing tendencies and offer up critical/ anticolonial
theories as counterpoints. This intellectual maneuver inadvertently recognizes critical/ anticolonial
theories only in relation to the Metropole and continues analytic bifurcation between the Metropole and
the Colony. This panel posits that historicizing and contextualizing critical/ anticolonial theories can serve
as a way to reverse the power relation: i.e., centering the history of the marginalized, as narrated by the
marginalized, while putting the Metropole as a background. We seek papers that focus on critical/
anticolonial theorists and attempt to historicize and contextualize their theory-building and scholarly
agency.
Papers engaging with disciplines with history, sociology, political theory, interdisciplinary fields, or others
are most welcome. If you would like to submit an abstract (maximum one page, single-spaced), please
email it to Veda Kim (Ohio Wesleyan University) at