Forthcoming Talks
The Centre is hosting an informal research seminar on ‘Revolutions and Empires in the South-West Indian Ocean, 1788-1810’ by Dr Sujit Sivasundaram (University of Cambridge), on Thursday 6 November, at 2pm, 2N8 (History Department Seminar Room) in the Arts Building.
CROCC is also sponsoring a public lecture by Professor A.G. Hopkins, (University of Cambridge) entitled, ‘Is Globalisation Yesterday’s News?’. This will be held on Monday, 10 November 2014 at 5:15pm in the Moot Court, Level 10, Richardson Building. Professor Hopkins is one of the leading economic historians of his generation and he has produced authoritative works on West African economic history (An Economic History of West Africa (1973)), the economics of British imperialism (the landmark two-volume British Imperialism co-authored with Peter Cain) and was one of the first historians to grapple with the analytical possibilities of globalisation (editing both Globalization in World History (2002) and Global History: Interactions between the Universal and the Local (2006)). Professor Hopkins has provided the following abstract, which suggests it should be an engaging lecture:
Globalization envelopes the world – and historians too. The ‘g’ word is now mandatory in titles of books and articles; Ph.D. students follow their leaders in dedicating their dissertations to the subject. Yet, not so long ago postmodern approaches to the past were equally compelling: if you could not tell your trope from your alterity and your Spivak from your Bhaba, your chances of landing a job were minimal. Wise investors buy at the bottom of the market and get out at the top. So, it is worth asking whether shares in globalization have further to run or whether full value is already in the market. One way of answering this question is by considering the reasons why historiographical phases, like empires, rise, flourish, and decline. This approach provides pointers to the current state of globalization studies and offers an estimate of the current value of the shares. The advice comes with a wealth warning: past performance has limited predictive power. As a famous trumpeter remarked when asked which way jazz was going: ‘man, if I knew which way jazz was going, I would be there already!’
