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Windows of Empire: Colonial Celebrations and the Imperial World, 1780-1950

Postgraduate conference

15 - 16 September 2011

This conference aims to bring together postgraduates and early career academics from a variety of disciplines to explore the theme of colonial celebrations. Participants will be encouraged to think broadly about celebrations, considering topics ranging from colonial subjects’ private parties to empire-wide festivities, from triumphant international exhibitions to celebrations of empire presented in print and on film.

Topics allied to any discipline or disciplines are welcomed and may include, but are by no means limited to:

• Analyses of the great exhibitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their presentation of the imperial world
• Considerations of how the empires of different nations celebrated their sense of belonging to empire by participating in festive occasions
• Textual analyses of the ways in which empire was presented in music, print media, children’s and adult literature, fine art, newsreels, photography, and film
• Explorations of the ways in which empire was celebrated in the private sphere in everyday objects of the home, through letters, and in popular pastimes
• Examinations of how subjects of empire, both colonialist and colonized, celebrated personal milestones such as promotions and birthdays as well as religious and national holidays.

Keynote address

Professor Robert Aldrich of the University of Sydney, author of Vestiges of the Colonial Empire in France, will present a keynote address and teach a masterclass.

Ex Plus Ultra

The conference will also include a drinks reception to celebrate the latest edition of the postgraduate e-journal Ex Plus Ultra, which is tied to the theme of the conference.

Sponsors and contributors

• Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts
• University of Bristol Alumni Foundation
• Worldwide Universities Network
• Centre for the Study of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies
• Department of Historical Studies, University of Bristol
• Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, University of Bristol
• Colonialism in comparative perspective: Tianjin under Nine Flags

Contact

For more information please contact the conference organisers Margery Masterson, Isabella Jackson, Alastair Wilson and William Raybould (email: ex-plus-ultra@bristol.ac.uk).