From Diogenes the Cynic onwards, talk of shared humanity and articulations of humanism challenge the boundaries of citizenship and unsettle established patterns of meaning and identity. But from the early modern period, humanism as a term became associated with secular and anti-religious philosophies. And recent critical treatments of modern western humanism identify how it was aligned with and contributed to colonial and racist projects of domination.

Engaging directly with women in modern urban India, this project used film to explore and highlight how women themselves understand and experience violence in both public and private as part of daily life. The modern city promises many opportunities, but it also poses many challenges to women in public and private, including everyday violence. Through women’s own narratives, the film No City for Women: Gurgaon | Millennium City | 2023 explores their experience of living and working in the city.

For nearly a century, every Democratic president—and many Republicans—entered office promising to restructure America’s health care system. Barack Obama finally broke through but, in the process, opened a tumultuous decade in which battles over health care dominated American politics. David Blumenthal and James A.

A landmark account of the origins of American slavery, revealing how ancient Roman ideas were used to defend the establishment of a slave empire in the English Atlantic world. The period from 1550 to 1700 was critical in the development of slavery across the English Atlantic world. During this time, English discourse about slavery revolved around one central question: How could free persons be made into slaves?

The historiography of the Indian freedom movement has long been shaped by a nation-state framework that explains the rise of anticolonial politics primarily through developments within the territorial boundaries of British India. Drawing on research from my recently published book Asianism and the Fall of Empire: India's Road to Freedom that offers a new global perspective on modern Indian history, I argue in this talk that it was the rise of a discourse of Asianism in the early twentieth century that served as the primary driving force behind anticolonial resistance in India.

The centrality of individual responsibility in South Asian and Islamic conceptions of justice is in some tension with the importance of the community in these traditions. How justice is operationalized in specific contexts allows an insight into the ways in which this tension plays out and the range of possibilities it allows. Focusing on the practice of jirga or community justice in the tribal areas of Pakistan I build upon anthropological research and oral histories to work through specific ideas about the individual and the community that structure these practices.

In an era of shifting alliances, technological disruption, and resource competition, Europe must be able to defend itself, protect its citizens, and project stability in its neighborhood and beyond. Sovereignty here means not isolation, but the ability to make independent choices, to act decisively, and to shape Europe’s strategic future.

The Oxford Graduate Conference in Intellectual History will take place on Thursday, 28 May 2026 at The New Space, New College, University of Oxford. This year our theme is After Empire: Intellectual History in a Post-Imperial World and the keynote speech will be given by Prof. Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Princeton). For this year’s conference, we invite reflection on intellectual life after empire.

Abstract : This talk examines examples of North African literature, from early twentieth-century texts to more recent works. These writings question forms of female emancipation associated with Western norms and imaginaries, while opening space for alternatives rooted in affects and collective experience. The talk will also reflect on the methodological approaches — particularly spatial ones — that may help us read and understand these literary representations. Bio : Farah Ben Jemaa is a professeure agrégée of French literature at the University of Tunis.

Dark Concrete is about how the Black Power movement reshaped urban politics in the United States—from expectations to practices. Although the national and international dimensions of the Black Power movement are often focused on, Kimberley Johnson looks at the movement at the local level, highlighting Newark and East Orange, New Jersey, and Oakland and East Palo Alto, California, and three policy areas: housing, education, and policing.