Women and the History of International Thought

This collaborative and multi-disciplinary project is the first sustained attempt to write women back into the history of international thought and the academic discipline of International Relations. The Women and the History of International Thought project shows how women defined and transformed the substance and practice of international relations as it emerged as a separate intellectual field examining the relations between peoples, empires and states.

Focusing on two major centres of research— Britain and the United States — in the early to mid-twentieth century, the researchers are examining a variety of sites of knowledge production, including academe, but also less obvious pathways to and genres of international thought. Given the influence of European thought on Anglo-American international relations and the erasure of Black intellectuals, the project also examines several Black diasporic and European intellectuals.

In addition to a series of journal articles and books, an edited volume and anthology, there is a new open access Oral History archive of senior contemporary scholars which is available through this website. In 2022, the researchers will also curate a four-month public exhibition in London.