HIST2259 - Anticolonial Europe: An Intellectual and Cultural History

Between 1919 and 1939, Europe – somewhat surprisingly – became a global hub of anticolonial thought. The leaders of future national liberation movements in India, Vietnam, and Algeria all converged in Europe’s metropolitan centers. This seminar investigates the intellectual and political creations that anti-imperial elites forged in Europe during this period. Focusing on the political networks that developed in Paris, London, Berlin, and Moscow, it evaluates how individuals from the Global South rethought and expanded the contents of Marxist-Leninist thought. It considers how they drew upon the principle of self-determination and, thereby, mobilized both Wilsonian and Leninist rhetoric. In addition to providing students with a foundation in anti-imperialism’s early twentieth-century histories, this course examines why Europe’s anticolonial revolution was so belated. To investigate this point, students investigate how intellectual traditions, including liberalism, socialism, and feminism, supported and were complicit in Europe’s imperial missions. **History Majors may write a 15-page research paper for this course to fulfill the major research requirement, with the permission of the instructor and their major advisor.**