Event Program
Transforming Nations and Identities in a Global World after 1945 October 1-3, 2025 University of Glasgow
Wednesday October 1 3-5pm – Scottish Global History Network Roundtable Discussion: The State of Global History in Scotland
Thursday October 2
9:30am – 9:45am – Welcome
9:45am-10am – Opening Remarks
10am-12pm – Postcolonial Crossroads: Transnational Identity and the Nation after Empire
12:15-1:15pm – Lunch
1:15pm-3:15pm – Reimagining Order: International Institutions in the Postwar World
4pm-5:30pm – Keynote: Contagion, Contingency, and Teleology: Imperial Disintegration and Nation-State Formation in Global History
6pm – Dinner
Friday October 3
10am-12pm – Negotiating Home: Race, Identity and Postcolonial Belonging
12:15pm-1:15pm – Lunch
1:15pm-3:15pm – Projecting the Nation on Screen: Film, Censorship, and the Politics of National Identity
3:15pm-3:30pm – Closing Remarks
Wednesday October 1 Humanities Research Hub, 1 University Gardens
3-5pm - Scottish Global History Network Roundtable Discussion: The State of Global History in Scotland
Chair: Amitava Chowdhury (Queen’s University)
Andrew Mackillop (University of Glasgow), Julia McClure (University of Glasgow), Meha Priyadarshini (University of Edinburgh), Benjamin Thomas White (University of Glasgow), David Wilson (University of Strathclyde).
Coffee & Refreshments served from 3pm, panel discussion from 4pm
Thursday October 2 Studio 2, the ARC
9:30am-9:45am – Welcome (Julia McClure)
9:45am-10am – Opening Remarks (Heather Poussard-Nadeau and Mike Ross)
10am-12pm - Postcolonial Crossroads: Transnational Identity and the Nation after Empire
- Chair: Alexander Marshall (University of Glasgow)
- Niya Namfua - (Queen’s University) The History of African Visitors in Tanzania, 1964 – 1985
- Mike Ross (Queen’s University) - In Search of the "Right" Way Forward: British Fascism and the Post-War Reorientation towards Transnational Politics on the Far-Right Nishchal
- Rishi Sidhu (Northeastern University) - A Spirit of Internationalism Confined by the Nation: A Policy Analysis of Indo-Chinese Conflict over Tibet in the post-WW2 Era
12:15pm-1:15pm - Lunch
1:15pm-3:15pm - Reimagining Order: International Institutions in the Postwar World
- Chair/Commentor: Sarah Dunstan (University of Glasgow)
- Jik-hung Au (Queen’s University) - Rebuilding China: Nation, Nationalism, and the Politics of International Aid, 1945–1947
- Heather Poussard-Nadeau (Queen’s University) – Contestations and Contradictions: Evolving Ideas of Empire and Nation in the Royal Commonwealth Society Essay Contest, 1945-1960
4pm-5:30pm - Keynote Professor Michael Goebel, Einstein Professor of Global History at Freie Universität Berlin. Contagion, Contingency, and Teleology: Imperial Disintegration and Nation-State Formation in Global History
6pm – Dinner
Friday October 3 Studio 2, the ARC
10am-12pm - Negotiating Home: Race, Identity, and Postcolonial Belonging
- Chair: Christine Whyte (University of Glasgow)
- Carissa Chew (University of Edinburgh) - Decolonisation at the margins: The question of mixed-race belonging in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, 1945-1980
- Holly French (University College London) - Departure and Decree: The HMT Empire Windrush and the 1948 British Nationality Act in the Jamaican Perspective
- Elisa Lucente (University of Pavia) - A House to Call Home: Rethinking Canadian Identity Through the Housing Experiences of European Immigrants
12:15-1:15pm - Lunch
1:15pm-3:15pm - Projecting the Nation on Screen: Film, Censorship, and the Politics of National Identity
- Chair: Benjamin White (University of Glasgow)
- John Bessai (Independent Scholar) - Between Story and State: The National Film Board of Canada and the Aporia of Identity after Empire
- Andrei-Dumitru Olteanu (Babes-Bolyai University) - Rewriting History: Propaganda, Memory, and Narrative Transformation in Romania (1945–Present)
- Somer Zhang (Georgetown University) - Alternative Memory in Motion: The Emotional Landscape of Post-War Kyiv in Parajanov’s Kyiv Frescoes
3:15-3:30pm – Closing Remarks (Amitava Chowdhury)
Sponsors and Acknowledgements
This workshop is co-organized by the Global History Initiative at Queen’s University and the University of Glasgow Global History Cluster.
Organizers: Heather Poussard-Nadeau, Mike Ross, Julia McClure, and Amitava Chowdhury
Transforming Nations and Identities in a Global World after 1945 is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Additional support was provided from the Department of History at Queen’s University and Peter Edwards.
Call for Papers
Dates: October 2-3, 2025
Location: University of Glasgow
Keywords: Global history, transnational, nationalism, identity, decolonization, internationalism, 20th century, state formation, ethnicity, citizenship, post-1945.
The years after 1945 saw significant turbulence and transformation globally. The rise of anti-colonial movements in this period heralded the end of formal empires, a process that wildly disrupted the international status quo and opened up a wide range of possibilities for an alternative world order. Diverse approaches to decolonization presented various possibilities for a post-imperial/colonial world, including federations and other political and economic cooperation. Ultimately, post-war decolonization resulted in a host of new nation-states working to construct, define, and refine national identities in the context of a transforming international state system increasingly polarized by the ideological conflict of the Cold War. At the same time, new supranational organizations like the United Nations formed in the aftermath of the devastation wrought by ultranationalist regimes during the Second World War in the hopes of fostering a greater sense of transnational solidarity, and the resulting human rights discourse played an increasingly significant role in imagining a form of internationalist identity and obligation. Finally, ideas of race, hierarchy, and inequality that had been nurtured by European colonialism were subject to greater scrutiny. There was, then, a renewed reckoning with collective and individual identity and the place of that identity — national or otherwise — in the context of an increasingly globalized world that was rapidly divorcing itself from the rules, power structures, and concepts that had come to define the previous era.
It is these transformations in nations and identity that this workshop hopes to examine and interrogate. We are particularly interested in how these shifting conceptions of nation and identity were informed by their broader transnational context and shaped by nation-state formation and re-formation. Because of the multifaceted nature of this transforming global environment, we are open to and welcome a wide range of approaches to identity and global thinking including, but by no means limited to, anti-colonialism, decolonization, state formation, the building and rebuilding of national identity in new states, what it means to be a part of a nation, alternatives to nationalism and national identity, and international belonging.
The workshop will feature a keynote presentation by Michael Goebel, Einstein Professor of Global History at Freie Universität Berlin.
This workshop is intended for graduate students and early career researchers as an opportunity both to contribute to a quickly growing body of historical scholarship and as a forum for giving and receiving detailed feedback that will help to craft and refine future publishable work. Proposals must include a 300-word abstract and a 1-page CV and should be sent to the Global History Initiative (global.history@queensu.ca) by Friday, March 28, 2025. Selected participants will be required to submit a 4000-6000-word draft of their paper by Monday, September 1, 2025. There are a limited number of grants available for participants to help cover travel costs.
This workshop is co-organized by the Global History Initiative at Queen’s University and the . Transforming Nations and Identities in a Global World after 1945 is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Organizers:
Heather Poussard-Nadeau, Queen’s University
Mike Ross, Queen’s University
Julia McClure, University of Glasgow
Amitava Chowdhury, Queen’s University