ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Partitions are everywhere.
The media and policy spaces have been riddled with calls for new partitions, as in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, or the reignition of tensions by the unravelling of old ones, like in post-Brexit Northern Ireland, Kashmir, and Palestine. How did we get here?
What insights could we draw from partitions’ brutal past, their lived experiences, and their shared intellectual genealogies to understand them in contemporary times?
Partition Machine was a two-day conference at the University of Glasgow on the centennial of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne to examine how the Treaty was the genesis of the norm for territorial divisions as a “solution” to protracted political violence in the world.
The conference foregrounded new research on territorial divisions, their travelogues, and worldmaking influence in order to better understand the world that partitions have made in the short twentieth century.
Convenor
Dr Jayita Sarkar, University of Glasgow
Supported by
- College of Social Sciences Conference Team
- Ms Rochelle Chlala, LLB candidate
- Mr Neil O'Docherty, PhD candidate in History
Funded by a 2023 British Academy Conference Grant (BAC23\220114) and the Scottish Council on Global Affairs.
KEYNOTES
DAY 1. OPENING KEYNOTE
Professor Glenda Sluga
European University Institute, Italy
What does the history of “partition” tell us about the modern liberal international order?
DAY 2. OPENING KEYNOTE
Professor Laura Robson
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Laboratory of Empire: The (very) long shadow of the Palestine Partition
DAY 2. LUNCHTIME KEYNOTE
Professor Charles Maier
Harvard University, USA
The Unpartitioned
ROUNDTABLE. THE WORLDMAKING OF PARTITIONS
Professor Glenda Sluga
European University Institute, Italy
DAY 2. OPENING KEYNOTE
Professor Laura Robson
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Professor Willem van Schendel
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Professor Cemil Aydin
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Dr Jayita Sarkar (Chair)
University of Glasgow, UK
