{"id":1385,"date":"2024-12-18T19:51:07","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T18:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/?post_type=announcement&p=1385"},"modified":"2024-12-23T10:44:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T09:44:54","slug":"pathways-to-empire-belgian-global-expansion-1830-1930","status":"publish","type":"announcement","link":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/announcement\/pathways-to-empire-belgian-global-expansion-1830-1930\/","title":{"rendered":"Pathways to Empire? Belgian Global Expansion 1830-1930"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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11 \u2013 13 September 2024, Leuven \u2013 Brussels<\/h2>\n \n

On September 11-13, 2024, KU Leuven and CegeSoma will host an international conference on the interrelated themes of imperialism and Belgian expansionism. The contributions explore the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in writing new global histories of imperialism between 1830, when Belgium was founded, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. The conference is organized in cooperation with State Archives of Belgium, University of Antwerp and the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences
\nThe peculiar features of \u2018Belgian imperialism\u2019 complicate conventional understandings of Western imperialism. How, for instance, can we connect global dynamics of imperial expansion to Belgian involvement in the construction of railways in the Americas and China, the migration of foreign \u2018experts\u2019 and laborers to Congo, the composition of the Egyptian Mixed Courts, or the involvement in the Amazonian rubber trade? And how did diplomats, military men, engineers, missionaries, translators, educators, shippers, or dock workers negotiate, shape, or contest imperial projects and ideologies? To answer these questions, we follow how people, commodities, knowledge, and technologies embedded Belgium in the world and vice\u00a0versa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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Wednesday 11.09.24<\/h2>\n \n

KU Leuven, Aula B, HIW Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven
\n14:00 Start registration
\n14:15 Welcome: Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven)
\n14:30-15:30 Keynote 1: Daniel Laqua – Northumbria UniversityMaking Belgium Great (Again)? Reflections on Internationalism, Expansionism, and ImperialismChair: Lien Verpoest (KU Leuven)
\n15:45-17:00 Panel 1: The Imperial Mind in the Metropole
\n– Mano Delea (University of Amsterdam): The Impact of the 1921 Pan-African Congress on Transnational Belgium
\n– Frank Gerits (Utrecht University): Belgium\u2019s Spanish-American War Moment: How Acquiring Ruanda-Urundi Scrambled the Belgian Colonial Mind (1919-1940)
\n– Jonas Van Mulder (KADOC): Congolese Pupils in the Metropole: The Case of Nzige Lutete in Louvain (ca. 1885-1908)Chair: Michael Auwers (State Archives of Belgium)
\n17:00-18:00 Keynote 2: Manu Karuka – Barnard College: The War-Finance Nexus: Tracking a History of Imperialism
\nChair: Henk de Smaele (University of Antwerp)
\n18:00-19:00 Reception at Income of Leuven Town Hall, Grote Markt 9, 3000\u00a0Leuven<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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Thursday 12.09.24<\/h2>\n \n

KU Leuven, Aula B, HIW Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven
\n9:30-10:45 Panel 2: Imperial Competition, Transnational Infrastructures, and Local Agency
\n– Xiaoxu Yan (The University of Hong Kong): Beyond a \u201cTool of Empire\u201d: Constructing and Managing the Belgian Tramway in the Chinese City of Treaty Port Tianjin, China, 1905-1918
\n– Nurcin Ileri (IISG, Amsterdam\/Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin): The Influence of Belgian Capital and Expertise on the Formation of Istanbul\u2019s Energy Landscape
\n– Emir K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fck (Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University): Belgian Investment and Capital in the Constantinople Tramway Company
\nChair: Kenneth Bertrams (Universit\u00e9 libre de Bruxelles)
\n11:00-12:15 Panel 3: Exploiting the Empire of Others?
\n– Janne Lahti (Linnaeus University – University of Helsinki): Finns in the Congo: Mobility, Violence, and Transimperial Lives of Belgian Colonialism
\n– Kevin Goergen (University of Luxembourg): Belgian Colonialism from the Margins: Luxembourgers in the Congo Basin (1880-1930)
\n– Gijs Dreijer (Leiden University \u2013 online): Exploiting Belgian Imperial Expansion? Dutch Entrepreneurs in the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo, 1870s-1910s
\nChair: Amandine Lauro (Unversit\u00e9 libre de Bruxelles)
\n14:00-15:15 Panel 4: Diplomacy and Expansionism
\n– Taoyu Yang (NYU Shanghai): The Belgian Presence in Tianjin: Navigating a Colonial Concession in a Multi-Imperial City, 1902-1931
\n– Houssine Alloul (University of Amsterdam): Of Courtiers, Consuls, and Capitalists: A Deep History of Belgian Expansion in the Ottoman Empire, 1770s-1840s
\n– Janne Schreurs (KU Leuven): Founding a Consulate or a Colony? Belgian Expansion in the Brazilian Backlands (1895-1911)
\nChair: Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University)
\n15:30-16:30 Keynote 3: Amandine Lauro – Unversit\u00e9 libre de Bruxelles: Writing Transimperial Histories from\/of the Belgian Congo
\nChair: Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven)
\n18:30 Conference dinner for speakers and chairs
\nRestaurant \u2018De Hoorn\u2019 (Sluisstraat 79, 3000\u00a0Leuven)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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Friday 13.09.24<\/h2>\n \n

CegeSoma, Luchtvaartsquare \/ Square de l\u2019Aviation 29, 1070 Brussels
\n10:00-11:45 Panel 5: Global Networks and Informal Empire
\n– Veronique Pouillard (University of Oslo): The International and Colonial Expansion of the Belgian Systems of Intellectual Property, from the 1880s to the 1930s
\n– Darina Martyk\u00e1nov\u00e1 (Universidad Aut\u00f3noma de Madrid): Belgium\u2019s Informal Empire of Engineers?
\n– Gert Huskens (Ghent University): Lost in Translation: Charles Borrom\u00e9e Houry and Belgian Diplomacy\u2019s Flirt with Scholarly Orientalism
\n– Eline Ceulemans (University of Antwerp): Triangulating Power, Prestige and Play: The \u2018Congo-missions\u2019 of Leopoldian Intermediaries in Late Qing China and the Unequal Pathways to Empire
\nChair: Manu Karuka (Barnard College)
\n12:00-12:30 Roundtable remarks
\n12:30-13:30 Lunch at CegeSoma
\n14:00-16:00 Guided historic city tour of\u00a0Brussels<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1389,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,25],"class_list":["post-1385","announcement","type-announcement","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conference","category-congres"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement\/1385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/announcement"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement\/1385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1395,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/announcement\/1385\/revisions\/1395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contemporanea.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}