The Finnish Institute in the Middle East invites you to submit abstracts for a workshop to be convened under the theme, The Middle East and the Making of Global Anti-Imperialism: Histories of the Twentieth Century. The workshop is scheduled to take place in Beirut on December 5-6, 2025. The workshop aims to bring together scholars working on the intersections of the histories of the modern Middle East, anti-imperialism, and internationalism in the 20th century. The participants are expected to present full-length pre-circulated papers to be considered for a journal special issue edited by the conveners.
The history of anti-imperialism in the Arab Middle East has been predominantly written as separate from the tradition of global anti-imperialism of the twentieth century, and vice versa. Arab activists and militants against imperialism participated at the League Against Imperialism convened in the 1920s, and they travelled to Madrid to fight against the fascist forces within the ranks of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Arab participation was significant at the 1955 Bandung conference, and the Palestinian Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s saw the active mobilization of leftists and anti-colonial militants from across the world to fight in its ranks towards Palestinian liberation from Zionist settler colonialism.
This workshop aims to put into conversation the ways in which the Middle East contributed to the making of 20th century global anti-imperialism, as much as anti-imperialist movements of that century shaped the history of the people, states, and societies of the Middle East. This workshop puts forth the following questions for discussion and analysis: What are the multiple anti-imperialisms that emerged in the Arab Middle East in the 20th century? Is there a singular or also multiple global anti-imperialisms of the 20th century? How did actors and movements within the Middle East take part in and indeed shape this anti-imperialism? Most importantly, how can we research and write the history of global anti-imperialism and Arab anti-imperialism as intertwined? Given the context of the Cold War in the second half of the twentieth century and the role the Soviet Union played in assuming leadership of global anti-imperialism, how can we highlight the Arab-Soviet element in 20th century anti-imperialism while also questioning the role of the Soviet Union as the beacon of anti-imperialism? What is the relationship between anti-imperialism on the one hand, and internationalism and transnationalism on the other hand? Can we truly talk about global anti-imperialism without the Middle East, and more specifically today, as much as in the 20th century, without Palestine? And finally, given the entanglement of anti-imperialism with the history of authoritarianism, whether with regards to the role of the Soviet Union in the 20th century or in the post-Arab Spring context in the Arab Middle East in this century, what can the history of the 20th century offer as a way to understand and disentangle this association?
Please submit a 400-word abstract with a short bio to lotta.huotari@fime.fi by October 17th.
There is limited financial assistance to cover travel and accommodation expenses for participants who are not based in Beirut. Please indicate in your application whether you will be needing financial assistance to attend. We might consider online presentations for those unable to travel/attend in person.