Quill to host Conference on Colonial and Post-Colonial Constitution-Making

Quill associates Dr Kieran Hazzard (ECR, British Imperial History, Pembroke College) and Grace Mallon (DPhil candidate, US History, University College) have been awarded funding by TORCH and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to put on a conference in spring 2020.

The interdisciplinary conference will focus on the history of constitution-making in colonized and decolonizing societies across the world since the American Revolution. More than simple legal instruments, constitutions shape the culture, society, politics, and economics of the people and places they define. As a result, constitutions structure societies in ways that impact individuals rights and often define these based on race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, and religion.

The aim of the conference will is bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines for a comparative discussion of the ways in which constitutions have been created and received across different societies. The principal concern  is to investigate how constitutions have been used by European empires and how have these structures been challenged, broken down, and reformed by the new nations which emerged from colonialism after 1776.

A call for papers setting out the parameters of the conference will be published in the coming month.