Conference | Second Workshop

Universities and Society at the End of Empire and Beyond - UniSoc

Date: Thursday 5 November 2026 - Friday 6 November 2026
Location: Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden
Room: Conference room (2.60)

The first event of this research programme on Universities, Society and Decolonisation brought together perspectives from the Global North and the Global South. Professor Priyamvada Gopal (University of Cambridge) delivered the keynote address.

This second workshop in Leiden builds on the first Birmingham workshop and includes two key note addresses, one by Joseph Morgan Hodge of the University of West Virginia and one by Ruth Bush of the University of Bristol, three roundtables on postwar worldmaking, colonial legacies in present-day universities and methodologies and two workshops.

UniSoc

Based upon an academic partnership between the Universities of Birmingham in the UK and Leiden in the Netherlands, Universities and Society at the End of Empire and Beyond (UniSoc) uses these two global seats of learning as a starting point to examine the role of universities in the transition from colonial to postcolonial and multicultural societies over the past century.

Both institutions have started to reflect critically on this legacy. Building on these initiatives, and on the emerging scholarship on universities in (post) colonial contexts, UniSoc asks how the remit and modus operandi of European universities evolved in the aftermath of empire, opening a neglected entry-point into the wider question of the interplay between the colonial past and the post-colonial present.

Programme

See the full programme here.