Archives mensuelles : avril 2026

Ole Birk Laursen, “‘Exile has its privileges’: the Indian revolutionary movement in Europe, 1905–1918” (7 mai 2026)

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Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, de 17h à 18h30, salle D421
(La séance aura lieu en présentiel, un enregistrement sera ensuite publié sur la chaîne YouTube).

Jeudi 7 mai 2026: Ole Birk Laursen (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), “‘Exile has its privileges’: the Indian revolutionary movement in Europe, 1905–1918”

Based on my forthcoming book, The Indian Revolutionary Movement in Europe, 1905–1918: Exile, Internationalism, and Resistance to Empire (Liverpool UP, 2026), this talk explores the history of Indian revolutionary movement in Europe during the early twentieth century, focusing on activists who lived and operated in exile across European metropolitan centres. It highlights the extensive networks Indian revolutionaries forged with Egyptians, Irish, Russians, and European socialists, anarchists, and republicans. Rather than viewing Indian anticolonialism solely through the framework of territorial nationalism, in this talk I argue for a trans-regional approach that emphasizes mobility, exile, and political organizing within Europe itself. By tracing how revolutionaries moved across European cities, my book challenges rigid distinctions between metropole and colony and moves beyond a British-centred imperial narrative. It shows that European cities, while shaped by colonial power, were also crucial sites of anticolonial thought and activism.

 

Ole Birk Laursen is a Research Communicator at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. His research focuses on South Asian activists in exile, transnational anticolonialism, and global anarchism. He is the author of Anarchy or Chaos: M. P. T. Acharya and the Indian Struggle for Freedom (Hurst, 2023) and The Indian Revolutionary Movement in Europe, 1905–1918: Exile, Internationalism, and Resistance to Empire (Liverpool UP, 2026), and he has published widely on the intersections of anticolonialism, anarchism, and socialism.

Vic Clarke (Leeds), “’Reviewing Radical Literature in the Chartist Press (1840s)” (9 avril)

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Jeudi 9 avril à 17h, salle D421, Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e

The Northern Star (1837-1852) was the leading newspaper of the Chartist movement in Britain. Its creators actively worked for the pages to offer a ‘complete record’ of this political movement – including its literary culture. While the poetry, fiction, and drama of the Chartist movement has been discussed in its own right by scholars including Mike Sanders, Rob Breton, and Gregory Vargo, the Star also participated in national discourse of literary criticism. By focussing on the Literature and Reviews column, this paper will explore the ways that the Star made literary critics of its activist readers and contributors, as well as transgressing class boundaries to put the newest literary contributions of tastemakers such as Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in the hands of working-class readers during the hungry forties.