Member and Non-member Virtual Registration for the SGNCS World Congress

From 17-20 July 2025, the University of Birmingham will host members of the SGNCS who will present their research on the theme of 'Cultural Circulations, Global Mobilities, and Knowledge Translations: Turning Points in the Nineteenth Century'. While a fully hybrid congress is not possible, two virtual panels and two plenaries are available by Zoom. SGNCS members may register here and non-members here for a nominal fee. (Scroll down the page for the registration option.)

17 July 13:00 BST                     VIRTUAL WELCOME

Klaudia Lee (City University of Hong Kong), SGNCS executive council member

17 July 13:05-14:30 BST           GLOBAL MOBILITIES     

PANEL: Contact Zones

Peng Jin (City University of Hong Kong), From the Caravan to the Trans-Siberian Railway: Delivering Chinese Tea throughout Eurasia, 1880-1913

Chong XU (Soochow University), French Representations of a Chinese Cultural Landscape, 1840s–1940s

Arunima Chakraborty (Jadavpur University), Migration, Trade, and Art: Cultural Crossroads in 19th-Century Colonial Bengal

17 July 14:45-16:15  BST          CULTURAL CIRCULATIONS                  

PANEL: Colonial Narratives, Representational Encounters

Menglu Gao (University of Denver), Imperial Adventure and Boredom: Colonial Exploration in Alfred Wallace’s The Malay Archipelago

Sophia Merkin (Columbia University), The Vailima Co-Collection of Tapa: Connecting Gifts of Barkcloth, Indigenous Agency, and Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa, 1890-1894

Chris Holdridge (North-West University), Conditional Pardons and Settler Vigilance: Australian Convict Migrants in Cape Town and San Francisco  

17 July 17:00 BST CONGRESS OPENING

Remarks by Helen Abbott, Head of the College of Arts and Law; Emma Tyler, Head of School of Language, Culture, Art History and Music; Berny Sèbe, SGNCS 2025 World Congress Co-Chair; and Kevin A. Morrison, SGNCS President

PLENARY ADDRESS

Charles Forsdick (University of Cambridge)

Paying the Price of Freedom: The Cultural Circulation of Haiti in the Nineteenth-Century World

19 July

17:30 BST             Keynote Address (Alan Walters G11)

Regenia Gagnier (University of Exeter)

Manik Bandyopadhyay, Technological Progress and Democracy, and the State of Decolonizing