Courses

This lecture course reconstructs the global spread and development of ideas and practices of self-determination in the twentieth century. Starting on the eve of World War I and concluding in the wake of the Soviet Union’s downfall, we will examine how successive episodes of imperial crisis and collapse reshaped how, where, and by whom the right to self-determination historically came to be claimed, contested, and exercised. Taking the Wilsonian and Leninist interpretations of self-determination as its point of departure, our inquiry will expand to encompass primary texts spanning major currents of liberal, nationalist, pan-nationalist, internationalist, socialist, communist, anarchist, fascist, federalist, and feminist thought. Recurring regions of emphasis include the North Atlantic world, East Asia, East-Central Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union, and the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, British, and French Empires, while key institutions include the Communist International, the League of Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the United Nations. Our study of self-determination features central topics such as the comparative histories of empires and nation-states, the relationship between nationalism and internationalism, concepts of racial hierarchy and supremacy, diasporas and transnational networks, world war, decolonization, global governance, international development, imperial reform, and the fate of neoliberalism since the 1990s.