Description:

Join the Colloquium in International Security Studies for a presentation by Maritime and Naval Affairs Postdoctoral Associate Charles Fawell. A historian of European imperialism, Fawell will present “Stealing the State: Shipping Corporations and Sovereignty on the Indo-Pacific Corridors of European Colonialism, 1850-1950.”

The paper examines a set of state-backed shipping corporations that propped up Europe’s “New Imperialism” in the Indo-Pacific. Were such shipping lines the industrial auxiliaries of empires, or did they represent updated versions of the unruly company-states that preceded them? Wading into the debate, the paper explores the varied powers of private shipping corporations at the height of European overseas empire, while reflecting on the limits of analytical distinctions between public and private authority.

This event is open to the Yale community; lunch will be provided. Please email kaete.oconnell@yale.edu to receive the reading materials for this colloquium.