Radical History Review invites submissions for a forthcoming thematic issue on "New Imperialisms." A generation ago the "New Imperialism" referred to the Age of Empire between the 1870s and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Reflecting the changes of recent years, the "New" in our title refers to both the question of empire in our own times and to the new critical and heuristic perspectives on imperialism, imperial encounters, and imperial identities of the past.

Among the possible ways of construing "New Imperialism" is, first, the post-Cold War, post-9/11 "New World Order" in which a single world power attempts to dictate the terms to a perceived global transnational space. Is this the age of the American empire? Second, the impact of these developments may suggest a reassessment of the impact of Lenin's analysis of imperialism and Kautsky's analysis of ultra-imperialism. Third, the almost simultaneous emergence of the "Age of Globalization" and the formation of the field of colonial/postcolonial studies may call for explanation. How can transnational or transoceanic perspectives raise new questions and how can past precedents take us beyond current paradigms of imperialism? These new approaches have prompted a rethinking of earlier theoretical paradigms, conceptual delineations, and overall assessments of imperialisms and anti-imperialisms.

We are interested in the ways, cross-disciplinary approaches of gender, transnational, and subaltern studies, discourse analyses such as Said's paradigm of Orientalism, and cultural studies influence these critical investigations. The rise of Islamist radicalism reminds us that, for better or worse, modern, secular, anti-colonial nationalism, supported by metropolitan lefts, is not (and never was) the only possible form and strategy of opposition to imperialism. Indeed, new imperialisms and their adversaries flow at least in part from unfulfilled promises and limitations of decolonization, the postcolonial nation-state, and "development" in former colonized/semi-colonized regions of the world, and in part from a variety of ongoing conflicts in the "postcolony" and the post-imperial states.

Confronting the complexity of empire in our times has revealed certain paradigmatic tensions within the field of colonial/postcolonial studies itself. How can we make anti-imperialist discourses less exclusionary?

The editors of this special thematic issue of Radical History Review invite contributions that discuss imperialism in the light of new global formations and reopen the discussion of historical empires from the perspective of race, gender and postcolonial studies. We are also interested in submissions that address the ways in which new conceptualizations of empires impact our role as scholars, teachers and students of imperialisms.

For further information and samples of previously published articles, visit the web address given below.

For additional information and submission guidelines please visit:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/rhr /guidelin.htm

Further contact information is provided below. Deadline for submissions is January 1, 2005

Please note that all submissions must be marked, "RHR#95: The New Imperialisms," and electronically submitted to the e-mail address given below.