Violence and Empire. From the Early 1800s to the End of the Great War

From the early 1800s, the formation, consolidation, and maintenance of empires were increasingly bound to new logics of state power, technological advancements, and legal rationalisation and justification. Despite narratives of civilising missions and administrative modernisation, violence remained a central practice of imperial rule, both as an instrument of conquest and a mechanism for governing already established colonial regimes. This conference invites historians and scholars of related disciplines to consider the various ways in which violence operated within imperial systems, how it was implemented, codified and justified legally and culturally, along with its contemporary perception in the imperial metropolis and its remembrance and subsequent legacies that continuously remain influential until the present day.