History Colloquium: The World the Suez Canal Made

Undergraduate / Graduate

Covering a long expanse of time-from the late eighteenth century to the present-this source-based research colloquium will explore the many and shifting roles of the Suez Canal in the production of global inequalities. By analyzing this complex infrastructural system's shifting functions-as a passageway for global commerce and travel, of course, but also as a shaper of ships, a bellows for global warming, a test case for international law, a mover of meat, a curator of tastes, a force of nature, a machine of counterrevolution, a center of currency arbitrage, and a crucible of chauvinistic antagonisms-the course will explain how the more connected world that Suez helped to make also became a world that was hotter, more unequal, and for many peoples around the globe, less free. Drawing on a vast trove of archival materials available through the university's libraries, students will design and pursue their own independent research projects relating to the long, complex, and globe-spanning history of the Canal.