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Center for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism
25 November 2025

Prof. Julian Go of the University of Chicago Visits the Center for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism

Geneva, October 2025 –The Center for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism (CDHM) was honored to host Professor Julian Go from the University of Chicago for a successful week-long engagement as part of the Center's distinguished Visiting Scholar Series.
Prof. Go’s renowned scholarship, particularly his expertise in the historical sociology of colonialism and his extensive work on the multiplicity of archives, offered a timely and invaluable opportunity for substantive exchange among the CDHM’s researchers and the wider institute community.
 

The visit kicked off with a specialized visit to the United Nations archives and library in Geneva. Facilitated by the Center’s strong partnership with the UN's archival team, the discussion centered on the CDHM's ongoing project to curate and digitize various archives of international organizations in Geneva and beyond. This visit allowed for an empirically grounded conversation, leveraging Prof. Go’s insights against the complex varieties of multilateral analysis central to the Center's mission.

On October 28th, Prof. Go delivered a well-attended public talk titled “Anticolonial Thought and Social Theory.” Co-organized with the ANSO Department as part of their ANSO Conversations series, the lecture focused on 20th-century anticolonial writers, thinkers, and movements. Prof. Go demonstrated that as colonized peoples critiqued empire and colonialism, they simultaneously generated alternative sociological imaginations that are vital for contemporary scholarship.

The visit also featured several focused sessions designed for advanced discussion:

Closed Faculty Seminar (Oct 29th): The Centre organized a private seminar with a select group of faculty and postdoctoral candidates to discuss The Continuities of Colonial Power. The conversation addressed how a clear understanding of the colonial dimension of power relations can offer broader insights into seemingly separate entities or dualities, such as the domestic and the global, particularly concerning their reproduction. Participants discussed the underlying mechanisms of these continuities, drawing specifically on key articles by Prof. Go that explore diverse empirical contexts, including racial capitalism and militarization. A primary goal was connecting historical analyses of colonialism to the study of its contemporary forms.

Methodological Masterclass (Oct 30th): The visit concluded with a masterclass for advanced PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers. This session fostered a meaningful discussion around their ongoing research and the methodological challenges of colonialism studies. Papers presented explored the inherent difficulties in studying global entanglement and the enduring legacy of colonial relations. The conversation sought to identify robust methods for analyzing a world of intertwined histories and find alternatives to move beyond current methodological limitations.