News and Events
Prof Dónal Hassett, ‘Beyond the Tirailleur: Narrating and Mobilizing Colonial Experiences of the First World War in the French Empire’, Journal of the Western Society for French History, Vol. 51, 2025.
https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/wsfh/article/id/8676/ Abstract The Centenary of the First World War saw a new focus in official commemoration, cultural production and broader scholarly and public discourses on the figure of the colonial soldier, the tirailleur....
Prof Dónal Hassett, ‘‘The Muslim, in general, was not too troubled by the emotions of the war’: The Influence of the First World War on the Rise of Colonial Psychiatry’, Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies, 05/12/2025
Project Team Presentations and PI Keynote, ‘Between Choice and Command Workshop, Erfurt, 01/12-02/12/2025
Between Choice and Command: Migration and Return Across and Beyond Colonial Empires, 1900-1960 University of Erfurt, December 1-2, 2025 Monday, December 1st, 9am-7pm, Senatssaal, University of Erfurt 9-9.30: Florian Wagner Welcome and Introduction Section 1:...
COLVET Project Team Presentation, ‘Cultivating Clients and Containing Contestation: Veteran Provision in the Inter-War Empire’, Society of History of War, University of Potsdam 27-29/11/2025
Panel Title: Cultivating Clients and Containing Contestation: Veteran Provision in the Inter-War Empires Chair: Gavin Rand, University of Greenwich Dónal Hassett, Maynooth University: Managing Colonial War Disability: Imperial anxieties and provision for the war...
Prof Dónal Hassett, ‘Colonial Veterans and Citizenship in the French Empire’, Institute of Historical Research Seminar, Kings’ College London, 19/11/2025
https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/events/colonial-veterans-citizenship-french-empire
Dr Nicola Camilleri, ‘Former Eritrean Soldiers in the Italian Colonial Army: Fragments of Life and Documentation’.
Chiflè Seghid was born in Zagher, a village in the Hamasien region of colonial Eritrea, not far from Asmara, the capital city of Italian colony Eritrea. His date of birth is unknown, but we know that he enlisted on 18 September 1912. This date marked the beginning of...
Conference Presentation at the International Conference on Ethiopian Studies, Hawassa, Ethiopia, 01/10/2025. Dr Nicola Camilleri, ‘From Slaves to Ascaris: Colonial Soldiers and their Pasts in Slavery’
Nicola presented as part of a broader panel on the history of 'Ethiopian Voices against Slavery'. You can access the full programme here: Conference Programme
Dónal Hassett, ‘No Right to Return or Remain: French Colonial Soldiers and Discriminatory Demobilization (Hosted by The Returning Soldier)
You can access this piece here: https://returningsoldier.co.uk/2025/09/18/no-right-to-return-or-remain-french-colonial-soldiers-and-discriminatory-demobilization/
COLVET Conference Panel, 35th Irish Conference of Historians, Presenting: Prof Dónal Hassett and Dr Nicola Camilleri, Chaired by Dr Anindita Bhattacharya
For the 35th Irish Conference of Historians, the COLVET team organised a panel entitled 'Life in the Shadow of Conflict: Survival and Self-Realisation in the Africa after the Great War'. Prof Hassett presented on 'Grief and the Global Greater War: Tracing the...
Project Publication: ‘Rethinking the Colonial in the Greater War’, Contemporary European History, (June 2025)
The Centenary of the First World War saw unprecedent prominence given to the ‘colonial contribution’ in commemorative discourse. While this newfound public recognition sometimes relied on simplistic and sanitised narratives of the war, scholarship produced in the...