Dr Sarah Dunstan

  • Lecturer in the International History of Modern Human Rights (History)

email: Sarah.Dunstan@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns: She/her/hers

Room 2, The Annexe, 2 University Gardens, G12 8QH

Import to contacts

ORCID iDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4576-0156

Biography

My research is driven by the desire to understand how 19th and 20th century understandings of what it means to be human shaped ideas around human rights and citizenship rights.  I look at this in three specific ways:

  • Through the lens of race and gender;
  • Through the framework of international relations and international law; and
  • Through the history of policy formation.

My first book, Race, Rights and Reform: Black Activism in the French Empire and the United States from World War I to the Cold War, maps collaborations between black activists in Africa, France and the United States over questions of human rights and citizenship from 1919 until 1962. During this period, black scholars and activists grappled with the connection between race and access to citizenship and rights in the respective republican democracies of the United States and France. Race, Rights and Reform brings the independent archives of black activists into conversation with the official records of American and French governments as well as international institutions such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, UNESCO and the Comintern. In so doing, it offers a new way of understanding twentieth century thinking about race and rights in the French empire and the United States, as well as in international institutions such as the United Nations.

My new project, which I am pursuing through a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, is titled:  “Crises of Man: Crafting Human Rights and Citizenship in the Twentieth Century”. The project explores how key philosophical and cultural understandings of what it meant to be human shaped thinking about citizenship and rights in the international legal sphere at mid-century. Through the frame of a series of ‘crises’ in world order such as the Great Depression and the Second World War, my research questions how ideas about humanity were deployed across the empires of France and Britain, and the world’s emergent “super-power”, the United States, to construct legal categories of citizenship and international human rights law. 

The questions my historical research raises remain pressing in our contemporary moment. Through my work with the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, I work to place this expertise at the service of policy makers.

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2016
Number of items: 18.

2023

Dunstan, S. C. (2023) Cheikh Anta Diop's recovery of Egypt: African history as anticolonial practice. In: Manela, E. and Streets-Salter, H. (eds.) The Anticolonial Transnational: Imaginaries, Mobilities, and Networks in the Struggle against Empire. Series: Global and International History. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 135-161. ISBN 9781009359108 (doi: 10.1017/9781009359115.009)

Dunstan, S. C. (2023) Vocabularies of self-determination in 1919: The co-constitution of race and gender in international law. In: Jackson, P., Mulligan, W. and Sluga, G. (eds.) Peacemaking and International Order after the First World War. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 37-64. ISBN 9781108830508 (doi: 10.1017/9781108907750.003)

2022

Dunstan, S. (2022) Crystal Marie Fleming, Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2017. xi + 276 pp. Notes, references, and index. $99.50 U.S. (hb). ISBN 9781439914083; $34.95 U.S. (pb). ISBN: 9781439914090; $34.95 U.S. (eb). ISBN 978143991410. H-France Review, 22(128), [Book Review]

Dunstan, S. and Owens, P. (2022) Claudia Jones, international thinker. Modern Intellectual History, 19(2), pp. 551-574. (doi: 10.1017/S1479244321000093)

Dunstan, S. C. (2022) Imperialism. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 127-186. (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.005)

Dunstan, S. C. (2022) World peace. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 359-410. ISBN 9781009004978 (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.009)

Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (Eds.) (2022) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316518243

Dunstan, S. C. (2022) Population, nation, immigration. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 573-630. ISBN 9781009004978 (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.013)

Dunstan, S. C. and Owens, P. (2022) Anticolonialism. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 187-244. ISBN 9781009004978 (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.006)

2021

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) Sarah J. Zimmerman. Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers' Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2020. 318 pp. $80.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8214-2422-3. H-Net Reviews, [Book Review]

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) Women's international thought in the twentieth-century anglo-american academy: autobiographical reflection, oral history and scholarly habitus. Gender and History, 33(2), pp. 487-512. (doi: 10.1111/1468-0424.12521)

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) The capital of race capitals: Toward a connective cartography of Black internationalisms. Journal of the History of Ideas, 82(4), pp. 637-660. (doi: 10.1353/jhi.2021.0036) (PMID:34840192)

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) Race, Rights and Reform: Black Activism in the French Empire and the United States from World War I to the Cold War. Series: Global and International History. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. ISBN 9781108732031 (doi: 10.1017/9781108764971)

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) “La Langue de nos maîtres”: Linguistic hierarchies, dialect, and canon decolonization during and after the Présence Africaine Congress of 1956. Journal of Modern History, 93(4), pp. 861-895. (doi: 10.1086/717129)

2020

Dunstan, S. C. (2020) Christopher R. Rossi. Whiggish International Law: Elihu Root, the Monroe Doctrine, and International Law in the Americas. Leiden: Brill | Nijhoff, 2019. Pp. 1547. €99. ISBN: 9789004389182. European Journal of International Law, 31(4), pp. 1545-1551. (doi: 10.1093/ejil/chaa088)[Book Review]

Dunstan, S. C. (2020) “Une Nègre de drame”: Jane Vialle and the politics of representation in colonial reform, 1945–1953. Journal of Contemporary History, 55(3), pp. 645-665. (doi: 10.1177/0022009419873038)

Dunstan, S. (2020) El Moudjahidate: Invisible to Visible, with Nadja Makhlouf. [Website]

2016

Dunstan, S. C. (2016) Conflicts of interest: the 1919 Pan-African Congress and the Wilsonian moment. Callaloo, 39(1), pp. 133-150. (doi: 10.1353/cal.2016.0017)

This list was generated on Fri Oct 4 09:57:23 2024 BST.
Number of items: 18.

Articles

Dunstan, S. and Owens, P. (2022) Claudia Jones, international thinker. Modern Intellectual History, 19(2), pp. 551-574. (doi: 10.1017/S1479244321000093)

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) Women's international thought in the twentieth-century anglo-american academy: autobiographical reflection, oral history and scholarly habitus. Gender and History, 33(2), pp. 487-512. (doi: 10.1111/1468-0424.12521)

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) The capital of race capitals: Toward a connective cartography of Black internationalisms. Journal of the History of Ideas, 82(4), pp. 637-660. (doi: 10.1353/jhi.2021.0036) (PMID:34840192)

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) “La Langue de nos maîtres”: Linguistic hierarchies, dialect, and canon decolonization during and after the Présence Africaine Congress of 1956. Journal of Modern History, 93(4), pp. 861-895. (doi: 10.1086/717129)

Dunstan, S. C. (2020) “Une Nègre de drame”: Jane Vialle and the politics of representation in colonial reform, 1945–1953. Journal of Contemporary History, 55(3), pp. 645-665. (doi: 10.1177/0022009419873038)

Dunstan, S. C. (2016) Conflicts of interest: the 1919 Pan-African Congress and the Wilsonian moment. Callaloo, 39(1), pp. 133-150. (doi: 10.1353/cal.2016.0017)

Books

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) Race, Rights and Reform: Black Activism in the French Empire and the United States from World War I to the Cold War. Series: Global and International History. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. ISBN 9781108732031 (doi: 10.1017/9781108764971)

Book Sections

Dunstan, S. C. (2023) Cheikh Anta Diop's recovery of Egypt: African history as anticolonial practice. In: Manela, E. and Streets-Salter, H. (eds.) The Anticolonial Transnational: Imaginaries, Mobilities, and Networks in the Struggle against Empire. Series: Global and International History. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 135-161. ISBN 9781009359108 (doi: 10.1017/9781009359115.009)

Dunstan, S. C. (2023) Vocabularies of self-determination in 1919: The co-constitution of race and gender in international law. In: Jackson, P., Mulligan, W. and Sluga, G. (eds.) Peacemaking and International Order after the First World War. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 37-64. ISBN 9781108830508 (doi: 10.1017/9781108907750.003)

Dunstan, S. C. (2022) Imperialism. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 127-186. (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.005)

Dunstan, S. C. (2022) World peace. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 359-410. ISBN 9781009004978 (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.009)

Dunstan, S. C. (2022) Population, nation, immigration. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 573-630. ISBN 9781009004978 (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.013)

Dunstan, S. C. and Owens, P. (2022) Anticolonialism. In: Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (eds.) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press, pp. 187-244. ISBN 9781009004978 (doi: 10.1017/9781009004978.006)

Book Reviews

Dunstan, S. (2022) Crystal Marie Fleming, Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2017. xi + 276 pp. Notes, references, and index. $99.50 U.S. (hb). ISBN 9781439914083; $34.95 U.S. (pb). ISBN: 9781439914090; $34.95 U.S. (eb). ISBN 978143991410. H-France Review, 22(128), [Book Review]

Dunstan, S. C. (2021) Sarah J. Zimmerman. Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers' Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2020. 318 pp. $80.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8214-2422-3. H-Net Reviews, [Book Review]

Dunstan, S. C. (2020) Christopher R. Rossi. Whiggish International Law: Elihu Root, the Monroe Doctrine, and International Law in the Americas. Leiden: Brill | Nijhoff, 2019. Pp. 1547. €99. ISBN: 9789004389182. European Journal of International Law, 31(4), pp. 1545-1551. (doi: 10.1093/ejil/chaa088)[Book Review]

Edited Books

Owens, P., Rietzler, K., Hutchings, K. and Dunstan, S. C. (Eds.) (2022) Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316518243

Website

Dunstan, S. (2020) El Moudjahidate: Invisible to Visible, with Nadja Makhlouf. [Website]

This list was generated on Fri Oct 4 09:57:23 2024 BST.

Grants

Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship: "Crisis of Man", 2020-2023

Scottish Council on Global Affairs Small Grant: "Citizenship in Europe", 2022

British Academy Small Grants: "Race in Modern Intellectual History: Historicising an Idea in Time and Space," 2022

Carnegie Research Workshop Grant: "Rethinking Strategy" with PI Phillips P. O'Brien, and alongside Brad MacKay, Catherine Casler, John Amis, Martin Kornberger, Mathilde von Bulow, and Peter Jackson (2022)

European International Studies Association ECR Workshop Grant (2019)

Supervision

I welcome applications from potential PhD candidates that fall broadly within my areas of expertise in Western European and American history, especially on the following themes:

  • histories of human rights and citizenship;
  • international institutions and international law;
  • anticolonialism and decolonisation;
  • gender and race.

I am always delighted to hear about potential new projects, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me!

Professional activities & recognition

Research fellowships

  • 2020 - 2023: Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship

Editorial boards

  • 2022: History of the Human Sciences

Professional & learned societies

  • 2022: Fellow, Royal Historical Society

Additional information

Before joining the University of Glasgow in January 2022, I was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. I have held fellowships at Columbia University, New York, and at the Columbia Global Center in Paris; the University of Sydney and the University of Sussex. My research has been supported by, amongst others, the British Academy, the Australian Research Council, the Fulbright Foundation, the John Frazer Memorial Fund and the European International Studies Association. I received my PhD from the University of Sydney in 2018.