People
Zaib un Nisa Aziz
Assistant Professor
Contact Information and CV
Office: SOC 210
Email: aziz130@usf.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Education
Ph.D., Yale University, 2022
Teaching
I am a historian of global and imperial history with a focus on the British Empire and Modern South Asia. My teaching reflects my commitment to crossing regional and national historiographies. At USF, I teach undergraduate lecture courses on the History of the British Empire 1757-1977 and seminars on decolonization such as Resistance and Revolt in the British Empire 1857-2010 and International History. I also offer graduate seminars on Global Intellectual History, Comparative Empires and Historical Methods.
Research
My past and present research seeks to push the geographic, temporal and thematic boundaries of the historical study of the end of empire and its aftermath. She is particularly interested in histories of decolonization, labour and internationalism. I received my PhD in History at Yale University in 2022.
My current book project, tentatively titled, Nations Ascendant: The Global Struggle Against Empire and The Making of our World traces the origins and politics of an international community of colonial activists, thinkers and campaigners and shows how they came to share ideas about universal decolonization and the end of empires. It particularly highlights the influence of the Bolshevik Revolution and the fall of Tsarist Empire on anticolonialism. At the turn of the twentieth century, the global imperial order was in peril. In cities across the world, revolutionary factions emerged where nationalists deliberated radical, even violent paths to a post-imperial world. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin belonged to and wrote of this world - a world primarily defined by the crisis of the imperial order and the looming question of the future of national communities. As he and his compatriots seized power in Moscow in October 1917, he announced the dawn of a new era when the empires of the world will eventually fall in the throes of the impending world revolution. This work shows that his call resonated with all sorts of imperial decriers, who saw in his victory the possibility of a new world. From Rio Grande to River Ganges, anti-colonialists turned to Moscow to help realize their own political visions. In the process, they forged an international revolutionary movement that sought universal liberation.
My research draws from my long-standing work on global histories of empire and its aftermath. My commitment to reading across sub-fields has led me to draw new connections across geographies and historiographies. My work has been published and is forthcoming in journals including Historical Research, Gender and History, Humanity and Itinerario. She has also contributed to Journal of Contemporary History and Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History and is an Editor-at-Large at Toynbee Prize Foundation. My future projects include a global history of Republican resistance during the Spanish Civil War. My next book project is an investigation into the international political discourse surrounding the practice of indentured labour put into place in the sugar plantations across the British Empire after the abolition of Atlantic slavery. Details of my research and publications can be found on .
My research has been supported by a number of prestigious fellowships and awards including the Yale South Asian Studies Council Award, Baden-W眉rttemberg Award and the Gilbert Kinney Fellowship, A Bartlett Giamatti Fellowship. In 2019-2020, she held the Fox Fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.
I also hold MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalization from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) for which I was awarded the Bestway Foundation scholarship as well as a BSc. in Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).