Personen

Dr. Ole Birk Laursen

Affiliierter

Employment, fellowships, and consultancies

10.2023 - 01.2024
Researcher, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
08.2023 - 09.2023
Visiting Research Fellow, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany. Project: South Asians in Weimar era Berlin.
10.2022 - 01.2023
Visiting Research Fellow, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
02.2022 - 04.2022
Visiting Research Fellow Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin (Germany)
10.2021 - 06.2021
Historical Consultant, TV documentary Bend It Networks/Channel 4, London (United Kingdom)
01.2021 - 06.2021
Teaching Fellow in English Department of English, King’s College London (UK) Course convenor: ‘Contemporary Global Novels’ (BA)
10.2019 - 12.2021
IIAS Research Fellow International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University (Netherlands)
06.2019 - 07.2019
Visiting Research Fellow Université Paris 1 – Pantheon Sorbonne (France) Centre d’histoire de l’Asia contemporaine
01.2019 - 06.2019
Teaching Fellow in English Department of English, King’s College London (UK) Course convenor: ‘Contemporary South Asian Women’s Writing’ (MA) Course convenor: ‘Postcolonial Perspectives’ (BA)
09.2018 - 01.2019
Teaching Fellow in Comparative Literature Department of Comparative Literature, Queen Mary, University of London (UK) Course convenor: ‘Colonial Literature, Postcolonial Perspectives’ (BA)
01.2018 - 06.2019
Lecturer in English English Department, New York University, London (UK) Course convenor: ‘Postcolonial Indian Literature’ (BA)
04.2017 - 06.2019
Editorial Assistant English & Creative Writing, The Open University (UK) The Oxford History of the Novel in English, Vol. 10: The Novel in South and South-East Asia since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2018), edited by Alex Tickell
02.2017 - 04.2017
Visiting Research Fellow Danish Institute in Rome (Italy)
10.2016 - 01.2017
Visiting Fellow Department of Politics and International Relations, Goldsmiths, University of London (UK)
02.2014 - 02.2016
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
10.2014 - 01.2015
Visiting Fellow Faculty of English, University of Oxford (UK)
08.2013
Guest Lecturer ASNEL Summer School, University of Potsdam (Germany) Course convenor: ‘Postcolonial Anarchism: Anti-Colonial Resistances, Transnationalism and Social Revolution’
07.2011 - 07.2013
Editorial Researcher – Funding Content (Denmark, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand) Research Professional, Research Ltd, London (UK)
08.2011
Guest Lecturer ASNEL Summer School, University of Bern (Switzerland) Course convenor: ‘Inventing Black Britain: Changing the National Story’
07.2008 - 10.2010
Database Assistant Editor Open University, Oxford, King’s College London, British Library (UK) AHRC-funded project: Making Britain: South Asian Visions of Home and Abroad, 1870-1950

Education

10.2007 - 05.2012
PhD (English) The Open University (UK) Thesis title: ‘Black and Asian British Life Writing: Gender, Identity and Representation in Selected Novels from the 1990s’
08.2003 - 01.2006
Master of Arts (English and History) Aarhus University (Denmark)
08.2000 - 07.2003
Bachelor of Arts (English) Aarhus University (Denmark)

Publications

Books

Laursen, Ole Birk, The Indian Revolutionary Movement in Europe, 1905-1918 (Liverpool University Press, under contract)

Laursen, Ole Birk, Anarchy or Chaos: M. P. T. Acharya and the Indian Struggle for Freedom (Hurst & Co., 2023; Oxford University Press, 2023; Penguin India, 2023)

Laursen, Ole Birk, The Indian Revolutionary Movement in Europe, 1905-1918 (Liverpool University Press, under contract

Edited Books

Laursen, Ole Birk, ed., Lay Down Your Arms: Anti-Militarism, Anti-Imperialism, and the Global Radical Left in the 1930s (On Our Own Authority! Publishing, 2019) 

Laursen, Ole Birk, ed., M. P. T. Acharya, We Are Anarchists: Essays on Anarchism, Pacifism, and the Indian Independence Movement, 1923-1953 (AK Press, 2019)

Stadtler, Florian, and Ole Birk Laursen, eds, Networking the Globe: New Technologies and the Postcolonial (Routledge, 2016)

Malreddy, Pavan Kumar, Birte Heidemann, Ole Birk Laursen, and Janet Wilson, eds, Reworking Postcolonialism: Globalization, Labour and Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

Journal Articles

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘‘Deserter in Scandinavia’: Augustin Souchy, Transregional Networks, and the Scandinavian Syndicalist Press, 1914–1919’, Anarchist Studies, 33:1 (forthcoming 2025)

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Agnes Smedley and the Indian Anarchists in Weimar Berlin’, South Asian History and Culture, 15:3 (2024), 1–14.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Spaces of Indian Anticolonialism in Early Twentieth Century London and Paris’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 44:4 (2021), 634-650.

 Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘“I have only One Country, it is the World”: Madame Cama, Anticolonialism, and Indian-Russian Revolutionary Networks in Paris, 1907–1917’, History Workshop Journal, 90 (Autumn 2020), 96-114.

Galvan-Alvarez, Enrique, Ole Birk Laursen, and Maria Ridda, ‘Introduction: Decolonizing the State: Subversion, Mimicry and Criminality’, special issue of Postcolonial Studies, 22:3 (June 2020), 161-169.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘“Anarchism, pure and simple”: M. P. T. Acharya, Anti-Colonialism and the International Anarchist Movement’, Postcolonial Studies, 22:3 (June 2020), 241-255.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Anti-Colonialism, Terrorism and the “Politics of Friendship”: Virendranath Chattopadhyaya and the European Anarchist Movement, 1910-1927’, Anarchist Studies, 27:1 (2019), 47-62.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘An Uncompromising Rebel: M. P. T. Acharya and Indian Anarchism’, Kairos: A Journal of Critical Symposium, 3:1 (2018), 66-77.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Anarchist Anti-Imperialism: Guy Aldred and the Indian Revolutionary Movement, 1909-1914’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 46:2 (2018), 286-303.

Køhlert, Frederik Byrn, and Ole Birk Laursen, ‘Introduction: Comics and the Anarchist Imagination’, special issue of SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism, 46:2 (2017), 3-10.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Postcolonial Anarchographics: Re-Drawing History in the Trantraal Brothers’ Crossroads’, SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism, 46:2 (2017), 129-146.

Stadtler, Florian, and Ole Birk Laursen, ‘Introduction: Networking the Globe: Culture, Technologies, Globalization’, special issue of Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 49:5 (2013), 1-2.

Laursen, Ole Birk, “‘Telling Her a Story”: Remembering Trauma in Andrea Levy’s Writing’, special issue on Andrea Levy, EnterText, 9 (2012), 53-68.

Book Chapters

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘British Anarchism and the Colonial Question: The Case of Freedom, 1918–1962’, in David Finkelstein, David Johnson, and Caroline Davies, eds, Edinburgh Companion to British Colonial Periodicals (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024), 404–417.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘“The Ethics of Dynamite”: Indian Nationalism and the Question of Anarchism in Britain, 1905-1909’, in Radical Encounters in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940: Anarchist, Marxist, and Nationalist Struggles, eds, Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt (London: Routledge; in press)

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Writing Lives, Inventing Selves: Black and Asian Women’s Life Writing’, in Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing, eds, Susheila Nasta and Mark Stein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 499-520.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘“A Dagger, a Revolver, a Bottle of Chloroform”: Colonial Spy Fiction, Revolutionary Reminiscences and Indian Nationalist Terrorism in Europe’, in Planned Violence: Post/Colonial Urban Infrastructure, Literature and Culture, eds, Elleke Boehmer and Dominic Davies (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 255-271.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Anti-Imperialism’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism, eds, Carl Levy and Matthew S. Adams (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 149-168.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘The Indian Nationalist Press in London, 1865-1914’, in The Foreign Political Press in Nineteenth-Century London: Politics from a Distance, eds, Constance Bantman and Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 175-191.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘“The Bomb Plot of Zurich”: Indian Nationalism, Italian Anarchism and the First World War’, in Anarchism 1914-1918: Internationalism, Militarism and War, eds, Ruth Kinna and Matthew S. Adams (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), 135-154.

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Reading the Riots: Precarity, Racial Injustice and Rights in the Novels of Alex Wheatle’, in Reworking Postcolonialism: Globalization, Labour and Rights, eds, Pavan Malreddy, Birte Heidemann, Ole Birk Laursen, and Janet Wilson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 214-228.

Book Reviews

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Tim Harper, Underground Asia: Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire (London, Allen Lane, 2020), H-Soz-Kult (June 2021)

 Laursen, Ole Birk, review of A.W. Zurbrugg, Anarchist Perspectives in Peace and War, 1900-1918 (London: Merlin Press, 2018), Anarchist Studies, 28:2 (2020), 120-1.

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Lynne Macedo, ed., Pak’s Britannica: Articles by and Interviews with David Dabydeen (University of West Indies Press, 2011) and Lynne Macedo, ed., Talking Words: New Essays on the Work of David Dabydeen (University of West Indies Press, 2011), Journal of West Indian Literature, 22: 1 (2013), 132-6.

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Simon Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton University Press, 2011), Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 49: 2 (2013), 241-2.

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Claire Chambers, British Muslim Fictions: Interviews with Contemporary Writers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture, 3:2 (2012), 308-10.

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt, eds, Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution (Brill, 2010), Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 48:5 (2012), 573-5.

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Alan Rice, Creating Memorials, Building Identities: The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic (Liverpool University Press, 2010) and Sarah de Mul, Colonial Memory: Contemporary Women’s Travel Writing in Britain and the Netherlands (Amsterdam University Press, 2011), Wasafiri, 27:3 (2012), 83-5.

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Abigail Ward, Caryl Phillips, David Dabydeen and Fred D’Aguiar: Representations of Slavery (Manchester University Press, 2011), Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 48:4 (2012), 449-50.

Laursen, Ole Birk, review of Bart Moore-Gilbert, Postcolonial Life-Writing: Culture, Politics and Self-Representation (Routledge, 2009) and Philip Holden, Autobiography and Decolonization: Modernity, Masculinity and the Nation-State (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), Wasafiri, 25:3 (2010), 86-88.

Blog posts, podcasts, newspapers, and other public engagement

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Decolonising Anarchism: M.P.T. Acharya, Anticolonialism, and Anarchism, 1922-1954’, Anarchist Essays, Anarchism Research Group, Loughborough University, UK, 21 October 2020 [https://podcastaddict.com/episode/114075596]

 Laursen, Ole Birk, Interview with ABC with Danny and Jim, 26 August 2020 [https://anchor.fm/abcwithdannyandjim]

Laursen, Ole Birk, Interview with Sikh Archive, 17 June 2020 [https://www.patreon.com/sikharchive]

Laursen, Ole Birk, Interview and Q & A, Indian Anarchist Federation, 1 May 2020 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mChtu7ciLLc&t=3906s]

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘When an Indian lawyer was sent to Scandinavia to preach the virtues of colonial rule’, Scroll.in (24 May 2018) [https://scroll.in/article/879769/when-an-indian-lawyer-was-sent-to-scandinavia-to-preach-the-virtues-of-colonial-rule]

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘“A Trustworthy Indian in Stockholm”: A. Yusuf Ali’s Mission to Scandinavia, 1918’, The British Library, Untold Lives blog (21 May 2018) [http://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2018/05/a-trustworthy-indian-in-stockholm-a-yusuf-alis-mission-to-scandinavia-1918.html]

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Radical Books: Maxim Gorky, “Song of the Falcon” (1894)’, History Workshop Online (12 April 2018) [http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/radical-books-maxim-gorky/]

Laursen, Ole Birk, ‘Revisiting the 1917 Stockholm Peace Conference: Indian Nationalism, International Socialism, and Anti-Imperialism’, University of Exeter, Imperial & Global Forum, guest blog post (11 April 2017) [https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2017/04/11/revisiting-the-1917-stockholm-peace-conference-indian-nationalism-international-socialism-and-anti-imperialism/], 8th most popular blog post of 2017.

Laursen, Ole Birk, entries for the online database ‘Making Britain: South Asian Visions of Home and Abroad, 1870-1950’ [http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/]