The workshop is hosted by the University of Basel in cooperation with the Swiss National Science Foundation Research Project "Futures Interrupted." This year's workshop welcomes Prof. Dr. Sherene Seikaly of the University of California, Santa Barbara, for a two-day intensive on A Global History of Palestine.

About the Workshop

Now in its fourteenth year, the Annual SWANA Doctoral Workshop brings together a small cohort of international PhD researchers for an intensive two-day program of close reading, discussion, and scholarly exchange with a leading expert in the field. The 2026 edition will be held in person at the University of Basel on Friday, 18 September (from 13:30) and Saturday, 19 September (until 14:30). Participants will work closely with Prof. Dr. Seikaly across four thematic sessions, and share meals together as part of the program.

This Year's Theme: A Global History of Palestine

This year's workshop takes Palestine not as a bounded national territory but as a site where multiple global histories intersect. Under Prof. Dr. Seikaly's guidance, participants will follow the life of a Palestinian doctor whose journey across Acre, Baltimore, Omdurman, and Beirut opens onto a world of colonial medicine, racial formations, imperial governance, and displacement. Moving from the late Ottoman period through the mid-twentieth century, the workshop situates Palestine within broader global processes — from the Jim Crow United States and the Indian Ocean slave trade to British colonial rule — and invites participants to approach it as an anchor of global history rather than an isolated case. A concluding session on archives and historical writing reflects on method: how do historians work with fragmentary personal and family papers, and what does it mean to write history from places marked by rupture?

About Prof. Dr. Sherene Seikaly

Sherene Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at UC Santa Barbara, editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UCSB. Her first book, “Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine” (2016), received the Middle East Political Economy Book Prize. Her forthcoming From Baltimore to Beirut: “On the Question of Palestine” is the direct inspiration for this year's theme.

Application

The workshop is open to currently enrolled PhD students. To apply, please send Prof. Dr. Falestin Naïli a short text (max. 400 words, third-person singular, in English) summarizing your background and explaining how this workshop connects to your research, along with a CV in PDF format. Up to 15 participants will be selected. The workshop is free of charge and carries 3 ECTS credits. Students based outside Switzerland may apply for a travel contribution of up to 100 CHF.

Key Dates

• The application deadline was extended to Friday 12 June 2026
• Notification of acceptance: by 30 June 2026
• Workshop: 18–19 September 2026