History as Renegade Politics: An Interview with Ann Laura Stoler

In May 2016, Professor Ann Laura Stoler visited Leiden University as the Spring 2016 Global Asia Scholar. On the last day of her stay, Amrit Dev and Sanne Ravensbergen—historians affiliated with the Leiden Humanities Faculty—met Stoler on a sunny terrace situated alongside one of the canals for a conversation about the developments in her scholarly work, career choices, sources of inspiration, and the motivations for doing history. Professor Ann Laura Stoler is Willy Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies at The New School for Social Research in New York. She has published extensively on the colonial history of Indonesia and the sexual and racial epistemologies of imperial politics. Her recent research addresses how colonial histories matter and manifest in the world today.