Take part
The collective is growing
We began as a handful of researchers whose work kept meeting at the same questions, and we have never been a closed list. There is no application cycle, no committee and no fee. There is a form, and someone reads it.
What taking part means
Join the collective
If you are a researcher whose work meets ours — imperial legacies, print culture, digital infrastructures, memory, the archive and what it excludes — tell us what you are working on. We are interdisciplinary by construction, so a discipline we do not yet have is an argument for you rather than against.
Come on the podcast
Empire Sleuths is a conversation, not an interview. Episodes run about forty-five minutes and are recorded remotely. If you have a book, a thesis chapter or a standing argument about crime fiction and empire, propose it.
Build an artefact
The gallery exists because some arguments land better when you can play them. If you design games, build archives or write code and want to put that to scholarly use, there is room here.
Bring something else
Blogs, vlogs, discussion forums, teaching materials, an idea for a format nobody has tried. The collective is deliberately loose about medium.
Who this is open to
Academics, doctoral researchers, independent scholars, archivists, technologists and writers. An institutional post is not a requirement — several of the things this collective has made were built outside one.
Write in
Or email hello@empirescollective.com directly if you would rather.
Common questions
Who can join the Empires Collective?
The collective is interdisciplinary by construction — its current members are literary historians, a film and media historian, a computer scientist and philologists, working across universities in India and the United Kingdom. Enquiries are welcome from academics, doctoral researchers, independent scholars, archivists, technologists and writers whose work touches the collective’s.
How do I propose an episode of Empire Sleuths?
Use the form on the Join page and choose “Appearing on Empire Sleuths”. Episodes are recorded remotely as a conversation rather than an interview.
I want to build something with the collective. Where do I start?
The same form, choosing “Collaborating on a digital artefact”. The gallery shows the kind of thing this means — a playable game built on researched history — and the collective is explicit that the format follows the argument.
How do I contact the Empires Collective?
Through the contact form, or by email. Several members also have their own sites, which are linked from their entries on the collective page and are faster for a question about their own research.