Saturday, January 3, 2009: 3:10 PM
Metropolitan Ballroom West (Sheraton New York)
Transnationalizing the Debates on Transnational History
“Transnationalizing Historiography” is not only a Western movement: During the past few years, historians in many different parts of the world have sought to transcend the history of particular nation-states. Instead they now investigate transnational, transoceanic and other long-distance connections throughout human history. As part of this newly emerging global orientation, a growing number of scholars in many parts of the world have contributed to an already substantial body of methodological and conceptual literature on global history. However, these debates on transnational and global history are far from being global in their own discourses – quite to the contrary, they remain largely confined to national or at most regional conversations.
` The paper approaches the rising interest in transnational and global history from trans-local perspectives, and it does so in different ways. Firstly, it investigates the reasons for the rather simultaneously rising interest in historiography beyond the nation state in many parts of the world. Secondly, the paper argues that the current geographical spread of this movement should not make us erroneously assume that we are currently witnessing a globally homogenous discourse on transnational history in the offing. Rather, locally specific perspectives will continue to be important, even though they remain closely entangled in an international nexus of intellectual exchanges. This (main) part of the paper particularly focuses on selected current Chinese (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), German and American approaches to global history. In its comparative parts, the paper touches upon factors ranging from academic structures, traditions of historiographical thinking, sociopolitical factors and the overall intellectual opinion climate.
“Transnationalizing Historiography” is not only a Western movement: During the past few years, historians in many different parts of the world have sought to transcend the history of particular nation-states. Instead they now investigate transnational, transoceanic and other long-distance connections throughout human history. As part of this newly emerging global orientation, a growing number of scholars in many parts of the world have contributed to an already substantial body of methodological and conceptual literature on global history. However, these debates on transnational and global history are far from being global in their own discourses – quite to the contrary, they remain largely confined to national or at most regional conversations.
` The paper approaches the rising interest in transnational and global history from trans-local perspectives, and it does so in different ways. Firstly, it investigates the reasons for the rather simultaneously rising interest in historiography beyond the nation state in many parts of the world. Secondly, the paper argues that the current geographical spread of this movement should not make us erroneously assume that we are currently witnessing a globally homogenous discourse on transnational history in the offing. Rather, locally specific perspectives will continue to be important, even though they remain closely entangled in an international nexus of intellectual exchanges. This (main) part of the paper particularly focuses on selected current Chinese (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), German and American approaches to global history. In its comparative parts, the paper touches upon factors ranging from academic structures, traditions of historiographical thinking, sociopolitical factors and the overall intellectual opinion climate.