Global History Reading Group, 2019-2020

About

Global History is at the core of some the most recent and stimulating historiographical discussions. Such attention is obviously linked to the main challenges of our society, divided between globalization and fluidity on the one hand, and the resurgence of nationalisms and old barriers on the other. Due to its scope, methods, and approaches, Global History allows one to think History beyond national, often artificial boundaries, as well as to decenter Europe as far as the historical analysis is concerned. Yet there are limitations and weaknesses worth debating.

The reading group on global history is coordinated by Jorge Flores and organized by the Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia (CIUHCT) and the Departamento de História e Filosofia das Ciências (DHFC), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL). It aims at contributing to this conversation by inviting reflection on these and other related topics such as: global history and other “histories”; the early modern and the global; global history and globalization; the micro and the global; global lives; global history of science; empires, trade, and global history. The early modern era has been at the forefront of the major historiographical developments in the field and will therefore receive particular attention.

The group will meet in the Spring semester of 2019-2020 every other week on Wednesdays, from 11:00 to 12:30, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa (Campo Grande 1749-016 Lisboa), room 8.2.19 (8.2.13 on 19 March, Thursday). It will be open to non-members of the Faculty of Sciences and the University of Lisbon community, albeit limited to a maximum of 20 participants. The readings will be mostly in English; please contact Jorge Flores (jmflores@fc.ul.pt) for the respective copies.

Spring Semester, 2019-2020

Meeting 1: 19 February, 11:00 – 13:00
Global History and other “Histories”

• Sebastian Conrad, What Is Global History? (Princeton University Press, 2016), Introduction, pp. 1-16.
• Caroline Duki, Philippe Minard, “Global History, Connected Histories: A Shift of Historiographical Scale,” in Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 54-4bis (2007), p. 7-21.
   

Meeting 2: 4 March, 11:00 – 12:30
Current Challenges to Global History

• Jeremy Adelman, “What is Global History Now?”, Aeon (March 2017).
• Richard Drayton, David Motadel, “Discussion: The Futures of Global History,” Journal of Global History 13 (2018), pp. 1-21.
   

Meeting 3: 19 March, 11:00 – 12:30
The Micro and the Global

• Francesca Trivellato, “Is there a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History?,” California Italian Studies 2:1 (2011).
• Christian G. De Vito, Anne Gerritsen, “Micro-Spatial Histories of Labour: A New Global History,” in Id. (eds.), Micro-Spatial Histories of Global Labour (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 1-28.
   

Meeting 4: 1 April, 11:00 – 12:30
Early Modern Global Lives

• Tonio Andrade, “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory,” Journal of World History 21:4 (2010), pp. 573–591.
• John-Paul Ghobrial, “The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon and the Uses of Global Microhistory,” Past and Present 222:1 (Feb. 2014), pp. 51-93.
   

Meeting 5: 15 April, 11:00 – 12:30
Trade Empires, Global History, and the Globalization Debate

• Simon J. Potter, Jonathan Saha, “Global History, Imperial History and Connected Histories of Empire,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 16:1 (2015).
• Dennis O. Flynn, Arturo Giráldez, “Born Again: Globalization's Sixteenth Century Origins,” Pacific Economic Review 13:3 (August 2008), pp. 359-387.
   

Meeting 6: 29 April, 11:00 – 12:30
Toward a Global History of Science

• Sujit Sivasunduram, “Sciences and the Global: On Methods, Questions, and Theory,” Isis 101 (2010), pp. 146-158.
• Lorraine Daston, “The History of Science and the History of Knowledge,” Know 1:1 (Spring 2017), pp. 131-154.
  
   

[The group will not convene in May]

 

Meeting 7: 3 June, 11:00 – 12:30
Global Visual Culture

• Ebba Koch, “The Symbolic Possession of the World: European Cartography and Mughal Allegory and History Painting,” The Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55:2-3 (2012), pp. 547–580.
• Daniela Bleichmar, “The Imperial Visual Archive: Images, Evidence and Knowledge in the Early Modern Hispanic World,” Colonial Latin American Review 24:2 (2015), pp. 236-266.
   

Meeting 8: 17 June, 11:00 – 12:30

• Topic and readings to be selected by the group.