Worlds Apart? Futures of Global History

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Global history has come under increasing criticism in recent years. The field has been accused of failing to overcome Eurocentric approaches, to include a broader diversity of approaches and methods, and to address financial and political obstacles to research and scholarly exchange on a global scale.

The two-day conference attempts to address the imbalances and inequalities in the field of global history by taking the recent criticism of the field as a starting point and by transforming it into productive questions: How can a wider acceptance of global history be achieved? How can the thematic and narrative repertoire of global history be expanded? How can we overcome the political and economic inequalities that define the field of global history? What alternative methods and approaches might enrich it? Which topics and concepts should be brought to the fore in the future?

Organisers: Hubertus Büschel, Norman Aselmeyer, and Weltmuseum Wien

Duration: 2 days (Tue, 25 may, 9.30 a.m. – 7.30 p.m. & Fr, 26 may, 9.30 a.m. – 8 p.m.)
Participation on-site: free (a valid museum ticket is required to visit the exhibitions)
Registration online
Venue: WMW Forum (Ground Floor)

Participation online:

https://uni-bremen.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oBkgDwNoRO-YABCMTDPbPg#/registration

Programme Day 1

Thursday, 25 May 2023

9.30 a.m.
Registration

10–10.15 a.m.
Greetings & Welcome
Anna Hofmann (ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius), Norman Aselmeyer (University of Bremen), Hubertus Büschel (University of Kassel), Jonathan Fine (Weltmuseum Wien)

10.15–11 a.m.
OPENING LECTURE
Jeremy Adelman (Princeton University)
Global History Now – Again

11–11.30 a.m.
Tea & Coffee Break

11.30 a.m.–1 p.m.
ROUNDTABLE
Global History at the Crossroads: Where Do we Stand?
Moderation: Lucy Riall (European University Institute, Florence)
Richard Drayton (King’s College London)
Nancy R. Hunt (University of Florida)
Hermann Mückler (University of Vienna)
Rila Mukherjee (University of Hyderabad)
Carmen Nava (California State University San Marcos)
Akita Shigeru (Osaka University)

1–2 p.m.
Lunch Break

2–4 p.m.
PANEL 1: Politics of Global History
Chair: Eric Burton (University of Innsbruck)
Adrián Lerner Patrón (University of Cambridge/Freie Universität Berlin)
The Politics of Global History: The Question of Primacy
Kaveh Yazdani (University of Connecticut)
Periodizing Global History, Deprovincializing the West and Universalizing the “Rest”
Ye Liu (New School for Social Research)
To Historicize Decolonization: Bringing the “Other” Back in
Alessandro Stanziani (EHESS)
The Problem with (Euro)centrism

4–6 p.m.
Tea & Coffee Break

4.30 p.m.
Guided tour of the Weltmusseum Wien for speakers

6–7.30 p.m.
KEYNOTE LECTURE
Sujit Sivasundaram (University of Cambridge)
The Global and the Earthy