070390 KU Methoden der Globalgeschichte (2006W)

At the present historical juncture when globalization, diasporas and transnational forms of political terror have all drawn attention to "networks" and "connections" across national and geographical boundaries, it might be useful to trace the past trajectories of scientific enterprises to write history beyond the nation state. The course takes as its starting point the elucidation of labels and perspectives associated with this historiographical trend - from universal history to world history and the new global history, from connected to comparative and postcolonial histories. It proceeds to look at the objects of investigation privileged by global perspectives by highlighting the ways in which the field of global interactions has in the recent years extended from an examination of economic structures of production and exchange to include new subjects - the global expansion of religious groups, the history of gender relations within a transnational frame, a global history of genocide, to name only a few.

If the new trends in global / postcolonial historiography strive for more than an "extension" of the field and envisage a change of paradigm, what are the methodological questions that such a perspective raises? Here we shall engage with issues such as periodisation, the definition of units of analysis, questions of multiperspectivity, sources and conceptual categories. One of the important methodological problems involved in the writing of global history is the question of language and concepts. How do you write about two or more cultures in one language - most often a European language - and yet avoid the dangers of imposing Eurocentric categories on non-European cultures? How can we work towards making our conceptual terms more elastic so as to respond to the challenge of cultural plurality?

The course will be structured as a combination of lectures, group discussions around a choice of seminal texts and debates, and individual student presentations of case studies that problematise the methods of writing global history.