2nd PhD Global History of Empires Conference - "Within and Beyond Empires. People, Object, Ideas"

"Within and Beyond Empires. People, Object, Ideas"


  • Event Date: 2024-09-26 ~ 2024-09-27
  • Abstract Submission Date: 2024-04-20
  • Submission Date: 2024-04-20
  • Organizer: University of Turin
  • Location: Torino, Italy

Economic History History Asian Studies & History Chinese Studies & History African Studies & History Globalization



Increasing attention to Global History, Connected History, and Entangled History has given colonial and imperial studies new life in recent years. These developments shifted the focus on exploring the connections between different regions across historical periods and helped enrich contemporary historiography with sources, ideas, and actors often overlooked by the traditional narrative.



Remarkably, the early modern age witnessed an unprecedented interconnectedness on a global scale due to the increasing circulation of people, objects, and ideas. The establishment of new oceanic navigation routes, encounters and clashes between cultures, and the formation of vast composite political systems profoundly impacted societies and territories. Explorations, trade, and religious missions only partially represent the heterogeneous exchanges that occurred in this period. These dynamics did not exclusively involve ‘empires’ since other political entities, independent actors, or social groups also participated in - or endured them. Such interconnections fostered the circulation of books and, thus, ideas, objects, commodities and technologies, artefacts and views, or led local knowledge into distant – geographically and culturally – horizons. For these reasons, the conference aims to explore the multiple dimensions of human, material, and intellectual mobility between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we encourage a more profound comprehension of the dynamism of such elements within and beyond different contexts, highlighting the inherent complexity of such intertwined phenomena.



 



 



 



 



Organised by the Global History of Empires PhD Programme, this interdisciplinary conference may serve as a forum for PhD and early career scholars of different provenances and academic backgrounds. Accordingly, the aim is to facilitate dialogue between people with diverse focuses and areas of expertise, welcoming unconventional methodologies and narratives.



 



 



Key topics



 



 




  • People

    Migration flows | Forced mobility and exiles | Labour and slavery | Religious missions | Gender identities and dynamics | Scientific travels | Trade and economic exchanges | Piracy and military expeditions



 



 




  • Objects

    Collections and early museology | Ethnographic artefacts | Visual culture, images, engravings, and maps | Instruments and technologies | Plants and animals | Commodities flows | Books and pamphlets



 



 




  • Ideas

    Intellectual networks | Political, economic, and social thinking | Scientific and technical knowledge | Philosophical concepts | Religious practices and beliefs | Cosmographies and views | Perceptions of nature and environment



 



 



Please send an abstract of up to 250 words and a short biography of no more than 100 words, with your name and current affiliation, to ghempires.conf@gmail.com by 20 April 2024.  Notification of acceptance will be communicated by the end of May.