Call for Papers
What does it mean to locate the invention of the global in the eighteenth century? What does this location of the global legitimate or make visible? What does it neglect or occlude? We would like to interrogate the meaning and distinctiveness of 'the global' in the eighteenth century, encouraging comparisons across space and time and debates across disciplines.
To mark the edges of the global geographically, it helps to globalize the question itself: was this idea conceptualized differently in different parts of the world? Are there in fact many "globals"? Where did the global fail to reach, and why? To mark the historical parameters of the question, it helps to question whether eighteenth-century notions of the global were distinctive from what came before or after. What sort of practices -- political, representational, juridical, technical, narrative, scientific -- furthered or, alternately, thwarted the development of the idea of the global? Conversely, what practices did this idea help put to rest?
Possible paper topics might include:
- When and where did the "globe" or the "world" become a unit of intellectual analysis?
- What effects did the practices of world exploration and world commerce have on global theory, and vice-versa?
- How did the local community, the regional empire, and the emergent nation state compete with or create the notion of the global?
- How were theories of cultural exchange and transmission generated to account for the global eighteenth-century?
- How variously was the global experienced? Are there distinctive ways in which experiences of the global were represented?
- Were conceptions of a global society put forward outside of Europe? If so, what was their range and intellectual ambition, and to what extent did they interact with European notions?
- What was the cultural significance of maps, universal histories, compilations of global travels, studies of languages, etc?
- Did the treatment of the global in theories and artistic practices lag behind or outstrip the political and economic realities of global exchange?
The workshop format will consist of intense discussion of 4-6 pre-circulated papers a day, amidst socializing and refreshment. We will cover most expenses of those scholars chosen to present their work: accommodations, travel (up to a certain limit) and most meals. Please submit paper proposals consisting of a two-page description of the proposed paper as well as a current CV, by the 5th of January, 2004, to:
Dror Wahrman, Dept. of History, Ballantine Hall 742, Indiana University
Bloomington IN 47405, dwahrman@indiana.edu
Bloomington 18th-Century Group
Bloomington 18th-Century Workshop