In recent years, global history has become one of the most ambitious and promising strands of historical research. The approach targets relations, flows, and actors that challenge the assumption of the nation state as a natural and inevitable category of historical analysis. It calls attention to the importance of transnational, trans-regional, or trans-local connections and their influence on the past.
But how can we actually "do global history" in practical terms? What are useful methods and techniques for researching and writing from a global perspective? How can global history complement but also challenge other disciplines. And conversely, what critiques and new ideas can other disciplines bring to global history?
We—a group of students in the MA Global History at Humboldt Universität and Freie Universität in Berlin—would like to invite you to discuss these issues with us at the Global History Student Conference in Berlin by presenting your research projects to fellow students. This year the keynote speaker will be Prof. Sebastian Conrad, chair of Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and author of What is Global History? (2016).
The field of global history is not limited to the modern period, and we invite scholars of the early modern, medieval or classical periods to consider submitting their research. Moreover, global history not only challenges geographical borders, it also tends to transcend disciplinary demarcations. Accordingly, we welcome proposals from any academic field that has points of contact with history (e.g. art history, area studies, social sciences, etc). Furthermore, since global history has only been part of the academic landscape for a few years (at least in terms of institutions and study programmes) we are all more or less beginners in this quest for interconnections, entanglements and conjunctures.
The goal is to exchange experiences and to work together in an open and non-competitive way. The conference seeks to engage with diverse voices in academia; thus, we strongly encourage applicants from historically underrepresented backgrounds to submit their proposals. We also explicitly invite undergraduate students: if you have ever written a paper or essay in this field, this is the perfect place to present it!
The Global History Student Conference will take place at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut in Berlin. The language of the conference is English, therefore please write your submissions in English. To register for the conference, please follow this three-step application process:
- Submit the registration form by the 1st of February 2018.
http://www.globalhistorystudentconference.wordpress.com/application
- Upload your 300-word abstract as a PDF file by the 1st of February 2018.
http://www.globalhistorystudentconference.wordpress.com/application
The abstract should be entitled according to the following format:
SurnameFirstnameShortTitle.pdf
- On acceptance of your paper, please send us a 2000-word summary for us to review by 31st of March 2018.
We will be able to offer some financial support for transport to participants coming from outside of Berlin. Please see our website for further details.
After their presentation to the conference, papers can be turned into full articles and submitted to the ‘Global Histories’ student journal, our sister project, for consideration of their publication. To read a review of our 2017 Global History Student Conference, check out the latest issue of the journal at www.globalhistories.com.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at globalhistorystudentconference@gmail.com
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Your Conference Team