The sport of football has become a worldwide phenomenon. Millions of children and adults alike passionately take part in casual street matches or organized leagues all around the world, and on the weekends, those same people and others attend professional
Unconference Thoughts and Conclusions
(Apologies for forgetting to upload this last week) After the Unconference on Saturday, February 14th , I was amazed by how successful the day had been. The setup and running of a pair programming format was extremely useful for shaping my
The melting pot of ideas, connections and flows- flattening boundaries in South and Southeast Asia
Having initially brought a proposal of travellers in South-East Asian port cities to the table for discussion at the unconference, I was able to test different approaches, and experiment with prospective angles in this free-flowing space. The discussions I had,
Prohibition Bootlegging on the Detroit River
In the days since the ‘Unconference’ I have been exploring the possible developments of my ideas surrounding transnational alcohol smuggling into the USA during Prohibition. What I have found are a wealth of both primary and secondary sources, convincing me
Unconference Aftermath: Globalization and Sport
After an intellectually rigorous but stimulating day at the Unconference today, my ears are ringing with some fantastic ideas from my fellow students. Everything from ’the scourge of sectarianism’ to ‘hosing whisky’ was mentioned today, and I eagerly anticipate hearing the presentations
The Nation, a Construct of the Global
Last week discussion of the role of nation proved personally challenging. Having struggled with determining where the nation was situated in a previous post, and with great thanks to Dr. Lawson’s metaphor, Sebastian Conrad’s Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany further helped
Globalisation Revisited – 21st Century Millennialism?
The accepted narrative of globalisation places it as a phenomenon born out of post-Cold War American capitalism; a creation of the late twentieth century manifested in the inescapable homogenising successes of McDonalds, Apple and liberal democracy. However, as Conrad, Tyrell
Transnational History and the riddle of how to connect the Matryoshkas
In last week’s seminar we discussed (among other points) the role of the nation and modern-nation state in trans-national history. Questions were raised – as in some of the blog posts – as to how the nation-state interconnects with other
Transnational History & Migration Studies
It is unsurprising that transnational history, a field obsessed with mobility, has much to offer to the study of migration. As we briefly discussed in last week’s seminar, transnational history allows us to move beyond the simplistic analysis of international
Preserving Clarity in Transnational History
If transnational history is intended to ‘destroy containers’, to borrow the phrasing of Dr Struck, then we must be careful to ensure that we are not simply replacing one set of obstructive and dogmatic terms with a newer yet similarly
Is transnational history dependent on the nation?
Transnational history is an elusive term. It’s perhaps an attractive concept because of the difficulty in citing an exact definition, but its potential and creativity is crucial to its interpretation. Freed from the constrictions of an “intellectual straitjacket”, I am
The Relationship between Transnational & Global History
The broad schools of transnational and global history often arise side by side in historical debate, but to equate the two is to ignore the fundamental questions surrounding the definitions & applications of these still emerging fields of study. This
Welcome
Welcome to MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational History. Konrad Lawson and I are currently putting the final touches to our course handbook as this course is a new one for us. We are very much looking forward to working with