MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

While my understanding of the applications and benefits of transnational history has been expanded by the readings this week. I primarily found myself thinking back to previous historical work I’ve encountered and its place in this debate. 

I found the AHR Conversation on the subject of transnational history, or ‘history in a transnational perspective’ as Saunier clarifies, particularly enlightening in its comparisons between the transnational approach versus global, and world histories. 

I find it interesting to think of the emerging field of transnational history, and why it might have gained popularity in the first place. Like Hofmeyr suggested, it’s been interesting to compare the “biography of ‘transnational’ to the career of the rubric ‘postcolonial’”(1444). I found myself thinking about the subfield of postcolonial studies, ‘new imperial’ history. I was introduced to this term by new imperial historian Matthew Stanard in his work on colonial culture during the interwar period (I recognize the irony of me talking about a ‘period’ when the readings this week discussed the dissolving of periodization through transnational history but bear with me). Stanard defines new imperial history as studying the effects of the empire on the metripoles. Instead of simply studying how the colonized were affected by the empire, new imperial historians ask how the colonizers were in turn affected. In his article he employs comparative methods to study how seven different countries throughout Europe developed similar colonial cultures.

It has now been several months since I read this article but it has been interesting to revisit in light of this week’s readings. Stanard was clearly heavily influenced by the emerging term ‘transnational history’, arguing against the use of individual nation states as sufficient categories of study, and trying to find a throughline in colonial culture throughout diverse countries in Europe. 

Going back to the readings from this past week, Hofmeyr suggests that because so many fields of history, including studies of the African diaspora, area studies, postcolonial theory, and others, already employ ‘transnational methods’, the term ‘transnational history’ may prove unnecessary. I found this interesting to consider but ultimately disagreed with her line of thought. While yes, there are many fields that already do the work transnational history seeks to do, I believe that applied as a lens through which history can be studied, its continued development can be an aid in study and not a distraction. 

At the risk of ending on an unrelated note, the point made in the readings this week that I found most helpful to understanding the goals and aims of transnational history was from Saunier’s introduction. They stated that whether ‘transnational’ history is investigated on a ‘global’, ‘world’, or ‘translocal’ scale is secondary to the primary purpose of investigating the connection between communities, polities, and societies.

As I read through this article and chapter, I became simultaneously clear yet more confused about what transnational history is; and maybe that’s a good thing, or not. The debates concerning transnational history seem to encourage a flexibility of methodologies and focus that I found both liberating and a bit overwhelming. Both readings seemed to suggest that rather than being a rigid sub-discipline, transnational history is really a “way of seeing” or a relational approach that emphasizes what works “between and through” collective units rather than just looking at what happens inside them as if they were isolated monads.

Hofmeyr’s fluid description of this history as one that looks at movements and how they flow and circulate over tame and space particularly spoke to me. This worked well with Saunier’s discussion about the spatiality of this discipline. Within the introduction, he advocates for a subnational and supranational approach to history, to follow migrants, groups, and individuals rather than abstract states. It’s fascinating how he argues that a transnational perspective actually “brings to the surface subnational histories,” showing that migrants don’t just “start” from a country but from a specific village or kin group. At the same time, it opens these huge supranational formations like oceanic basins (like the “Black Atlantic”) or forgotten zones like the Sahara that traditional “area studies” maps usually miss. It was when reading this I wished I had given myself more time to delve into more of Saunier’s book, especially since he views it more as a “vade mecum”, a guidebook to arouse curiosity rather than a strict set of rules.

The “when” of it all is also where it gets a little tricky for me to understand. Saunier and others like Kiran Patel suggest we should probably stick to the last 200 to 250 years, what they call the “age of territoriality,” because that’s when the nation-state really formed as a bounded unit. However, someone like Patricia Seed argues that the rubric is still useful for earlier stuff, like following mobile populations (like the Sephardim after 1492) across different kingdoms and sultanates. As I am hoping to do my student project in this module on indigenous populations and their relationship with their environment and colonisers. Could this be through their displacement, forced migration? Furthermore, Hofmeryre once again caught my interest, talking about how historians can track how “publics” came to be by tracking and studying the cultural movements across time can allow s to better understand how “publics” came to be and allow us to better understand transnational history. Overall, these readings opened so many new questions for me concerning the methodologies, scope and focus of translational history. Giving me a lot of hope and excitement about the rest of this module.

Turning towards transnational and global history emerged from dissatisfaction with the nation-state as a primary unit of explanation for historical events. The readings from the first and second weeks all push the idea that national frameworks obscure the processes that actually drive historical change. Bayly defines transactional history different than others. Bayly describes it as the focus of the movement of people, goods, and ideas across borders rather than the assumption that societies develop in isolation. Similarly, Calvin believes that European history should be re-situated within wider global processes. With these readings in mind, transnational and global history is therefore something of a corrective approach that reveals hidden connections overshadowed by methodological nationalism. 

Bayly was able to link the rise in transnational history to contemporary globalization, migration, and postcolonial critique while Calvin believes its traces stem from postcolonial studies, feminist history, and subaltern studies. Therefore this shift is not across the board a neutral one as it reflects present day concerns about various elements (inequality, mobility, and global interdependence). 

Both Clavin and Rüger express transnational, global, and international history as something that should not be seen as mutually exclusive. International history focuses on states, transnational history foregrounds networks and transfers, and global history is something that oftentimes seeks to decenter Europe, at least from my understanding of the texts. Here is where some comparison arises. Their relationship is complimentary rather than competitive yet while comparative history highlights national difference, transnational history focuses on interactions which produce such differences and similarities. 

Rüger’s OXO case study shows the strengths and limits of transnational analysis. It reveals how commodities are not created from national innovation but through global independence, additionally how nationalism and war are still factors too. Transnational connections not dissolving conflict but rather being reshaped by it. Furthermore, this study shows how the integration of state power and political struggles into transnational narratives is fundamentally important. 

Transnational history requires us to change our understanding of empires through the emphasis on circulation and negotiation as well as sustained attention to power.

The readings argue that transnational and global history should not replace national history but rather reframe it. Europe should not appear as a self-contained state but something that is shaped by wider global processes (and Europe shapes other global processes too). There needs to be a retained focus on conflict, hierarchy, and human agency while integrating national, comparative, and transnational processes. 

This week’s readings provided extensive depth into not only how to come to terms with and define (to an extent) transnational history and similar historical approaches, but also how they came about and under what contexts and reception.

The AHR Conversation was a particularly insightful text as one was able to generate their own conclusions based on a plethora of opinions from scholars all interested and engaged in transnational history. Primarily, I deduced the importance of transnational history for studying people and following people throughout late modern history. The dismissal of traditional data in favour of foregrounding lived experience and entangling human experiences struck out as an important aspect of what this historical approach can bring to the table on historical phenomena that may appear entirely thought out or studied comprehensively on the surface. At this point, I began comparing this idea to previous essays and bodies of text I have written as a part of my degree.

My Honours Project last semester explored how anti-Communist rhetoric and societal perceptions of Communism delayed the Black Freedom Movement in the United States between 1920 and 1960. As I researched, I found that up until the 1980s (and in the 1970s but to a far lesser extent) American historians tended to focus on anti-Communism and the negative impact of Communism both nationally and internationally when looking at the period of American social history between 1920 and 1960. To a large extent, only ‘Communist’ or left-wing historians, who also were typically not American and were at best on the margins of mainstream history, were more objective in their approach to Communism and its impact, specifically the impact of anti-Communist rhetoric on social behaviour and political leanings. This favouring of anti-Communist bias in American historical texts indicates what Pierre Yves Saunier’s text points out; the prevalence of ‘exceptionalism’ in American historical approaches.

As I finished Chapter One of Saunier’s book, it occurred to me that this has the potential to once again change how transnational history is defined, or what constitutes falling under that category. If, as Saunier and scholars at the AHR Conversation consistently point out, transnational history was born from a need for decentering national and territorial boundaries from historical inquiry and instead focusing on groups of people and their connected experiences and movements (I am still struggling to define the term articulately), then how can this sort of ‘transnational’ approach in American history that is under a framework of American ‘exceptionalism’, which is ultimately a national idea, be considered transnational?

I was intrigued by the discussion of the similarities and differences between transnational history and other approaches that emphasize an outlook beyond the nation-state, which both the AHR conversation article and Saunier’s introductory chapter discuss. Admittedly, I often struggle to differentiate between these approaches, and the arguments in these readings helped me gain clarity. As the AHR moderator stated, these approaches (comparative, international, world, and global history) are characterized by a breakaway from the singular nation-state as the primary focus of history and this longer legacy of ethnocentrism.

Global or world history, according to the participants of the AHR conversation and Saunier, focuses on the history of globalization and international-level processes and changes. It is broad in its timeframe as it includes history before modern-day nation-states were formed, and has a history of focusing on the nation as the most significant unit for understanding societies, processes, and polities. 

I find distinguishing Comparative history from Transnational history more complicated because both heavily focus on regional comparisons and connections. Saunier argues that the difference between the two approaches lies in the way comparative history was developed, as it was used as a tool to trace differences within national trajectories. Like Global/World history, it still assumes the nation-state to be the main setting. 

Saunier’s second chapter on connections developed my understanding of transnational history. From my understanding, Transnational history follows the threads and lines of connections despite and in accordance with the nation-state. It acknowledges that the nation-state is an important unit for the study of history and the general organization of societies; however, it does not limit its study to these distinctions. It studies how the nation-state as a unit formed and destroyed connections, but it is comfortable stepping outside the nation to observe both regional/local and international webs. For example, the conversation about how high-technology infrastructure connected and disconnected parts of Europe truly conveys the broad scope of transnational history. Studying how power lines and grids created international connections and integrated markets while simultaneously strengthening the nation-state’s borders and power was a fascinating example of the complexities of the nation-state as a unit of study. It also showcased how transnational history can compare more than a couple of nations to historicize globalization more in depth.

Both Saunier and Christopher et al. agree in broad strokes that ‘transnational history’ is an as-yet unfixed and somewhat fluid methodology, and is better described as a point of view, or method of relational history, that can then be applied to almost any historical context. 

Saunier, by virtue of being the only author of the work, provides a far more compact and programmatic definition of transnational history as a concept. He defines it in three ‘big issues’: historicising contacts between communities, polities, and societies; assessing how ‘foreign’ groups contribute to ‘domestic’ features, and vice versa; and recovering actors and processes that operate between, across, and through self-contained entities. However, he repeatedly makes it clear that the landscape around transnational history is in constant flux, meaning his definition is not be all end all, and may itself be subject to revision. Similar to global history, he centres transnational history in the ‘age of territoriality,’ defined by Charles Maier as beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, though Saunier generally has the last 200–250 years in view. 

The AHR ’roundtable’ meanwhile is comparatively ‘messy’ but provides a far deeper insight into how different historians may emphasise certain aspects of transnational history (diaspora, ethnic-rights movements, migration, etc.). Several contributors also argue that transnational history is closely connected to fields such as postcolonial studies, feminism, and human-rights scholarship, suggesting that a focus on circulation and networks can avoid some of the pitfalls of ‘global’ approaches that risk greatly simplifying on-the-ground differences between societies. 

Most of Saunier’s writing focuses on distinguishing transnational history from global history, with world history receiving less attention. However, he does provide a simple differentiation between the three based primarily on the time scale they focus on and their ambition. He argues that world history generally spans around 5,000 years and is the ‘most ambitious’ for this reason; global history focuses on the last 500 years and on how the planet integrated and began to merge over that period; and transnational history has the shortest range of the last 200–250 years, resting on Maier’s age of territoriality. He also groups world history alongside a multitude of other ‘relational’ methods of analysing history under the same broad umbrella, arguing that all place a ‘common emphasis’ on how relations impact history. 

The AHR roundtable provides the best, or at least the most, perspectives on the delineation between transnational history, global history, and world history. In broad strokes, the contributors argue that transnational history involves an emphasis on the ‘movement,’ ‘circulation,’ or ‘interpenetration’ of everything from people and goods to more immaterial things such as institutions and ideas. Several of them even suggest that these three methodologies are best seen as overlapping frames for approaching history, rather than rival paradigms, and that they should be chosen pragmatically rather than applied as blanket interpretive frameworks. 

With this in mind, it is useful to employ Saunier and the AHR roundtable to answer two different questions on the topic of transnational history: 

Saunier, to answer ‘what is transnational history?’ 

The AHR roundtable to answer how a transnational lens differs from other pre-existing world-history surveys and globalisation-focused history. 

I have been interested in transnational and global history after taking a class last year on Middle Eastern History. I used one of the essays in this class to look at the spread of radicalism in 19^th century Egypt and the Levant. Clavin highlights that one of the key motivations of transnational history is to allow for historical study at “sub or supra-state level”. I think this is a fascinating lens through which we can examine events and ideas. The history we teach in the UK revolves around great events and state boundaries. This means that much of what we are taught ends up seeming like isolated events which occur in a vacuum. We often neglect the impact events and ideas have across the world. This links to the idea that history is Eurocentric, which Clavin highlights by citing Chakrabarty’s famous call to ‘provincialise Europe’. I am very interested in postcolonialism and believe, as many scholars do, that a transnational approach is the best way to address the impact of colonialism. Europe not only drew the borders of the world but also set out the way we study history. The best way to truly understand the world is to approach it with a transnational lens to see beyond arbitrary borders.

Jan Rugers’ piece was particularly illuminating. The OXO cube is a brilliant example to use to show how even the most mundane of items can help us show how interconnected global history is. I found the political distortion of the OXO cube (its use as propaganda) very interesting. This illustration also importantly illustrated how the sources we use as historians can be distorted by those we are studying.

Finally, something which intrigued me in both the seminar and the readings is how individualistic transnational history is. When encountering terms like transnational and global, one instantly thinks that historians in this area focus on large-scale trends and global phenomena. What struck me about the use of transnational history is how concerned it is with the individual. It seems to restore the historical agency of many of those it studies. Especially those who have been historically marginalised or forgotten because their actions did not sit neatly within national boundaries. I am very much looking forward to getting to know much more about transnational history and beginning my project.

I found these initial readings for the module very compelling. Patricia Clavin’s definitions of various terms including transnational history, global history, and international history, provide the reader with an excellent foundation for further understanding these terms and how to recognize them and grapple with their purpose in various fields of historical research. The problem of periodization that Clavin highlighted is one that I have been exposed to in my earlier time as a history student and am thus somewhat familiar with. However, it was interesting to hear how the problem of periodization is also something that transnational historians are involved in. The idea that, for example, the recognized marker for the beginning of World War I can be argued is euro-centric and ignoring relevant phenomena outside of Europe is one that has stuck with me since reading Clavin’s text. I entirely agree that, in light of this point, much of the West’s periodization can be found to be euro-centric and guilty of perpetuating a damaging tendency towards euro-centrism generally in historical approaches. On this spectrum, I have been considering Jan Ruger’s text and how it pinpoints certain weaknesses or potential weaknesses in transnational history; one being that it perhaps ignores traditional methodologies that work or that it dismiss national boundaries in historical questions when in fact, these boundaries are fundamental to the questions or issues at hand. My takeaway, which Ruger ultimately concluded with as well, is that transnational history is an important historical approach for widening our scope of historical phenomena. However, if used just for the sake of it and without careful consideration as to what one is applying it to, the approach has the potential to discard important factors of the area of history it is looking at and thus the approach loses its purpose and value. Therefore, returning to Clavin’s point, it seems beneficial that historiographical problems such as periodization are put under a transnational light in order to move away from unnecessary national boundaries and euro-centric narratives. In this sense, it appears vital to apply transnational history to historiographical instances where traditional methodologies are clearly not working. The question then becomes, however, to counter Ruger’s argument, what are ‘traditional’ questions or narratives and when can we say that they are not working within a ‘traditional’ historiographical framework? I look forward to exploring this question further as the module develops and my knowledge of transnational history, and global history, grows.

Major takeaways from this week’s reading have all been pertinent upon the conceptualisation of transnationalism as a historiographical approach. Transnational history emphasises upon the porous boundaries between nations — namely the interactions, connections and flows that transcend national borders. However, it is crucial to note that this is not so much as a reaction but as a supplement to the conventional methodological nationalism in history. The historiographical salience of the nations, instead of being repudiated, was further enriched and nuanced by historians’ turning towards their interconnection, no longer treating them as compartmentalised monads (both in determining the scope of research and in conducting historical analysis). This leads to the crucial caveat that in transnationalism, the national and the transnational are not diametrically opposed. As Saunier proposed in his discussion on “middle grounds” as sites of transnational connection, the growth of nation-states, while traditionally seen as stifling these liminal situations, could also bolster their vibrance as nationalist enterprises breed new cross-border connections and intermediaries. This was given a more specific elaboration on Kreuder-Sonnen case study on Poland where the transnational engagements of Polish medics were closely bound with the Polish national cause, both before and after Poland was restored to her statehood. Therefore, it is crucial to note that there was not a dichotomy between the national and transnational approaches in terms of the historical importance of nation.

That said, as with all discussions on the nation have to ponder, the acceptance of nation (and inter-nation connection) as subjects of analysis does not mean that the concept is taken for granted. In Saunier’s point of view, the temporal applicability of transnational history is largely confined to the past 200-250 years before which nations and nation-states had barely come to predominate — Bayly was even stricter in saying that applying transnational history to the pre-1914 era would be problematic. Such caution was surely shared by Kreuder-Sonnen when she specifically addressed that when referring to “Poland” and “Polish” in nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century contexts, there was no intention to assign or presume a certain national allegiance or identity at play. However, it is also questionable whether transnationalists are making a rod on their own back by being too obsessed with the qualification of nations. For Seed, despite transnationalism being essentially of present terms and conceptions (i.e. the nation) on to the past, this can still be done legitimately by focusing on the so-called analogous cases. As we can see in two empirical essays this week, there was neither a German nation-state nor a Polish one in the mid-eighteenth century, but this did not prevent Knotter and Kreuder-Sonnen to speak of German cigar-makers and Polish medics. Indeed, this should be proceeded with caution (as Kreuder-Sonnen has excellently done so in the beginning of her work). But more importantly, this might demonstrate to us that the transnational scope can be extended to historical scenarios further back in time that feature extensive cross-border connections (be they between subnational, national or supranational entities), so long as historians constantly guard themselves against certain arbitrary essentialisations pertinent upon the nation. There can never be too much caution with the thorny task of defining the nation, but the transnational historians might lose a great deal of inspiration by focusing solely on the nation and not interaction.

Lastly, one thing I noticed is that the AHR panel formed an interesting conversation with the Clavin essay from last week. For Clavin, the essence of applying a transnational scope to the modern European context is in the globalisation of European events, studying “how European history has been universalized into international agency”. This stands in interesting contrast, if not opposition to his previous statement on transnationalism’s commitment to fragmentation and diversity. Indeed, while Clavin’s suggestion does help to break down the compartmentalisation of European history vis-a-vis the rest of the world, the advocacy of its globalisation (without mentioning the influence the other way around) can be perpetuate Western-centrism by seeing the West as the sole unit that can boast of global significance. In the AHR panel, I would argue, the merits of transnationalism were better appreciated by the spokespeople who in particular warn against the essentialisation of the global experience, especially regarding modernisation and development which have often granted the West the privileged spot as the enlightening beacon. Instead, much more emphasis was laid on multisited modernity, multi-directional flow of ideas, and the instances of domestication and acculturation across localities. As Beckert said convincingly, “Modernity rests just as much on African slaves, Indian peasants, Chinese traders, and Arab mathematicians as on Lancashire mill workers, Scottish philosophers, German chemists, and American political theorists.” Transnational histories could therefore inform as well as benefit from more discussions on “which nations” as well as those on “what is a nation”.

A huge congratulations to everyone on some fantastic presentations. I watched quite a few of them, and I loved hearing about everyone’s different ideas. Everyone was so engaging and knowledgeable about her individual projects. I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone for our unconference hours, feedback on the short presentations, and of course a massive thank you to Bernhard and Milinda for the constant jokes and support. It has been a true joy partaking in your banter and learning from your intellect. Thank you for making my last semester here enjoyable and informative.

Marion

First of all, I could listen to you talk all day. Your accent is magnificent. Have you ever considered audiobooks?

Your topic is fascinating, and you did a wonderful job explaining it in a clear and concise manner. I was very appreciative of the different historiographical aspects of your presentation and how they each tie into each other. Have you researched the link between American national identity and the construction of wilderness? It is rooted in many of the same ideologies it seems you are drawing on in your long essay – man and nature as necessarily separate entities etc. If you have any interest in exploring this topic for your long essay, I have quite a few sources that could be very interesting to you!

Avery

Great presentation, Avery! It was super enjoyable to listen to and very informative. How have you found postcolonialism as a theoretical framework? Postcolonial feminism is an interesting theory, and clearly well suited for your research in Ireland and India. I was wondering if you have ever worked with decoloniality? Maria Lugones has some really interesting articles about decolonial feminism that might be helpful and interesting to your work. She explains that colonisation did not simply create the colonised but also forcibly introduced European understandings of gender relations, social patterns, and disrupted the cosmological understandings of invaded communities. This erased the pre-colonial conception of sex and gender and replaced it with European-produced-knowledge which separates ‘sex’ and ‘race’ on an axis. She argues that as ‘woman’ and ‘black’ are separable yet homogenous categories on the axis, their intersection “shows us the absence of black women rather than their presence”. Apologies if you have already read Lugones and I am mansplaining but I find her work really interesting and thought she might be helpful for your research! Goodluck with the rest of your paper and congratulations on an excellent presentation.

Kathleen

Hey, Kathleen! Great job on your presentation. In a funny turn of events, my essays have both taken a turn towards tourism and dictatorship, respectively. It was an interesting presentation to listen to because unlike some of the other topics I felt I had a bit more context given my prior research! The part about Intourist was particularly interesting. The aspect of your presentation about minority cultures “clinging to their past” reminded me of some research I have done about the concept of “conservation refugees”. I saw your comment on my “constructing culture” post and wanted to respond to it here as it pertains to your pres! You talked about the threat to biodiversity and general environmental degradation in national parks and other nature enclosures as a result of the tourism industry. I have worked with this topic but from an indigenous rights perspective that I thought I would share with you! This is a bit from an essay I wrote ages ago:

Indigenous dispossession through protected enclosures is an ongoing process that has severely impacted indigenous development across the country. According to Cultural Survival Quarterly (2004), in the last 150 years, 12 percent of the world’s surface has been protected in the form of 100,000 enclosures. Of those lands, 50% encompass traditionally indigenous lands… In America, this percentage rises to 80% (McKay and Caruso 2004). National parks and other protected areas have made “conservation refugees” (ibid.) out of millions of indigenous peoples; national parks are not a colonial act of the past but a pillar of the enduring settler colonial structure of oppression.

Also: The final statement from the indigenous delegates in the closing ceremony of the Fifth World Parks Congress meeting in 2003 read “first we were dispossessed in the name of king and emperors, later in the name of State development and now in the name of conservation.”

I thought this might be interesting food for thought for you to check out for your long essay or further reading!

I have never been one for deep-diving into primary sources such as letters and diaries much to my previous history professors’ lament. I have tended towards secondary sources or other forms of empirical data. It was therefore interesting to read Andrade article “Toward a Global Microhistory” in which he utilises both letters and journals to construct an analysis based on the presumed internal feelings and opinions of their authors. This is definitely an approach that I personally am not used to and am wary of as it read almost like a novel rather than a research/historiographical paper. The last time I really looked at microhistory was in HI2001 and this article brought me back to when I had to read The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis for Ana Del Campo’s tutorial. We had to read the full book and discuss it in class. Davis drew on personal accounts of the presiding judges as well as “registers of Parlementary Sentences” and “Notorial Contracts” to establish a sort of context for the trial that she was writing about and to gauge the reactions that the French peasants in her story might have. I haven’t thought about this piece since I read it and reading Andrade’s article on microhistory and his use of primary documents such as diaries and journals really reminded me of it. I think this type of history is interesting and definitely useful in some cases. Is it for me? No. Am I grateful it exists? Absolutely. It is fun to read and allows you to really immerse yourself in the environment in which the author is writing.

The Presentations deal with many of the aspects of transnational which we have discussed over the course of the semester. Transnational history is to a large extent revisionist, and this can be seen in presentations such as Will’s which focus on non-Western history or Laura’s on the nation. The presentations also display the opportunity afforded by transnational history to discuss alternative categories of time and space. For example key moment’s can be examined as transnational moments as George describes the 60s or Jemma and Jamie’s discussions of conferences. Spaces can also be transnational and the presentations show how climate can be a useful key to transnational history. Geography of course stretches across and beyond nations which form common dividing lines in the writing of history. As evident from Marion’s and George’s presentations climate is an already existing transnational category which can provide the historian with a transnational focus on events commonly studied in isolation. Transnational history appears not to be prescriptive as to a certain methodological approach and can incorporate areas from outside history such as anthropology. It also lends itself to a wide variety of techniques such as the analysis of maps and images as well as written sources. One aspect of transnational history which was evident in many of the presentations was the connection it has to experience. Focussing less on states and instead on a complex transnational world naturally leads one to consider how it was navigated and understood by individuals. One question which remains important for transnational history though, is that of extent. It is always interesting to consider how important and widely experienced these connections are as well as the simple fact of their existence.  

Hi Laura C. really excellent presentation, I love your structure and the way you utilized and organized sources to present a coherent and effective argument. The specificity too, in which you are placing your argument, I believe will serve you well and help establish a fleshed out argument for yourself. 

The only comment I’d recommend is in regard to possible obervations of how Vichy, and its fascism, interacted with the French colonial empire under its control. This could open up avenues of comparison to the Italian which may inspire rich analytical products. Of course this would expand the scope of the argument quite a bit, so more of a contemplation than a hard recommendation. 

Also, great presentation Laura H., really loved the structuring of your presentation and even for the un-initiated it was quite easy to follow your subject so extra commendations for that. 

The only recommendation I have is that the language section seems an especially ripe one to tackle, so extra research in that area may be well warranted and reap useful results. Other than that stellar job! 

I really enjoyed going through everyone’s presentations, I am so impressed in how everyone came up with such unique and interesting topics! I also really loved this class, it not only challenged me academically, but also enlightened me about the possibility of transnational studies and how it can be applied in any area of history. And of course everyone in the class was amazing, as well as Bernhard and Milinda. I was always happy to go to class and excited to hear everyone’s opinions and ideas. 😀

Sophie: I really love your research topic! It is so unique and focusing on Czechoslovakia and South Africa combines two areas and a relationship that is overlooked within historical analysis. Your powerpoint is very well made and covers all the progress of your research project so far. It shows how much work you have done so far, and the questions at the end help show where you still want to go with your research. You seem to be in a really good place so far!

Your understanding of methodology is impressive, and I really like how you are applying your research to look at trends of the global world. Specifically when you mentioned the “transnational quality of human rights.” Being able to connect to a wider topic shows how well researched your project is at this point! 

Marion: Your topic is very interesting as well, as you said, very relevant to today’s climate crisis, as it can not be combated without a transnational effort. Being able to see the importance of transnational analysis years ago shows the continual need for transnational analysis throughout history and a transnational action today. Your presentation is very well organized and shows that you have prepared well so far. Your research questions are clear and you have a clear understanding of the historiography, as well as the gaps within existing research that you are able to cover within your research project. I also like how you address the integration of topics together, showing how you will bring a new way of thinking into your historical analysis. Your presentation shows that you have researched everything well so far and you have a clear understanding of the topic. 

Watching everyone’s presentation, I feel a bit of regret on my own, as mine was more focused on the topic rather than my research project. But I am still happy with mine, and watching everyone else’s presentations helps put in perspective what I need to get done to turn my essay in in two weeks. I am excited for the next couple weeks to finish working and turn in a completed project!

 I mistakenly commented on people’s presentations on their previous posts so I am now compiling them here in my final blog post! I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about everyone’s project progression and wish everyone the best of luck. 

George: Hi! I just watched your conference presentation and I am glad to see I am not the only one who decided to shift their leading question for the long essay. I particularly liked how you went over how you responded and adapted to your initial project proposal feedback – it’s quite helpful to substantively see how your project has evolved not only thematically but also methodologically. I’m glad you’re engaging with this subject as it is a newer field of history and its research utilizes methods across disciplines. I thoroughly enjoyed watching your conference presentation as I have a little bit of background environmental history and historiography (and I am a big fan of David Attenborough). I wrote a historiographical essay in HI2001 on William Beinart and Peter Coates’s Environment and History: The taming of nature in the USA and South Africa (1995) – while it has been a minute since I last picked it up I remember them discuss at length the role media and news played in disseminating environmental movements. They also do a good job of incorporating anthropological sources and first hand accounts into their cross-analysis. I’m not sure how much this will pertain to your research but if you find yourself stumped methodologically at any point, I think this book might be useful to draw inspiration from as they engage with similar methods you mention. I have encountered similar issues with a focus on the post-Soviet space as most anything deemed as progressive literature within this region is difficult to unearth. I have noticed the USSR had a tendency to destroy/conceal historical evidence and accounts that did not align with their views or political agenda… I wish I could say differently for the current Russian state but I have still found this to be an issue in interacting with modern Russian sources. I also think a non-human actor as your subject is a very interesting and refreshing way to go about this topic. Best of luck as you continue your research!

Laura: Hi! I really like how you are approaching a topic with lots of preexisting historiographical debates and applying a comparative methodology to build off of and establish a new perspective on the matter. I have been hesitant to commit to a comparative methodology for my own project but I have found your findings so far in your final conference presentation to be  quite comforting. I had previously not considered anti-semitism out of a German context, and expect that a comparison between Vichy France or Fascist Italy will yield fruitful analysis and results. While I do not have much background on Vichy France or Fascist Italy, I would recommend looking back on Marc Bloch along with Haupt and Kocka if you find yourself needing more research on the comparative methodology. I am currently reading them and think that they will definitely be helpful to refer back to for my personal project. I really like the idea of comparison as a means of understanding transnational phenomenon which I believe you mentioned in the second slide. I think you have a very new and fresh approach to this topic and am excited for your project to develop further. Best of luck!