Book Spotlight “Transimperial Histories of Knowledge: Exchange and Collaboration from the Margins of Imperial Europe, Comparativ 31/5-6 (2021)”
This thematic issue developed in the midst of the pandemic. We, the co-editors of the issue, embarked on our respective PhD projects at the Chair for Global History at ETH Zurich in the fall of 2019. By summer 2020, we were trying to find ways to do advance in our research and work collaboratively despite Covid restrictions that hindered much … Read More
Afrika erforschen. Kooperation und Konkurrenz zwischen Europäern im 19. Jahrhundert
Die Erzählung des Scramble for Africa, der mit der Berliner Kongokonferenz 1884–85 begann, könnte vermuten lassen, dass auch die Erforschung des afrikanischen Kontinents dem Konkurrenzdenken folgte, welche die Politik der europäischen Nationalstaaten im späten 19. Jahrhundert häufig prägte. In diesem Essay will ich dagegen zeigen, dass die Erforschung Afrikas in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts vielfach in der Form … Read More
Transimperial Guess-Work: British and French Systems of Knowledge Sharing against Transimperial Immigrants
Consider the following two accounts. Both are separate incidents and refer to different immigrants, but each involves correspondence and intelligence-sharing practices regarding transimperial migrants—individuals who moved across the frontiers of empires—between British and French imperial authorities in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa during the 1930s and 1940s. The first account involves the aftermath of an arrest made by Palestine … Read More
Indians and Koreans in Crosscolonial Solidarity: Part II. Rabindranath Tagore and His Transimperial Encounters
Introduction Part II of my blog series continues to explore Indian feelings of “crosscolonial solidarity” with Korea, focusing on how such feelings are manifested in the emotions, ideals, and deeds of one person, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)―a polymath intellectual most famous for his poetry, which won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore visited Japan multiple times, in 1916, … Read More
The Dawn of Asian-African Internationalism: India, China, and the 1947 Asian Relations Conference
Between 23 March and 17 April 1947, the Asian Relations Conference was convened in New Delhi. In the aftermath of WWII, a moment in which the declining Western empires and the emerging independent states intersected, entangled, and collided, this Conference arguably sparked the rise of Asian-African Internationalism.[1] The latter movement soon became a distinctive political force during the early Cold … Read More