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UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS, CENTERS, AND INITIATIVES
The Oxford Centre for Global History
“The Oxford Centre for Global History was established by the History Faculty in June 2011 to reflect its strong commitment to the field. Global History in Oxford is defined broadly as the global movement of people, goods, and ideas and the consequences that flow from them. Chronologically, it extends across all historical periods from ancient to late modern. The Centre is particularly keen to encourage cooperation between historians of different periods, as well as places, in the study of themes of global significance. It will support research projects, and host workshops, seminars, and conferences. A key part of the Centre’s role is to facilitate the research of all those in Oxford who are keen to develop a global history dimension in their work.”
The Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, Harvard University
“The Weatherhead Initiative on Global History (WIGH)/Weatherhead Research Cluster on Global Transformations promotes global history as a critical humanistic enterprise in today’s world of coexisting and contending cultures through research, writing, teaching, and international exchange. By partnering with institutions around the world, we have created a new kind of network that embeds global history in global conversations.”
Global History and Culture Centre, University of Warwick
“With expertise in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, the interests of the Global History and Culture Centre’s members span the globe, and it is the connections between these different regions that are the main focus of the Centre’s activities. Established in 2007, the Centre forms an important part of the Department of History and the wider University. The Centre is at the fore of the development of global history as an integral part of the field of history. Read more from our blog. … The Centre also hosts many other research projects and fellowships supported by a variety of funding bodies. We engage in teaching, graduate research, academic publications, host visiting academic fellows, participate in research networks, and organise symposia, conferences, and seminar series, such as a conference on micro- and global history. The AHRC-funded network on Global Microhistory has resulted in the publication of a Past and Present supplement. Berg’s ERC-funded project Europe’s Asian Centuries: Trading Eurasia 1600-1830 was part of the Centre.”
The Boston University Comparative Studies of the Premodern World Initiative
“The Boston University Comparative Studies of the Premodern World Initiative aims to enhance communication between BU faculty members working on different regions and periods of the premodern world (broadly conceived as ancient, medieval through early modern), inspire collaborative research and teaching, increase the visibility of premodern studies and coursework at BU, and respond and contribute to the search for bold and sophisticated comparisons of the world’s cultural traditions that has recently gained momentum in many fields. Ultimately, we strongly hope that our initiative can help reinvigorate the role of the humanities in academia and society and imagine new models for their relevance. The initiative is supported by BU’s Center for the Humanities and the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature and includes regular topical research workshops, workshops on teaching in comparison and invited lectures. All events are open to interested BU and non-BU faculty and students.”
Queen’s Global History Initiative
“The Global History Initiative at Queen’s University is a research forum based at the Department of History. It provides an interactive arena for international partnership, faculty exchange, thematic conferences, graduate workshops, and multi-institutional network-building. Drawing from the expertise of regional specialists at Queen’s, we define Global History as a critique of methodological nationalism and seek to examine those historical processes that cannot be confined within the limits of arbitrary geopolitical units. Eschewing earlier historiographical trends that unmistakably cast historical problems in the national register, our focus is on freeing history from the post-Enlightenment inheritance of agency, organizing scheme, and units of analysis. Together we embrace the standpoint that Global History can unfold both at the macro and the micro-level, and can at once be a perspective and a subject of study. We seek to explore the local histories of global processes and the myriad ways in which the global currents shape the local forms. The Queen’s Global History initiative is one of the two partners in the North American Global History Network (along with the Weatherhead Initiative in Global History at Harvard University). We are in the process of establishing partnerships and exchanges with leading programs around the world.”
The Edinburgh Centre for Global History
“The Edinburgh Centre for Global History was formally established on 1 January 2019. It serves to build on and expand the University of Edinburgh’s long tradition of studying the histories of migration, diaspora and slavery. … In January 2019, the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies merged with the Global & Transnational History Research Group to create the new Edinburgh Centre for Global History. Histories of diaspora, the forced and unforced migration of peoples, and slavery remain central to the new Centre, but its remit has expanded to include the movements of objects, images and ideas, and the histories of world regions approached in a global perspective, ranging chronologically from antiquity to the contemporary world. Central research themes include: histories of diaspora and migration; Scottish and Scottish diaspora history in global perspective; the history of slavery; the history of consumption; global histories of material culture; global histories of ideas and the development of new critical tools for the study of global history.”
“The Munich Centre for Global History is the main platform to coordinate and facilitate research in global history in Munich and beyond. It is the principal concern of the centre to bring together research and teaching in the field beyond disciplinary boundaries, to support these endeavours and to make them widely visible and accessible. The Munich Centre for Global History understands global history as a particular research perspective that focuses on the significance of global connections and entanglements and examines the prerequisites, conditions and meanings of global exchange in human history. It is one of the centre’s most important tasks to establish and maintain an interdisciplinary structure for the still comparatively little institutionalised field of global history. To this end, the Munich Centre for Global History brings together existing initiatives in the field. At the same time, it initiates, develops and implements new global history projects.”
Centre for Imperial and Global History, University of Exeter
“The Centre for Imperial and Global History brings together the strong research expertise of the University’s eminent imperial historians. It comprises of one of the largest groups of imperial and global historians currently working in the UK.”
“The Imperial & Global Forum is the blog of the Centre for Imperial and Global History at the History Department, University of Exeter. The Centre brings together the strong research expertise of the University’s eminent imperial historians. It comprises of one of the largest groups of imperial and global historians currently working in the UK. Our blog offers a dynamic exploration of imperial history, and we welcome guest submissions.”
SLAVERY AND ABOLITION IN GLOBAL HISTORY
H-Slavery: Digital Resources for the Study of Global Slavery and the Slave Trade
“This page compiles digital resources and projects related to the study of slavery. H-Slavery thanks our Network Editor Jorge Felipe for assembling these sources.”
An open-access digital history project centered on three databases and further resources, include image galleries: “The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database now comprises 36,000 individual slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866. Records of the voyages have been found in archives and libraries throughout the Atlantic world. They provide information about vessels, routes, and the people associated with them, both enslaved and enslavers. Sources are cited for every voyage included. Users may search for information about a specific voyage or group of voyages. The website provides full interactive capability to analyze the data and report results in the form of statistical tables, graphs, maps, a timeline, and an animation. … The Intra-American Slave Trade Database contains information on approximately 10,000 slave voyages within the Americas. These voyages operated within colonial empires, across imperial boundaries, and inside the borders of nations such as the United States and Brazil. The database enables users to explore the contours of this enormous New World slave trade, which not only dispersed African survivors of the Atlantic crossing but also displaced enslaved people born in the Americas. … The African Names Database provides personal details of 91,491 Africans taken from captured slave ships or from African trading sites. It displays the African name, age, gender, origin, country, and places of embarkation and disembarkation of each individual.”
Teaching Medieval Slavery and Captivity
“This website provides pedagogical resources for teachers who want to address the global history of slavery and captivity during the medieval period, broadly defined.” These include historical sources wit contextualization and thematic keywords, ordered by region and century, scholarly bibliographies, and “pedagogical ideas, suggestions, and reflections by experienced teachers.”
SCIENCE & MEDICINE IN GLOBAL HISTORY
“The Science Beyond the West group is a community of faculty and graduate students in the department of History and Sociology of Science at University of Pennsylvania. We are interested in the histories of science beyond the west, and meet regularly to explore, discuss, and excavate methodological, theoretical, and pedagogical questions.”
“Nursing Clio is an open access, peer-reviewed, collaborative blog project that ties historical scholarship to present-day issues related to gender and medicine. Bodies, reproductive rights, and health care are often at the center of social, cultural, and political debates. We believe the issues that dominate today’s headlines and affect our daily lives reach far back into the past — that the personal is historical. The mission of Nursing Clio is to provide a platform for historians, health care workers, community activists, students, and the public at large to engage in socio-political and cultural critiques of this ongoing and historical dialogue regarding the gendered body, the history of medicine, popular culture, current events, and other issues that catch our attention. Nursing Clio provides a coherent, intelligent, informative, and fun historical source for the consideration of these topics.”
RE-FRAMING BRITAIN AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE
One More Voice: Lost Voices from the British Empire’s Archives
“One More Voice, a work of digital humanities scholarship, focuses on recovering non-European contributions from nineteenth-century British imperial and colonial archives. The name reflects the fact that there is always one more voice to recover from the archives. The non-European contributions take multiple forms and appear in multiple genres, including travel narratives, autobiographies, letters, diaries, testimonies, interviews, treaties, maps, oral histories, genealogies, and vocabularies. One More Voice attempts to offer a critical and systematic evaluation of these rich and diverse materials by using interpretive approaches and digital preservation techniques that expand existing scholarship on the topic.”
“We are a student-led organisation dedicated to raising awareness about the ‘uncomfortable’ aspects of our shared history – histories of inequality, discrimination, and imperialism. We combine academic research and critical analysis into regular walking tours, blogs, public lectures, and outreach activities, encouraging discussion and engagement between academics in Oxford and the public.”
Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted
“Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted is a national writing and history project in partnership with Peepal Tree Press, Renaissance and the National Trust. … This project assembles authors, writers, historians and primary pupils to explore country houses’ Caribbean and East India Company connections. It commissions, resources and publishes new writing by children and professional writers. … Free educational resources on black history are now available to parents for home schooling. Find out more.“
PODCASTS OF INTEREST TO GLOBAL HISTORIANS
“The New Books Network is a consortium of author-interview podcast channels dedicated to raising the level of public discourse by introducing scholars and other serious writers to a wide public via new media. Covering 80+ subjects, disciplines, and genres, we publish 35 episodes every week and serve a large, worldwide audience.”
“Ottoman History Podcast began in March of 2011. It was a modest experiment aimed at finding an alternative form of academic production that explores new and more accessible media and allows for a collaborative approach. Since then we have grown to be one of the largest digital resources for academic discussion concerning the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. Over the years, our project has incorporated contributions big and small from hundreds of colleagues. Our recorded interviews and lectures, while still largely academic in tone, provide serious and constructive conversation. For more about our mission, see our project overview.”
This podcast, produced by postgraduates at the University of Warwick, explores a variety of historical subjects.
The AskHistorians Podcast showcases the knowledge and enthusiasm of the AskHistorians community, a forum of more than 400,000 history academics, professionals, amateurs, and curious onlookers. The aim is to be a resource accessible across a wide range of listeners for historical topics which so often go overlooked … while not neglecting the more common covered topics.”
VISUAL APPROACHES TO THE PAST
A Guide to Online Visual Sources in Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic Studies
This guide can be found on HAZINE: A Guide to Researching the Middle East and Beyond. It has been compiled by N.A. Mansour.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820
“Vistas brings the visual culture of Spanish America online, offering a unique collection of paintings, sculptures, architectural monuments and objects from daily life. Spanish America once covered much of the Americas, from California to Chile. Its visual culture was forged in urban centers, religious and frontier communities, and indigenous towns. We invite you to explore the themes, gallery and library of Vistas, to consider how visual traditions, tastes, and practices developed across three centuries of American history, from the conquests of the 16th century to the independence movements of the early 19th century, and to see how distinct cultures coexisted and developed in an increasingly global world.”
THE GLOBAL MIDDLE AGES
Global Medieval Sourcebook: A Digital Repository of Medieval Texts
“The Global Medieval Sourcebook (GMS) is a free, open access, and open source teaching and research tool. It offers a flexible online display for the parallel viewing of medieval texts in their original language, in new English translations, and in their digitized manuscript form. The GMS spans one thousand years (600-1600) of literary production around the world. It contains short texts of broad interdisciplinary interest in a variety of genres, almost all of which have not previously been translated into English.”
“Constantinus Africanus (Constantine the African) is likely the most famous medieval writer most people have never heard of. At latest count, we can identify at least 1000 extant manuscript copies of his three dozen writings on various aspects of medicine. Those writings, collectively, probably comprise over one million words. … So who is Constantine the African? And why are we launching this blog devoted to him and his works? First and foremost, Constantine was the first to render a major body of Arabic science into Latin. Yes, a few works of mathematics and astronomy had become known in Europe in the 10th century. But no one had yet attempted what Constantine did: bringing a whole science, from introductory textbooks to works of great complexity, into the Latin language. Once translated, these works could—and did—circulate all over Europe. They transformed medical theory and practice in the lands we think of as western Europe, giving it a medical vocabulary and certain common concepts that we can still recognize in biomedicine today.”
TRANSLATION IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD
18th Century Translators Dictionary
“Welcome to the biographical dictionary of European translators in the long Eighteenth Century. This is a crowd-sourced project based on input from the research community. Its aim is to collect and make available information about the crucial activity of translation at an important moment in the history of European culture, by bringing out of anonymity the key but generally forgotten actors.”
NORTH AMERICA IN GLOBAL HISTORY
Native America: A History – A Discussion Forum For Teaching And Writing Native American History
“Welcome to Native America: A History, published by Wiley-Blackwell in July 2017, a college-level textbook for courses in Native American History. The materials on this accompanying website will be useful to students and teachers who want to stay current with developments across Native America, read about exciting new scholarship in the field, and learn more about the topics they are studying in the classroom. Whatever your teaching or learning style, the materials here will complement the second edition of the book.”
Borderlands History is “an academic blog which will promote discussion of issues surrounding the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as well as other borderlands regions. We will feature book reviews, book notices, author interviews, news announcements, and other discussions of borderlands topics, methodology, and theory.”
The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History
“The Junto is a group blog made up of junior early Americanists dedicated to providing content of general interest to other early Americanists and those interested in early American history, as well as a forum for discussion of relevant historical and academic topics.”
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
Center for Global and Comparative History of Ideas (SGOKI), Oslo (Senter for global og komparativ idéhistorie, SGOKI)
“An Oslo-based, non-commercial cooperative founded in April 2015 … [dedicated] to the study of cross-cultural connections and global interconnectedness, SGOKI is led by the global historian of ideas, author, and former editor-in-chief Dag Herbjørnsrud“.
Journal of the History of Ideas Blog
“The blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas, committed to diverse and wide-ranging intellectual history.”
“No Nu Things is a blog dedicated to the history of science, religion, philosophy, and everything in between. New pieces are published every other week.”
RESOURCES ON SOUTHEAST ASIA
Academic Blog – Benjamin L. Moseley
“To put it briefly, this website’s purpose is to describe my research experiences, express my thoughts on scholarship or popular culture, and share some incredibly useful resources. My research focuses on Southeast Asia, religion, and the Indian Ocean World in the Early Modern Period. As such, this website’s activity will largely focus on those topics. This may, however, evolve over time.
As I’m sure with other students, I am constantly discovering new resources, many of which I wish I had been aware of years before. I have created a resources page where I provide links to many of those online resources that I most often use. I hope that scholars, whether they are new students or further along in their academic careers, find these links useful.
Perhaps more importantly, I want to contribute to discussions of history in popular discourse and education. Many of the links in my resources page and the subjects of my blog posts are included with students or educators in mind. Some of these links and subjects will already be familiar to scholars and students in similar fields. In which case, feel free to comment on those items (or tear them apart).”
The Global History Podcast 