HISU5004 - Grand Debates in Global History 2024/25 Winter

The grand debates in global history are intimately linked to the philosophy of history.  Thus, the debates treated will be grouped according to what, for the instructor, are the most important questions of the philosophy of history. Thus, the course will proceed along these questions and not along any pre-existent periodization. The very question of periodization will be one of these philosophical questions. The classes will be grouped around four main themes, preceded by two modules of theoretical introduction:

I.                             Theoretical Introduction. The baggage that twenty-first-century historiography is carrying, namely that of the evolutionist, Eurocentric model. Should we get rid of it, and if we should, how?

I.a. The European Classics Determining Our Discourse to the Present Day: Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Leopold von Ranke, Theodor Mommsen, Max Weber.

I.b. The “Turns” of the Late Twentieth Century. Cultural and Linguistic Turns, the Spatial Turn, Subaltern History, Post-Colonial Studies, history and Gender Studies. Is History itself a colonial construct?

II.                          Grand Narratives versus Micro-History. Should we abandon the grand narratives entirely for informative spotlights on selected moments of history? Longue durée history and periodization. World System theory, 500, 5,000 or 200,000 years of global history?

III.                       Empires and Their (In-)Significance. Is history one of empires, or one of persons and communities? The role of trade and cultural connections.

IV.                      Determinism versus Liberty. Does history follow a predetermined course? That is, are there any quasi-natural laws that govern history, or are the human communities freely choosing their course? Cultural determinism versus material and economic determinism. Archaeology and anthropology in the service of the determinist model. Archaeology and anthropology in the service of the libertarian model.

V.                          Glances at Non-Western Longue Durée History. The Silk Road. Thalassology and the Indian Ocean. Africa.