Department of History and Archaeology and Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies organises Doctoral Research Workshop on Global History



Since the 1990s, processes of globalisation have provided the impetus to look beyond nationalist frames to enable research on the connections, entanglements, and circulations of objects, people,and ideas traversing diverse geographical landscapes. In recent decades, Global History as a field of enquiry has been expanding alongside concerns raised by postcolonial and feminist scholars about its intent and methodological structures. Despite attempts to integrate and expand analytical lenses, the field tends to be Eurocentric in its imagination. Moreover, the existent tools and politics of archives have skewed the study of Global History, and there prevails a tendency to function within the problematic binaries of Global/Local without accounting for the complex pasts of colonialism and the making of independent nation-states. In contemporary contexts, there also arises a need to initiate epistemological and methodological dialogues with domains such as public and micro-
histories. As the scholarship grows, the questions of what global history is and how can it be written in and from the non-western world continue to be greatly debated. Is it then possible to write global histories by de-centering the ‘empire’ and focusing on newer forms of circulations that have intensified inter-connections between various regions and created new imbalances?

This one-day doctoral research workshop seeks to address how global networks help to study non- Western experiences and contexts. We encourage interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological engagements with the notion of ‘global’ to help make visible the politics of knowledge production emerging from Asia across historical periodisation. We invite applications from advanced doctoral scholars (from their 3rd year onwards) pursuing Archaeology, History, Sociology, Social Anthropology, Geography, International Relations, and Cultural Studies. The workshop will consist of focused group discussions and round table presentations led by early career and senior scholars.

The following themes are encouraged but not limited to:
● Histories of Knowledge
● Histories of Ecology
● Histories of Law and Justice
● Urban Histories
● Art and Material Cultures
● Histories of Capital and Commodities
● Movements and Migration

Deadline: 10 February 2024

The workshop will cover costs of travel, local accommodation on SNIoE campus (1 night), food, and provide pick-up and drop-off options from New Delhi airport/station.
The Doctoral Workshop is part of a two-day event on Global History. All participants are invited to attend the Roundtable sessions and keynote lecture on 5th April at IIC Delhi. For further information, please contact: [email protected]