"What's New in Global History Approaches?" – A Discussion with Indra Sengupta and Andreas Eckert

Over at the blog of TRAFO, the Blog for Transnational Research, there's a new fascinating hour-long conversation between Professor Andreas Eckert of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Indra Sengupta, an Academic Coordinator of the Transnational Research Group of the German Historical Institute in London.

The video discussion (in the German language) touches on a number of fascinating questions: at times when many works claim to "do" global history, what exactly is new in these works? Why might certain populations, or historians from regions often classified as "beyond history" or even "continents without histories," be skeptical of calls for turns away from histories that place the modernizing nation-state at the center of the narrative arc?

Or, in the words of our colleagues at TRAFO:

Is the research perspective of global history really new? What distinguishes it from the earlier approach of so-called universal history? What does "global history" look like in other regions of the world, like India? Is historical scholarship there nationally oriented, or have key concepts like connectivity, mobility, and diversity also gained in importance? What role do the politics of history and practical obstacles play in obstructing transnational research cooperations? And can digital collaborative projects replace research in archives?

It sounds, in short, like a fascinating discussion. Check it out here.