Kursinformation

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Megan Maruschke (GESI), Dr. Julius Wilm (ReCentGlobe)
Tuesday 9:15am - 10:45am

French and US history are often perceived as prototypes of national history, as the revolutions in 1776 and 1789 inaugurated the modern political form of the nation-state. And it is true that these political upheavals served as models for countless nationalist movements - from the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries to the anti-colonial liberation movements of the 20th, some of which, ironically, were directed against France and the United States.

However, the focus on the two countries' national history overlooks much of French and United States history. While both countries adopted national political forms, their success relied, crucially, on imperial forms of governance both over racialized and oppressed domestic minorities and over overseas possessions. Moreover, both countries were in extensive ways connected to the outside world and pursued unique globalization projects that sought to shape international relations. This seminar explores these histories in an entangled and comparative approach.

How can we bring these two sides of history together? In this course, we will focus on the overlap of national and imperial forms of governance in French and United States history and reconstruct the countries' entanglement with and attempts to reshape the outside world. Bringing in perspectives from cultural, political, social, and economic history from the 18th to 21st century, we will integrate French and US history in a wider global context and discuss how their particular globalization projects shaped and negotiated the world around them.