UCL Centre for Transnational History

The Centre for Transnational History at University College London (UCL) was created in 2007 with the aim of bringing together the many historians who work at UCL within a transnational perspective: historians based in the History Department, at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, in History of Art, Science and Technology Studies, Scandinavian Studies and elsewhere at UCL. UCL is in the heart of London and within walking distance of a wealth of specialised research institutes, archives and libraries, including the British Library, the British Museum, the Institute of Historical Research and the Institute for the Study of the Americas. It offers a unique range of expertise in transnational history and the history of Europe in its relation with the wider world. There are close links with institutions such as the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the Warburg Institute and other institutions within the School for Advanced Study as well as with the London based cultural institutes of many countries.

UCL’s Centre for Transnational History aims to provide a forum for debates on transnational history, for transnational research projects, and for specific graduate programmes such as the MA in European History, which is run in cooperation between UCL’s History Department and SSEES. The Centre offers a platform for debate about the theoretical and methodological implications of historical research beyond national boundaries, of work on transnational connections, the circulation across countries and continents of goods, ideas and people. Much historical research at UCL is by definition transnational. Examples are the work of ancient historians and medievalists, offering interesting theoretical and methodological perspectives also for modern historians; Scandinavian Studies and SSEES are defined by their meso-regional focus; colonial history and the history of the Americas at UCL often take a transnational approach, as do disciplines such as the history of science, medicine or art. Even national history can be transnational in its approach, emphasising the reception and amalgamation of ideas received from abroad.

However, partly as a consequence of increased professional specialisation among historians, there are strong incentives to define historical research in national terms, to specialise as historians of England, as Italianists or Russianists, rather than as Europeanists, a trend which is supported by the decline of a polyglot academia during the second half of the 20^th century. The history of academic appointments, trends in publishing, as well as certain educational policies, have also affected the linguistic preconditions for transnational research, despite an increased awareness of processes of globalisation within the historical profession. The resulting nationalisation of historical research often leads to dramatic distortions in the conception of historical processes, a trend which UCL’s Centre for Transnational History hopes to counter by encouraging a new orientation in historical research.

From a methodological point of view transnational history is more widely defined than comparative history, understood as a sociological method which draws conclusions about historical developments on the basis of the interpretation of similarities and differences. Transnational history also distinguishes itself from the theoretical and ideological assumptions, and the thematic restrictions, which characterise much of the recently redefined discipline of Global History.

One of the things which make history at UCL almost unique in the UK is the fact that it includes ancient historians of both the Classical world as well as the Near East, leading us to question widespread assumptions concerning the origins of European civilisation through its emphasis on the civilisations of the Ancient Near East. UCL’s particular strengths in ancient and medieval history obviously also present problems when speaking about transnational history. Many advocates of a transnational turn in history reject the idea of extending their research into periods before the formation of modern nation states. Regarding its thematic focus, the Centre’s name is a compromise; and the kind of history pursued at UCL corresponds methodologically to the fields Histoire Croisée or Transfergeschichte, which operate without restrictions regarding periodisation. However, the national paradigm in historiography presents a challenge also to medieval and ancient historians, whose histories, since the eighteenth century, have often been nationalised as part of the modern process of nation building. Likewise, the fact that much history before the eighteenth century is by definition transnational presents modernists with incentives to reconsider the thematic and methodological focus of their work. Hence, collaboration across periods offers as many opportunities as the transnational focus itself.

Coordinated by Dr Wendy Bracewell and Dr Axel Körner, UCL’s Centre for Transnational History has been in operation since 2007 and has organised and sponsored a number of workshops, lectures and seminars, most of which are externally funded.

For further information please see the Centre’s web pages at www.ucl.history/cth

Wendy Bracewell is Deputy Director of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. As well as publishing on subjects in Balkan history ranging from sixteenth-century frontiers to issues of gender and nationalism in the former Yugoslavia, she has directed an AHRC-funded project on East European travel writing exploring transnational perspectives on Europe. With Alex Drace-Francis, she edited Under Eastern Eyes: A Comparative Introduction to East European Travel Writing (2008).

Dr Axel Körner is a Reader in Modern European History at UCL. He works on France, Germany, the Habsburg Monarchy and Italy in transnational perspective. Together with Nicola Miller and Adam Smith he currently directs an AHRC-funded project on “The American Way of Life: Images of the United States in nineteenth-century Europe and Latin-America”. Among his recent publications, 1848 – A European Revolution? International Ideas and National Memories of 1848 (rev.ed. 2003).