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École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales - USC Free Event
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Oceanic Roots of the Atlantic Revolutions, Summer Seminar (USC EMSI)

Organizers:
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, University of Southern California
Clément Thibaud, EHESS-Mondes Américains

Monday, June 4-Friday, June 8, 2018
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales - USC
Paris, France

What did the revolutions that surged through the Atlantic world from circa 1760 to 1850 have in common? Scholarship on the revolutionary era over the past two decades has dramatically enriched our knowledge of its geographic extent and ideological range. Yet this long-overdue widening of the revolutionary picture has also exacerbated longstanding and fundamental problems in our understanding of the era. Why did revolution become generalized in the Atlantic world during this period? How can we account not only for what these revolutions had in common, but for the ways in which they were diverse or even dissimilar? What, if anything, still makes this period analytically coherent?

This five-day faculty-postgrad summer seminar, which brings together specialists working on both the North and South Atlantic and the Old and New Worlds, proposes a collaborative and extended reflection on these questions. The seminar takes as its starting point a broad hypothesis: that there were long-term homologies among political practices around the Atlantic rim, including some that predated European contact, and that these shared patterns were crucial in both producing and shaping the Atlantic revolutions. It aims to begin articulating an alternative model for conceptualizing the Atlantic revolutionary period—one that is polycentric and rooted in the longue durée—but not based on a notion of revolutionary “diffusion” or “contagion.” In so doing, it draws inspiration from recent global and oceanic histories that have made a powerful case for the explanatory power of large-scale legal, cultural, and economic patterns as a basis for transnational analysis.

Call for Participants (doctoral/postdoctoral)

Candidates should send their dossier via email by noon CET on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 to Nathan Perl-Rosenthal and Clément Thibaud at oceanicrootsproject@gmail.com.

The application should be in the form of a single pdf including the following:

  • A cover letter describing a) the candidate’s overall research interests, b) the specificwork in progress being submitted, and c) the relationship of both (a) and (b) to one or more of the conference themes
  • A short CV (three pages maximum), indicating language skills and any publications
  • The current text of a work in progress of roughly 20-35 pages (thesis chapter, article draft, etc.), in one of the seminar’s four languages, which will form the basis for their contribution to the seminar. This need not be a final version.
  • If requesting travel funding ONLY: a brief summary of funding secured, a travel budget, and total amount requested from the seminar
  • In addition to these materials, applicants must request that a letter of recommendation from an advisor or senior colleague be sent to oceanicrootsproject@gmail.com, also by Tuesday, April 10, 2018.

For more details about the seminar and application process, please see the CFP.

This seminar is the opening event of a two-year project, funded jointly by Paris Sciences et Lettres – IRIS Études globales and the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, with additional support from the Institut d’études avancées de Paris. The program will include a second international conference scheduled to take place in 2019 in Los Angeles.

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