Colonial (Mis)understandings: Portugal and Europe in Global Perspective, 1450-1900
CHAM (Center for Overseas History) International Conference
Since the 15th century, an extended geographical, natural, scientific and political reality has posed a continuous challenge to the ways in which the world has been understood historically. And misunderstood. The aim of this conference is to address the processes of interpretation, both explicit and implicit, recognized and obscured, that were initiated by European Expansion. Imperial spaces, whether governed by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, French or other Europeans, set the stage for contact, confrontation, and conflict in colonized spaces such as Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, or Martinique where regimes of translation, circulation, and resistance emerged. How many implicit misunderstandings or tacit silences characterized human interactions in the face of a new, shared, and connected reality?

In recent years concepts such as the 'first globalization', 'global history' and 'world history', have attempted to connect these multiple realities. But how have these approaches been understood and put into practice? And what challenges do they pose to scholars today? Intellectual production has been prolific and this is an opportune moment to reflect upon these questions, and assess what has been achieved and what strides are yet to be made.

We invite scholars from all humanities and social science disciplines to submit panel proposals on the following themes:

1. Methodological challenges to global/world history
2. New directions in historiography
3. Classical traditions: fostering and impeding new understandings
4. Religion and moral order
5. Language, communication, and translation
6. Making sense of the globe: space and territory
7. Commercial networks and the rise of capitalism
8. Imperial power dynamics and local political realities
9. Circulation and consumption of material and visual culture
10. Law, legal regimes and the practice of justice
11. Socio-cultural interactions and the construction of colonial societies
12. Colonial cities and urban landscapes
13. Nature, science, and empire

The Call for Panels closes on November 30, 2012. A Call for Papers will open on December 20, 2012.

To learn more about the conference and propose a panel, please go to:
http://www.cham.fcsh.unl.pt/CHAMInternacionalConference.html

--

CHAM - Centro de História de Além-Mar
Av. de Berna, 26-C   1069-061 Lisboa   Portugal
Gabinete 2.19 - Edifício I&D
Tel: (+ 351) 21 797 21 51   Fax: (+ 351) 21 790 83 08
E cham@fcsh.unl.pt
W http://www.cham.fcsh.unl.pt