Sponsored by the Thyssen Foundation, the workshop, “Global Cultural Encounters, – Between the Material and Immaterial, 1750-1950,” explores our world’s interconnectedness since the modern era. The workshop will take place at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
3:00–3:30 Registration
3:30–3:45 Welcome Address
Geoff Eley (University of Michigan), History Department Chair
3:45–4:00 Opening Remarks
Harry Liebersohn (University of Illinois) / Kira Thurman (University of Michigan) / Stefan Hübner (National University of Singapore)
4:00–5:00 Introductions and Discussion of Scholarly Goals
5:00 Reception
Thursday, August 3, 2017
9:30–11:00 Panel 1: The Pursuit of Scientific Knowledge in the Age of Empire
Chair: Harry Liebersohn (University of Illinois)
Moritz von Brescius (University of Konstanz), “German Science in the Age of Empire: Enterprise, Opportunity and the Schlagintweit Brothers”
Simon Layton (Queen Mary University of London), “The Sartorial Science of Sir Joseph Banks”
11:00–11:15 Coffee Break
11:15–12:45: Panel 2: The British in South Asia; South Asia in Great Britain
Chair: Amanda Armstrong-Price (University of Michigan)
J. Barton Scott (University of Toronto), “Translated Freedoms: Karsandas Mulji’s Travels in England and the Anthropology of the Victorian Self”
Teresa Segura–Garcia (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), “Princely Alliances on a Global Stage: Baroda, the British Empire, and the World, c. 1875–1939”
12:45–2:00 Lunch Break
2:00 – 4:15 Panel 3: Musical Diasporas
Chair: Jesse Hoffnung–Garskoff (University of Michigan)
Kira Thurman (University of Michigan), “Encountering Beethoven in Rural Alabama: German Music and Black Education in the United States, 1870–1940”
Ted Sammons (University of Toronto), “From the Workshop to the World: Jazz Jamaica and the Black Freedom Movement”
meLê yamomo (Free University of Berlin), “Globalization in cylinders: Auditioning the early global acoustic epistemology”
4:15–4:30 Coffee Break
4:30–6:00 Panel 4: Global Ideological Encounters in East Asia
Chair: Perrin Selcer (University of Michigan)
Yurou Zhong (University of Toronto), “Toward a Chinese Grammatology”
Stefan Huebner (National University of Singapore), “The ‘Oceanic Colonizing Mission’ and floating city projects since the 1950s”
Friday, August 4, 2017
9:30–11:00 Panel 5: Colonial Projects in/and the Middle East in the Interwar Era
Chair: Melanie Tanelian (University of Michigan)
Elizabeth Matsushita (University of Illinois), “Alexis Chottin’s Moroccan Music: Race, Colonialism, and Modernity in the Protectorate’s Musicological Project”
Shuang Wen (National University of Singapore), “The YMCA and the Arab–Chinese Laborers in WWI”
11:00–11:15 Coffee Break
11:15–12:45 Panel 6: Policing the Body under Colonial Rule
Chair: Victor Mendoza (University of Michigan)
Emma Thomas (University of Michigan), “Rape, Indenture, and the Colonial Courts in German New Guinea”
T.J. Tallie (Washington and Lee University), “Sobriety and Settlement: the Racialized Politics of Alcohol Use in Colonial Natal”
12:45–2:00 Lunch Break
2:00–3:30 Panel 7: Measuring the Body: Global Medicine and Anthropology under Empire
Chair: Zhiying Ma (University of Michigan)
Albert Wu (American University of Paris), “Superstition and Quackery: Scenes from a Global History”
Fenneke Sysling (University of Utrecht), “Anthropometry and the human Wallace line”
3:30–3:45 Coffee Break
3:45–5:00 Final Discussion, Possible Plans for the Future, and Closing Remarks
Harry Liebersohn (University of Illinois)
6:00 Conference Dinner
If you are interested in attending, please email Kira Thurman: thurmank(at)umich.edu
Sponsored by: Thyssen Foundation, Asian Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore, the University of Michigan’s Departments of History and Germanic Languages and Literatures; the University of Michigan’s Humanities Institute; the University of Michigan’s Office of Research; and the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA)
