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Part II: Methods

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Transcultural History

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Abstract

The question of whether well-established methods are flexible enough for transcultural topics evokes a rather technical answer: since transculturality crosses borders the source material should also have been produced by corresponding multilayered agencies. With this in mind, we can then explain to what extent traditional methods should adapt to new fields. Firstly, source material is not limited to written texts. Oral traditions, intangible heritage, and visual representation of the past require a well-equipped toolbox. Even texts—still a key element in historical research—need a specific awareness of transcultural aspects. Multilingual texts and questions of translation play an increasing role in historical research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Thomas Samuel Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

  2. 2.

    Lorraine Daston, “On Scientific Observation,” Isis: Journal of the History of Science in Society 99, no. 1 (2008).

  3. 3.

    Ibid.: 104.

  4. 4.

    Ibid.: 106.

  5. 5.

    This might be even true in modern electronic world histories. See e.g. HyperHistory Online, “Over 2000 Files Covering 3000 Years of World History,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html.

  6. 6.

    Kate Louise Mitchell, India without Fable: A 1942 Survey (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1943), 254.

  7. 7.

    “INDIA: Lloyd Barrage,” Time, January 25, 1932, accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,742985,00.html.

  8. 8.

    Ibid. The name Lloyd Barrage cites Sir George Ambrose Lloyd, who started the project as Governor of Bombay in 1923. Ravi Baghel and Marcus Nüsser, “Discussing Large Dams in Asia after the World Commission on Dams: Is a Political Ecology Approach the Way Forward?,” Water Alternatives 3, no. 2 (2010).

  9. 9.

    See part XII of the Versailles Peace Treaty on Ports, Waterways and Railways. Monica Juneja, “Das Visuelle in Sprache übersetzen? Der wissenschaftliche Diskurs und die Polyvalenz indischer Bilder,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2008/2/juneja/index_html.

  10. 10.

    River administrations are the oldest forms of modern international organisations and are active until today. For an example, see the Central Commission for Navigation of the Rhine, established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Danube commission followed and today an ‘international water law’ is a key element of international decision making: International Water Law Project, “Addressing the Future of Water Law and Policy in the 21st Century,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/. For the history of international river regimes see Franz Knipping, Hans von Mangoldt, and Volker Rittberger, Das System der Vereinten Nationen und seine Vorläufer (Bern and München: Stämpfli & Beck, 1995).

  11. 11.

    For the recent development see UN Water, an “inter-agency mechanism” established in 2003 within the United Nations. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, “Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.unece.org/env/water/.

  12. 12.

    See above: Introduction, chapter 4: “Transcultural Issues” and chapter 5: “Methodological Key Elements”.

  13. 13.

    Gerard Delanty, The Cosmopolitan Imagination: The Renewal of Critical Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

  14. 14.

    David Cesarani, Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550–1950 (London: Frank Cass, 2001). Chris S. Monaco, “Port Jews or a People of the Diaspora? A Critique of the Port Jew Concept,” Jewish Social Studies 15, no. 2 (2009).

  15. 15.

    Chris Rumford, Citizens and Borderwork in Contemporary Europe (London: Routledge, 2008).

  16. 16.

    See above: Theories and Concepts, chapter 4: “Fighting Zombies: Methodological Challenges”.

  17. 17.

    Delanty, The Cosmopolitan Imagination: The Renewal of Critical Social Theory.

  18. 18.

    Highly important reading for historians is: Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities.”

  19. 19.

    See Thomas G. Weiss, Tatiana Carayannis, and Richard Jolly, “The ‘Third’ United Nations,” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 15, no. 1 (2009).

  20. 20.

    Vrdoljak, International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects.

  21. 21.

    See George A. Akerlof, “Nobel Prize Lecture, December 8, 2001, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=501.

  22. 22.

    Significantly, “information” is not mentioned in the major encyclopedia of historical key terms, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, although the history of the concept fits well in the approach used by its authors, Werner Conze and Reinhardt Koselleck. Access to information also indicates the distance between a democratic society—where the sovereign citizen needs information for political decision making—and the Ancien Régime, where feudal divison is related to arcane fields. Additionally, information gained a certain materiality and its production, transfer, and availability had the power to shift borders, as explained by the French philosopher Etienne Balibar in his concept of the “polysemic nature of borders”. Etienne Balibar, Politics and the Other Scene (London: Verso, 2002), 81ff.

  23. 23.

    The same is true for today’s digital archives. In this case too we must always ask who has privileged access to exclusive databases and who decides what will be digitised and openly published on the web?

  24. 24.

    For worldwide documentation of this process see Freedom Info, “The Global Network of Freedom of Information Advocates,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.freedominfo.org/. For the history of the US Freedom of Information Act see The National Security Archive, “The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/foia.html.

  25. 25.

    From the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League founded in 1937 to the files on Albert Einstein, the FBI gives access released files based on the Freedom of Information Act. However, the documents are still partly blackened. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Freedom of Information Collection,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.fbi.gov/foia/foia-collection/.

  26. 26.

    See above, footnote 157: looted art.

  27. 27.

    Territorial affiliation and time belong to the historical points of reference. The fact that environments shape societies is not at all new. It is the importance of space that makes shaping a global history a long lasting concept. See Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerrané à l'époque de Philippe II (Paris: A. Colin, 1949). However, the so-called spatial turn in history means more than new reflections on the connectivity between geography and history.

  28. 28.

    Spatial histories do not understand the environment as a given fact that shapes and influences societies. Rather, spaces are seen as being made by humans. Spatial history encompasses urban spaces, but also invisible, virtual, and intellectual spaces. The Republic of Letters, for example, was never a state. Nevertheless, it brought together intellectuals from different places in a kind of space. In the twenty-first century, spatial history is accompanied by certain IT-equipment, with models of collaborative research and a strong focus on digital visualisation. For an example see Stanford University, “The Spatial History Project,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/cgi-bin/site/project.php?id=997.

  29. 29.

    For disciplinary historians H-Asia-Net provides an interesting platform: H-Net, “H-Asia: Asian History and Studies Discussion Network,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.h-net.org/~asia/.

  30. 30.

    For a bibliographical overview see Antony Lentin, General Smuts, South Africa: The Peace Conferences of 1919–23 and their Aftermath (London: Haus Publishing, 2010).

  31. 31.

    See the special attention on the “Gandhi-Smuts compromise” in South African History Online, “Jan Christiaan Smuts, 1870–1950,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/smuts-j.htm.

  32. 32.

    See: LONSEA - League of Nations Search Engine, “World Brotherhood Federation, Officers,” accessed March 13, 2011, http://www.lonsea.de/pub/org/510.

  33. 33.

    Struggling with chronology is a characteristic of newer literature, see, for example, the works of Zara Steiner, a well-known scholar of interwar European history, who insists in her latest publication that the time setting makes a difference: “Differently from most historians, I have shown that the management of the European state system in the decade after 1919, while in some ways resembling that of the past, assumed a shape that distinguished it both from the pre-war decades and the post-1933 period.” Steiner, The Lights that Failed: European International History, 1919–1933, vii.

  34. 34.

    For the methodological problems of chronology see Lorenz, Konstruktion der Vergangenheit: eine Einführung in die Geschichtstheorie.

  35. 35.

    The artist Zhang Chongren (1907–1998), see Think Shanghainese, “Zhang Chongren (张充仁),” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.thinkshanghainese.com/lang/en-uk/culture-matters/people-2/art/zhang-chongren/. World Expo Shanghai 2010, “Zhang Chongren Memorial Hall,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://shanghai.cultural-china.com/html/Travel/Memorial/200811/27-2179.html.

  36. 36.

    Hergé [Georges Prosper Remi], The Blue Lotus, The Adventures of Tintin Seriesseries. The comic-strip was published in the 1930s in the Belgian newspaper “Le Petit Vingtième”, and later in different versions. Hergé did not know China from his own experience. For an overview of the most important editions see Tintinologist.org, “The Blue Lotus,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/books/05bluelotus.html. The first edition can be found online: Hergé [Georges Prosper Remi], “Les aventures de Tintin en Extrème Orient,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.bellier.org/le%20lotus%20bleu%20petit%20vingtieme/vue1.htm.

  37. 37.

    See National Archives of Japan, “Home,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.archives.go.jp/english/index.html. ---, “Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR) (アジア歴史資料センター(アジ歴)),” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.jacar.go.jp/.

  38. 38.

    John Feather and Rodney Paul Sturges, International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2003).

  39. 39.

    This convention grouped a small circle of Western states. But the International Exchange Service established in Brussels in 1886 provided exchange services to states that did not sign the convention, but adhered in an informal way—Japan, among others. See Handbook of International Organisations: Associations, Bureaux, Committees, etc., (Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1938). UNESCO, “Convention concerning the Exchange of Official Publications and Government Documents between States, 1958,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13036&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.

  40. 40.

    Melvil Dewey, Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets (Amherst: Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1876).

  41. 41.

    Crucial for this development was the abovementioned Paul Otlet, founder of the International Institute of Bibliography (1895, Brussels), later renamed as International Institute of Documentation.

  42. 42.

    For an overview see Feather and Sturges, International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science.

  43. 43.

    China and India belonged to the International Federation of Library Associations (founded in 1929).

  44. 44.

    Handbook of International Organisations: Associations, Bureaux, Committees, etc., (Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1938), 164.

  45. 45.

    Theodore Bestermann published a world bibliography of bibliographies, see: Francesco Cordasco, ed. Theodore Besterman, Bibliographer and Editor: A Selection of Representative Texts, The Great Bibliographers Series, No. 9 (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1992).

  46. 46.

    Theodore Bestermann, A World Bibliography of Bibliographies and of Bibliographical Catalogues, Calendars, Abstracts, Digests, Indexes, and the Like, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (London: C. Batey, 1947).

  47. 47.

    Henry Colin Gray Matthew, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the year 2000, 60 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 5, 529.

  48. 48.

    O. L., “Review: ‘Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography (English Edition)’” Pacific Affairs 13, no. 4 (1940): 488.

  49. 49.

    See Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, “Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction= topics.home&topic_id=1409.

  50. 50.

    “Indien,” in Meyers Konversationslexikon, 5. gänzlich neu bearbeitete Auflage (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1895), Bd. 9, 203f.

  51. 51.

    “Europa,” in Meyers Konversationslexikon, 5. gänzlich neu bearbeitete Auflage (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1895), Bd. 7, 37.

  52. 52.

    For general information on search strategies and information retreival see Reginald Ferber, Information Retrieval: Suchmodelle und Data-Mining-Verfahren für Textsammlungen und das Web (Heidelberg: dpunkt-Verlag, 2003).

  53. 53.

    For the history of scientific objectivity see: Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007), chapter 7.

  54. 54.

    Paul Michel and Madeleine Herren, “Unvorgreifliche Gedanken zu einer Theorie des Enzykilopädischen: Enzyklopädien als Indikatoren für die Veränderungen bei der Organisation und der gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung von Wissen,” in Allgemeinwissen und Gesellschaft: Akten des internationalen Kongresses über Wissenstransfer und enzyklopädische Ordnungssysteme, ed. Paul Michel, Madeleine Herren, and Martin Rüesch, Berichte aus der Geschichtswissenschaft (Aachen: Shaker, 2007). Panagiota Alevizou, “‘As we Think’: The Emergence and Evolution of Digital Encyclopaedias.” (PhD, University of Sussex, 2008).

  55. 55.

    For a short overview of the history of general encyclopaedias and their political impact see Ines Prodöhl, Die Politik des Wissens. Allgemeine Enzykolopädien im 'Dritten Reich', in der Schweiz und in der SBZ/DDR (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010).

  56. 56.

    For methodological presuppositions of the encyclopaedic genre and for cultural bounds of knowledge see Ryan Bishop and John Phillips, “Of Method,” Theory, Culture & Society 24, no. 7&8 (2007): 270–72.

  57. 57.

    There are some ongoing research projects that can help with the critical assessment of encyclopaedic works. See Asia and Europe in a Global Context, “D11 - Hidden Grammars of Transculturality: Migrations of Encyclopaedic Knowledge and Power,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/d-historicities-heritage/d11.html. See also the affiliated Zurich Project: Allgemeinwissen und Gesellschaft, “Enzyklopädien als Indikatoren für Veränderung der gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung von Wissen, Bildung und Information,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.enzyklopaedie.ch/.

  58. 58.

    Nadine Kavanagh, Conjuring Australia: Encyclopaedias and the Creation of Nations (Saarbrücken: Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften, 2009).

  59. 59.

    Richard Yeo, “Classifying the Sciences,” in Eighteenth-Century Science, ed. Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

  60. 60.

    See, for example, Mike Featherstone and Couze Venn, “Problematizing Global Knowledge and the New Encyclopaedia Project,” Theory, Culture & Society 23, no. 2&3 (2006): 5f. Richard Yeo, “Lost Encyclopaedias: Before and after the Enlightenment,” Book History 10 (2007).

  61. 61.

    For a survey see Peter Childs and R. J. Patrick Williams, An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory (London: Prentice Hall and Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1997).

  62. 62.

    For the time period mentioned, see for example, Chris Cook and John Stevenson, The Longman Handbook of Modern European History, 1763–1997 (London: Longman, 1998).

  63. 63.

    See Roland Axtmann, “State Formation and Supranationalism in Europe: The Case of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation,” in Europe Without Borders: Territory, Citizenship, and Identity in a Transnational Age, ed. Mabel Berezin and Martin Schain (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).

  64. 64.

    See Article 247 of the Treaty of Versailles: The Avalon Project, “The Versailles Treaty June 28, 1919,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/partviii.asp.

  65. 65.

    This idea focused on the destruction of the University Library of Louvain by German troups in 1914.

  66. 66.

    For example the triptych of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb painted by the van Eyk brothers, and the triptych of Dierick Bouts’ Last Supper, both mentioned in Article 247 of the Treaty of Versailles, see above footnote 259.

  67. 67.

    The imperial regalia used for the coronation of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation expressed the medieval concept of reign. The precious and highly symbolic items were preserved in Vienna. The Golden Fleece, a medieval order of chivalry, was founded in 1430 by the Duke of Burgundy. The “treasure” consisting of the order’s precious religious insignia, also was (and is) preserved in Vienna.

  68. 68.

    The Internet Archive, “Allied Powers - Reparation Commission, Belgian claims to the Triptych of Saint Ildephonse and the Treasure of the Order of the Golden Fleece, October 25, 1925,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.archive.org/stream/belgianclaimstot00allirich/belgianclaimstot00allirich_djvu.txt. (See VI. - CONCLUSIONS.)

  69. 69.

    See, for example, projects A5 and A11: Asia and Europe in a Global Context, “Research Area A: Governance & Administration,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/a-governance-administration.html.

  70. 70.

    Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, eds., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, 8 vols. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1972–1997).

  71. 71.

    Translingual studies play an increasing role in the East-West dialogue. They start by questioning a presumption that each dictionary has, namely the idea that languages have equivalent synonyms. See Introduction: Lydia H. Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity, China 1900–1937 (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1995), 1–42.

  72. 72.

    Andrew Sartori, Bengal in Global Concept History: Culturalism in the Age of Capital (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

  73. 73.

    Reinhart Koselleck, “Standortbindung und Zeitlichkeit: Ein Beitrag zur historiographischen Erschliessung der geschichtlichen Welt,” in Vergangene Zukunft: zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten, ed. Reinhart Koselleck, 3rd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), 206.

  74. 74.

    “What’s past is prologue” is an often used Shakespeare quotation. It is engraved, for example, on the building of the National Archives in Washington D.C.

  75. 75.

    Peter Borowsky, Barbara Vogel, and Heide Wunder, Einführung in die Geschichtswissenschaft I: Grundprobleme, Arbeitsorganisation, Hilfsmittel (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1989), 157–60.

  76. 76.

    See above, Theories and Concepts: chapter 2: “Historiography”.

  77. 77.

    The applicability of this typology to “non-material” sources, e.g. aural sources, will be discussed later.

  78. 78.

    Ernst Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie, 6th ed. (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1908), 465–505.

  79. 79.

    The conflict about the Elgin Marbles might serve as an example, see John Henry Merryman, Thinking about the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art and Law (Austin: Wolters Kluwer, 2009), 164f. Cf. Christopher Hitchens, The Elgin Marbles: Should they be Returned to Greece? (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987). ———, The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification (London: Verso, 2008). Ian Jenkins, Die Parthenon-Skulpturen im Britischen Museum (Mainz: Zabern, 2008).

  80. 80.

    Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, “Exilpresse digital: Deutsche Exilzeitschriften 1933–1945,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://deposit.d-nb.de/online/exil/exil.htm.

  81. 81.

    For the transcultural impact of this aspect see Reinhart Koselleck, “Die Geschichte der Begriffe und Begriffe der Geschichte,” in Herausforderungen der Begriffsgeschichte, ed. Carsten Dutt (Heidelberg: Winter, 2003). ———, “Hinweise auf die temporalen Strukturen begriffsgeschichtlichen Wandels,” in Begriffsgeschichte, Diskursgeschichte, Metapherngeschichte, ed. Hans Erich Bödecker (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2002).

  82. 82.

    Fried, Das internationale Leben der Gegenwart.

  83. 83.

    The source material is available online: Asia and Europe in a Global Context, “Sources Transcultural History,” accessed June 7, 2011, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/a-governance-administration/a3/sources-transcultural-history.html.

  84. 84.

    Fried was an extremely prolific author, as a bibliography of his journal articles shows: Alfred Hermann Fried, Verzeichnis von 1000 Zeitungsartikeln Alfred H. Frieds zur Friedensbewegung (bis März 1908), nach Materien geordnet, mit bibliographischen Nachweisen und zum Teil mit kurzen Inhaltsandeutungen versehen (Berlin: Friedens-Warte, 1908). For Fried’s biography see Petra Schönemann-Behrens, ‘Organisiert die Welt’: Leben und Werk des Friedensnobelpreisträgers Alfred Hermann Fried (1864–1921). (Diss. Universität Bremen, 2004).

  85. 85.

    For different, but almost simultaneously published lists see Office Central des Institutions Internationales and Institut International de la Paix, Annuaire de la vie internationale (Bruxelles, 1905ff). E. Baldwin Simeon, “The International Congresses and Conferences of the Last Century as Forces Working Toward the Solidarity of the World: Appendix,” The American Journal of International Law 1, no. 3 (1907).

  86. 86.

    Besides the famous Friedens-Warte, the spread of international organisations and conferences was made apparent by the Annuaire de la vie internationale.

  87. 87.

    Alfred Hermann Fried, Lehrbuch der Internationalen Hilfssprache “Esperanto”: Mit Wörterbuch in Esperanto-Deutsch u. Deutsch-Esperanto, Franckh’s Sprachbücher, Nr. 1 (Stuttgart: Franckh’sches Verlagshaus, 1912).

  88. 88.

    Duncan Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007)

  89. 89.

    “‘Who is who’ of the Peace Movement,” in Handbuch der Friedensbewegung, ed. Alfred Hermann Fried, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Reichenbach, 1911), 311–422.

  90. 90.

    William Thomas Stead, Le Parlement de l’humanité (La Conférence de la paix à La Haye 1907): Les délégués, biographies et photographies (Amsterdam: Maas et Van Suchtelen, 1907).

  91. 91.

    The names of accredited diplomats were normally published in the governmental periodicals known as Staatskalender (state calendars).

  92. 92.

    Almost a hundred years later, environmental issues made comparable headway in the agenda of international politics. During the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, NGOs organised parallel sessions and visualised the power of an international and non-governmental civil society. Since then NGOs continue to challenge the UN system.

  93. 93.

    See the advertisement of the Hôtel des Indes in: Stead, Le Parlement de l’humanité (La Conférence de la paix à La Haye 1907): Les délégués, biographies et photographies, 228–30. The text particularly mentioned the global atmosphere, including the proprietors’ willingness to hire a Turkish coffeemaker for the appropriate serving of coffee.

  94. 94.

    In Stead’s red book, the “cercle international,” which described the meetings of non-official pacifists during the Hague Peace Conference, had its own section. Of course, the presences of Fried, Stead, von Suttner, and other internationalists was specifically mentioned. Ibid., 218.

  95. 95.

    Ernest Satow, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1917). The first edition of this book began a long and ongoing career—the last edition was published in 2009. Satow’s publications and diaries were published recently: Tooru Haga, ed. Collected Works of Ernest Mason Satow, Part I: 12 vols., Part II: 5 vols. (Bristol: Ganesha Publishing, 1998–2001).

  96. 96.

    Stead, Le Parlement de l’humanité (La Conférence de la paix à La Haye 1907): Les délégués, biographies et photographies, 91f.

  97. 97.

    Nigel Brailey, “Sir Ernest Satow, Japan and Asia: The Trials of a Diplomat in the Age of High Imperialism,” Historical Journal 35, no. 1 (1992).

  98. 98.

    Alfred Hermann Fried, Der Weltprotest gegen den Versailler Frieden (Leipzig: Reinhold, 1920).

  99. 99.

    For a transvisual approach see Asia and Europe in a Global Context, “Global Art History,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/cluster-professorships/global-art-history.html.

  100. 100.

    One approach is to document the physical movement of the viewer’s eye. See: Juliane Betz et al., “Dem Auge auf der Spur: Eine historische und empirische Studie zur Blickbewegung beim Betrachten von Gemälden,” in: IMAGE: Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft 11 (2010) accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.bildwissenschaft.org/image/aktuelles?function=fnArticle&showArticle=159.

  101. 101.

    Arthur Asa Berger, What Objects Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture (Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2009).

  102. 102.

    Juneja, “Das Visuelle in Sprache übersetzen? Der wissenschaftliche Diskurs und die Polyvalenz indischer Bilder.”

  103. 103.

    Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Basic Books, 1984). Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980).

  104. 104.

    Otto Neurath combined his proclamation of the “century of the eye” with the conceptual approach of a new “International Picture Language.” See Otto Neurath, “Universal Jargon and Terminology,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 41 (1941): 127–148.

  105. 105.

    Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (London: Penguin, 2008).

  106. 106.

    Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “René Magritte: La Trahison des Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe),” accessed March 12, 2011, http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=34438;type=101.

  107. 107.

    For an example, see Nancy Snow, Propaganda, Inc.: Selling America’s Culture to the World, 3rd ed. (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2010).

  108. 108.

    The following sources are partly available online. For a collection of links see: Asia and Europe in a Global Context, “Sources Transcultural History,” accessed June 7, 2011, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/a-governance-administration/a3/sources-transcultural-history.html.

  109. 109.

    The scientific and public interest in Hendrik Christian Andersen is growing at present. In a mixture of Jeunesse dorée and internationalism Andersen met many cosmopolitans and internationalists. He grew up in the United States, lived several years in Paris, after which he settled down in Rome. His list of correspondents (preserved in the Library of Congress, “Hendrik Christian Andersen Papers,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://lccn.loc.gov/mm79010892.) includes almost every internationalist of some importance between the late nineteenth century and 1940 in Europe, America, and Asia. Henry James, for example, corresponded frequently with Andersen, see: Rosella Mamoli Zorzi, ed. Beloved Boy: Letters to Hendrik Christian Andersen, 1899–1915 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004). Andersen willed his house in Rome, including its contents, to the Italian state. In 1999 a museum displaying the works of Andersen opened: Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen, “Home,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.museoandersen.beniculturali.it/.

  110. 110.

    Wolfgang Sonne, “‘The Entire City Shall Be Planned as a Work of Art’: Städtebau als Kunst im frühen modernen Urbanismus 1890–1920,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 66, no. 2 (2003).

  111. 111.

    Le Corbusier also planned world centres. He worked with Paul Otlet and presented plans for an international city within Geneva. Later he worked on plans for the French Vichy regime. See Paul Otlet, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, Mundaneum: le centre mondial, scientifique, documentaire et éducatif, au service des associations internationales, qu’il est proposé d’établir à Genève pour compléter les institutions de la plus grande Société des Nations et commémorer en 1930 dix années d’efforts vers la paix et la collaboration (Bruxelles: Union des associations internationales 1928).

  112. 112.

    EUR (Esposizione Universale di Roma) is the name of quarters in Rome, designated for a World Fair planned in 1942. Although the World Fair did not take place, the buildings planned and partly erected provide a good example of how Italian fascism blended modern architecture and totalitarian megalomania. For the political implications of this process see Emilio Gentile, Fascismo di pietra (Roma: Laterza, 2007).

  113. 113.

    See, for example, William Thomas Stead, The United States of Europe on the Eve of the Parliament of Peace (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1899). In this book, which was published as a public preparation of the first Hague Peace conference, Stead visited each capital of Europe that seemed able to act as the future centre of Europe.

  114. 114.

    For this approach see Armand Mattelart, Histoire de l’utopie planétaire: de la cité prophétique à la société globale (Paris: Éd. la Découverte, 1999).

  115. 115.

    For this process see, for example, the reshaping of Paris in the epoch of Georges-Eugène Haussmann: Michel Carmona, Haussmann: His Life and Times, and the Making of Modern Paris (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 2002).

  116. 116.

    Displayed on the EUR compound, with only few changes, the Genius of Fascism turned into a sportsman symbolising the Olympic idea after World War II.

  117. 117.

    Hendrik Christian Andersen and Ernest M. Hébrard, Création d’un centre mondial de communication (Paris: P. Renouard, 1913), 70.

  118. 118.

    See World-Conscience: An International Society for the Creation of a World-Centre to House International Interests and Unite Peoples and Nations for the Attainment of Peace and Progress upon Broader Humanitarian Lines, (Rome: Communications Office Hendrik C. Andersen, 1913). The office and address bring us back to Andersen. Therefore, there is some reasonable doubt about whether the organisation was more than an institution driven by Andersen.

  119. 119.

    Wolfgang Sonne, “From Outer Space—Architekturtheorie außerhalb der Disziplin, Teil 2: Die Geburt der Städtebaugeschichte aus dem Geist der Multidisziplinarität,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.tu-cottbus.de/theoriederarchitektur/Wolke/deu/Themen/052/Sonne/sonne.htm.

  120. 120.

    Digital Imaging Project of Mary Ann Sullyvan—Bluffton University, “Images of History Museum, Hanoi, Vietnam,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/vietnam/hanoi/historymuseum/historymuseum.html. See William Stewart Logan, Hanoi: Biography of a City (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000).

  121. 121.

    Jennifer Fay, Theaters of Occupation: Hollywood and the Reeducation of Postwar Germany (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). Jo Fox, Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II Cinema (Oxford: Berg, 2007). Hilmar Hoffmann, The Triumph of Propaganda: Film and National Socialism, 1933–1945 (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1996). Nicholas Reeves, The Power of Film Propaganda: Myth or Reality? (London: Cassell, 1999).

  122. 122.

    Eric Dubet, Economie du cinéma européen: de l’interventionnisme à l’action enterpreneuriale (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000). Ben Goldsmith and Tom O’Regan, The Film Studio: Film Production in the Global Economy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Andrew Higson and Richard Maltby, “Film Europe” and “Film America”: Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange, 1920–1939 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999).

  123. 123.

    John Fullerton and Astrid Söderbergh Widding, eds., Moving Images: From Edison to the Webcam (London: John Libbey & Co., 2000). Frances Guerin, A Culture of Light: Cinema and Technology in 1920s Germany (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). Charles O’Brien, Cinema’s Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).

  124. 124.

    Darrell William Davis, Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental Style, National Identity, Japanese Film (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Heide Fehrenbach, Cinema in Democratizing Germany: Reconstructing National Identity after Hitler (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). Malte Hagener, Moving forward, Looking back: the European Avant-garde and the Invention of Film Culture, 1919–1939 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007). Marsha Kinder, Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

  125. 125.

    Joseph Garncarz, “Jahrmarktkino: eine europäische Institution,” in Kultur des Vergnügens: Kirmes und Freizeitparks, Schausteller und Fahrgeschäfte - Facetten nicht-alltäglicher Orte, ed. Sacha Szabo (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009). Martin Loiperdinger, Travelling Cinema in Europe: Sources and Perspectives (Frankfurt am Main and Basel: Stroemfeld, 2008).

  126. 126.

    Thomas Elsaesser and Adam Barker, Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative (London: British Film Institute Publishing, 1990). Irene Stratenwerth, Pioniere in Celluloid: Juden in der frühen Filmwelt, Begleitband zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Centrum Judaicum Berlin vom 2. Februar 2004 bis Mai 2004 (Berlin: Henschel, 2004).

  127. 127.

    See Mark Michael Smith, Hearing History: A Reader (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2004). Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). Veit Erlmann, Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity (New York: Berg, 2004). Don Ihde, Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2007). Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (London: Fourth Estate, 2008). Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World (New York: Norton, 2006). Smith, Hearing History: A Reader.

  128. 128.

    For a history of sound recording see: Nicholas Cook, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Amanda Bayley, ed. Recorded Music Performance, Culture and Technology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

  129. 129.

    A very good introduction to the subject is the article “Music” in the New Grove Dictionary: Bruno Nettl, “Music,” in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musician, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 2001; 2nd ed.), Vol. 17, 425–37.

  130. 130.

    J. Peter Burkholder, “Museum Pieces: The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred Years,” The Journal of Musicology 2, no. 2 (1983).

  131. 131.

    To get started on basic methodological discussions in musicology in a more global context see, for example: Bruno Nettl and Philip V. Bohlman, eds., Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). David Beard and Kenneth Gloag, Musicology: The Key Concepts (London: Routledge, 2005). Ruth Katz, A Language of Its Own: Sense and Meaning in the Making of Western Art Music (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009).

  132. 132.

    The following sources are partly available online. For a collection of links see: Asia and Europe in a Global Context, “Sources Transcultural History,” accessed June 7, 2011, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/a-governance-administration/a3/sources-transcultural-history.html.

  133. 133.

    For further reading see: Wilbur Cross, Disaster at the Pole: The Tragedy of the Airship Italia and the 1928 Nobile Expedition to the North Pole (New York: Lyons Press, 2000). Stanley Hochman, McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama: An International Reference Work, 5 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984). Pier Horensma, The Soviet Arctic (London: Routledge, 1991). John McCannon, Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932–1939 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). William Mills, Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003). Irene Peroni, “Into Thin Air: Umberto Nobile, Fascist Explorer,” History Today 59, no. 6 (2009). Further watching: Ennio De Concini et al., The Red Tent (Hollywood: Paramount, 1969). For the soundtrack see Ennio Morricone, The Red Tent Theme (JokerRecordings, 2008), accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICKOcFDIXcU&feature=youtube_gdata

  134. 134.

    Books by those at the scene include: Umberto Nobile, Im Luftschiff zum Nordpol: Die Fahrten der “Italia”, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1929). Umberto Nobile et al., Die Vorbereitungen und die wissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse der Polarexpedition der “Italia” (Gotha: J. Perthes, 1929). Umberto Nobile, The Reminiscences of Umberto Nobile, Columbia University Oral History Collection, Part 4, No. 154 (New York: New York Times Oral History Program, 1960). “Review: The Italia Disaster,” Geographical Journal 76, no. 3 (1930). Franz Behounek, Sieben Wochen auf der Eisscholle: der Untergang der Nobile-Expedition (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1929). Rudolf L. Samojlovic, Der Weg nach dem Pol (Bielefeld: Velhagen & Klasing, 1931).

  135. 135.

    See below, p. 107.

  136. 136.

    Helmut Kreuzer, “Erfindung und Wirklichkeit, Individualität und Kollektiv: Streiflichter auf deutsche Hörspiele um 1930,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://mediaculture-online.de/fileadmin/bibliothek/kreuzer_hoerspiel1930/kreuzer_hoerspiel1930.html. Angela Frattarola, “The Modernist ‘Microphone Play’: Listening in the Dark to the BBC,” Modern Drama 52, no. 4 (2009). Daniel Gilfillan, Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009). Peter Jelavich, Berlin Alexanderplatz: Radio, Film, and the Death of Weimar Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). Nancy P. Nenno, “Projections on Blank Space: Landscape, Nationality, and Identity in Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg,” The German Quarterly 69, no. 3 (1996). Valmar Kurol and Montreal Antarctic Society, “Antarctica Experienced through Music: Capsule Comments on some Currently Available CDs about Antarctica,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.antarctic-circle.org/valmar.htm.

  137. 137.

    The mentioning of an Asian perspective suggests looking beyond the narrative of mutual understanding. The question is whether or not the Morse alphabet presented an interface to non-European languages.

  138. 138.

    Friedrich Wolf and Alfred Braun, “SOS … Rao rao … Foyn “Krassin” rettet “Italia”,” (Germany 1929). The songs mentioned here run from 23:25 min to 26:10 min (Warschawjanka) and from 58:15 min to 58:30 min (Giovenezza).

  139. 139.

    International Meteorological Organisation (IMO) 1873–1950, see: http://www.lonsea.de/organisation/index/971, succeeded by the World Meteorological Organization, see: http://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html

  140. 140.

    International Hydrographic Organisation, founded 1921, see: http://www.lonsea.de/organisation/index/150

  141. 141.

    The launch of a Polar Year coordinated international expeditions in a certain time frame. The tradition of declaring Polar Years for the purpose of international research continues to this day. From 2007 to 2009, the fourth Polar Year occurred. See: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “The First International Polar Year 1881–1884,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/aro/ipy-1/History.htm. For information on the history of Polar Years see: World Meteorological Organization, “International Polar Year 2007–2008,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://www.wmo.int/pages/ipy/index_en.html.

  142. 142.

    Samojlovic, Der Weg nach dem Pol.

  143. 143.

    Donna K. Heizer, Jewish-German Identity in the Orientalist Literature of Else Lasker-Schüler, Friedrich Wolf, and Franz Werfel (Columbia: Camden House, 1996). Henning Müller, Friedrich Wolf 1888–1953: deutscher Jude, Schriftsteller, Sozialist (Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2009). Robert Charles Reimer, “The Tragedy of the Revolutionary: A Study of the Drama-of-revolution of Ernst Toller, Friedrich Wolf, and Bertolt Brecht, 1918–1933.” (PhD University of Kansas, 1971). Michael David Richardson, Revolutionary Theater and the Classical Heritage: Inheritance and Appropriation from Weimar to the GDR (Oxford: P. Lang, 2007).

  144. 144.

    Ovidio Ferrante, Umberto Nobile, 2 vols., Monografie aeronautiche italiane (Roma: C. Tatangelo, 1985).

  145. 145.

    The following sources are partly available online. For a collection of links see: Asia and Europe in a Global Context, “Sources Transcultural History,” accessed June 7, 2011, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/a-governance-administration/a3/sources-transcultural-history.html.

  146. 146.

    The American Loie Fuller was one of the first modern dancers and a highly professional businesswoman with patented technical effects in her show.

  147. 147.

    See Judith Gautier, Les musiques bizarres à l’exposition de 1900 (Paris: Libraire Ollendorff, 1900).

  148. 148.

    Shelley C. Berg, “Sada Yacco in London and Paris, 1900: le rêve réalisé,” Dance Chronicle 18, no. 3 (1995).

  149. 149.

    The pieces presented in Paris, e.g. The Geisha and the Samurai, originally a classical drama presented over two days, became a 30 minute performance. As Gautier wrote, the short version’s content was not even accessible to those who were fluent in Japanese. Gautier, Les musiques bizarres à l’exposition de 1900, 1.

  150. 150.

    Searching the database “Historical Newspapers” yields about 100 hits, most of them announcements of performances. However, there are increasing numbers of reports during the Paris World’s Fair. See ProQuest, “Historical Newspapers,” accessed July 29, 2011, http://www.proquest.com/en-US/catalogs/databases/detail/pq-hist-news.shtml (access to databases is restricted).

  151. 151.

    Numerous descriptions of the World’s Fair count the performances of the Kawakamis among the most important attractions. There was also a slim volume dealing exclusively with Japanese music and the dances of Sada Yacco: Gautier, Les musiques bizarres à l’exposition de 1900.

  152. 152.

    Tetsuo Kishi and Graham Bradshaw, Shakespeare in Japan (London and New York: Continuum, 2005). Siyuan Liu, “Adaptation as Appropriation: Staging Western Drama in the First Western-Style Theatres in Japan and China,” Theatre Journal 59, no. 3 (2007).

  153. 153.

    Benito Ortolani, The Japanese Theatre: From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary Pluralism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

  154. 154.

    J. Scott Miller, “Dispossessed Melodies. Recordings of the Kawakami Theater Troupe,” Monumenta Nipponica 53, no. 2 (1998): 227.

  155. 155.

    Ibid.

  156. 156.

    Otto Abraham and Erich Moritz von Hornbostel, “Studien über das Tonsystem und die Musik der Japaner,” Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 4, no. 2 (1903).

  157. 157.

    See for example the website of the British Library, “Early Record Catalogues: Archival Sound Recordings,” accessed March 12, 2011, http://sounds.bl.uk/Browse.aspx?collection=Early-record-catalogues.

  158. 158.

    Walter Benjamin, “Notizen zu den Thesen Über den Begriff der Geschichte,” in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974), Vol. I.3, 1241.

  159. 159.

    Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing. Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Cambridge: MIT Press, 8.print 1999), 333.

  160. 160.

    Afef Benessaieh, “Multiculturalism, Interculturality, Transculturality,” in Amériques transculturelles - Transcultural Americas, ed. Afef Benessaieh (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009).

  161. 161.

    Ibid., 11.

  162. 162.

    Ibid.

  163. 163.

    Pierpaolo Donati, Relational Sociology: A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences (London: Routledge, 2011), 219.

  164. 164.

    Ibid., 226.

  165. 165.

    See Castells and Cardoso, eds., The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy.

  166. 166.

    Arjun Appadurai, “How Histories Make Geographies: Circulation and Context in a Global Perspective,” Transcultural Studies 1(2010): 7.

  167. 167.

    Roland Wenzlhuemer, “Globalization, Communication and the Concept of Space in Global History,” in Historical Social Research, Special Issue: Global Communication: Telecommunication and Global Flows of Information in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century 35, no. 1 (2010).

  168. 168.

    LONSEA - League of Nations Search Engine, “Searching the Globe through the Lenses of the League of Nations” (cf. part 1, reference 189).

  169. 169.

    The manuscript reading room of the Library of Congress offers no less than 7 collections where Sweetser is mentioned. See Library of Congress, “Online Catalog,” accessed March 13, 2011, http://catalog.loc.gov/. Quick Search “Arthur Sweetser”, hits 10–16 and 18.

  170. 170.

    Denis Feeney, “Obedience to Rome,” The Times Library Supplement, October 1, 2010, 22.

  171. 171.

    Bynum, “Perspectives, Connections and Objects: What’s Happening in History Now?,” 86.

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  1. Historisches Seminar, University of Heidelberg, Grabengasse 3-5, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany

    Madeleine Herren

  2. Karl Jaspers Centre, Voßstrasse 2, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Martin Rüesch & Christiane Sibille

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Herren, M., Rüesch, M., Sibille, C. (2012). Part II: Methods. In: Transcultural History. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19196-1_3

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