The French Revolution: A Moment of Respatialization
Project B01 (SFB 1199)
Overview
World historians recognize the French Revolution as a global moment in world history where this major, but local, shift in the social order had widespread repercussions. Recent research on the French Revolution has looked at it as a moment in the respatialization of French society, particularly connected to the territorialization of the hexagon. The impetus for new patterns of political self-organization can be observed in France and its colonial territories, but this had distinct repercussions in the Atlantic as well as in other regions of the world. Similarly, historians now discuss the North American as well as the South American liberation from imperial rule with regard to its spatial consequences. This inspires us to look at the period as a crucial moment in the respatialization of the world where all formats of space in existence and proposals for new frameworks for social interaction became contested.
In this vein, this conference brings together experts who address the French Revolution as a moment of respatialization in three ways: firstly, the French Revolution is a moment of reorganization of the French Empire, which takes into account the spatial changes during and following the revolution within the hexagon and in France’s overseas colonies. This perspective encompasses how this imperial reorganization was intertwined with the respatialization of other competing empires and the emergence of independent state spaces in the Americas. Central to the drive for reorganization are larger debates on slavery, free trade, and citizenship. Secondly, the French Revolution was a moment with global echoes that reverberated in parts of the world quite distant from France. This revolution is one of many upheavals of the period – and not limited to the Atlantic revolutions – which invites historians to connect and compare this “moment” of respatialization to others. Thirdly, the French Revolution has been considered a moment of remembrance in French history, but has received relatively little conceptual relevance in global history. Thinking of the French Revolution in terms of broader processes of respatialization at the turn of the eighteenth century, what is the place of the French Revolution in global history narratives? Understanding these three aspects of the French Revolution as a global moment in various contexts allows us to piece together a history that is of primary concern to global historians: understanding how dominant patterns of spatial organization develop simultaneously on a global scale.
If you are interested in attending the conference, please send a short message by Friday, 10 November, to Dr. Ute Rietdorf (sfb1199@uni-leipzig.de)
Programme
Monday 20 November
10:45 am Words of Welcome, Matthias Middell (Leipzig U)
11:00 am – 11:45 am Andreas Fahrmeir (U Frankfurt): Respatialization and its Discontents: Territory, Descent, Ideology and Pragmatism in Definitions of Citizenship
11:45 am – 12:30 pm Christian Ayne Crouch (Harvard U & Bard College): The French Revolution in Indian Country: Restoring Native Americans to French Imperial Worlds
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 pm – 2:15 pm Ernesto Bassi Arevalo (Cornell U): Transimperial Mobility and Geographical Configurations in the Greater Caribbean during the Age of Revolutions
2:15 pm – 3:00 pm Jane Landers (Vanderbilt U): The Transatlantic Diaspora of the Black Auxiliaries of Carlos IV in the Age of Revolutions
3:00 pm Coffee Break
3:30 pm – 4:15 pm Antonis Hadjikyriacou (Boğaziçi U): Shifting Perceptions of Cypriot Insularity during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars
4:15 pm – 5:00 pm Federica Morelli (U Turin): From Empire to Republics: The Collapse of the Spanish Monarchy and the Respatialization of America
7:00 pm Dinner
Tuesday 21 November
9:00 am – 9:45 am Matthias Middell (Leipzig U): Revolution and Respatialization – a Comparative Reflection
9:45 am – 10:30 am Frédéric Barbier (IHMC Paris): TBD
10:30 am Coffee Break
11:00 am – 11:45 am Laura di Fiore (U Naples Federico II): The Respatialization of the Kingdom of Naples between 1799 Parthenopean Republic and Napoleonic Domination
11:45 am – 12:30 pm Tabetha Ewing (Bard College): Frontiers of Punishment: France, Liège, and the Problem of False Coin
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 pm – 2:15 pm Megan Maruschke (Leipzig U): Bordering Practices through the Lens of Slavery and Abolition
2:15 pm – 3:00 pm Damien Tricoire (MLU Halle): Extensions of France or Places of Relegation? Concepts of Imperial Policy towards the Southern Indian Ocean
3:00 pm Coffee Break
3:30 pm Matthias Middell, Closing Discussion