Nation-State and Empire: Digital Explorations of a Combined Spatial Format in the U.S. West, 1863-1934
Julius Wilm (SFB 1199)
The weekly colloquium of the Collaborative Research Centre provides a forum for presentations by external guests as well as by members of the SFB 1199 within a tailored thematic framework. The format helps to create a common ground for discussion between guests, the Collaborative Research Centre, as well as the wider academic public. The complete program can be found here.
In this week’s session Julius Wilm will talk about Nation-State and Empire: Digital Explorations of a Combined Spatial Format in the U.S. West, 1863-1934.
Two spatial formats overlapped in the United States’ founding and expansion: the new government in Washington presided simultaneously over a nation and an empire. Imperial spatialization imperatives intermingled and placed themselves in the service of a state power that was based on popular sovereignty. In this talk, Julius Wilm will present his new postdoctoral project at the SFB 1199, which focuses on a particular flashpoint of this overlap – namely the contradictory reconfiguration of the imperial format in the wake of the post-Civil War extension of some legal and democratic rights to colonized populations. Focusing on land appropriation in the continental U.S. West from the 1860s to the 1930s, the talk lays out how digital methods can produce new insights.