Cross-Cultural Comparison in Times of Increasing Transregional Connectedness: Perspectives From Historical Sciences and Area Studies on Processes of Respatialization

Abstract

In this article, I follow the history of debates about cross-cultural comparison within thehistorical disciplines and the social sciences and argue that, depending on the historical context,such comparisons are related to the study of entanglements in one way or the other. In the 1980sand 1990s, however, comparative history was the subject of sharp criticism while comparisonremained a prominent and widely undisputed method in the social sciences. This can be explainedby the different ways in which historians and social scientists react to the debate aboutglobalization. In the meantime, within the disciplines of history, the harsh opposition betweenVergleich [comparison] and Verflechtungsanalyse [the study of entanglements] has made room fora series of innovative approaches to combine them in a reflexive way.

Biographical Note

Matthias Middell (SFB 1199 & Leipzig University, Germany)

Matthias Middell is a professor of cultural history at Leipzig University as well as a speaker of the SFB 1199 and director of the Global and European Studies Institute at Leipzig University. He studied history earning his PhD from Leipzig University with his research focusing on the French Revolution. Since 2013, he has served as the director of the Graduate School Global and Area Studies in Leipzig and is currently the head of the Erasmus Mundus Global Studies Consortium. He teaches regularly at partner universities and co-supervises PhD candidates with colleagues from France, South Africa, and Ethiopia. His current research interests include the history of the French Revolution from a global perspective, history of cultural transfers around the world, and the role of space in the understanding of the current world being the result of long-lasting global connections.