Introduction to “Chronologics. Periodisation in a Global Context”

From 7 to 9 December 2017, the Annual Conference 2017 “Chronologics: Periodisation in a Global Context” of the Forum Transregionale Studien and the Max Weber Stiftung took place at the Maison de France, Berlin.

The conference was convened by Thomas Maissen (Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris), Barbara Mittler (Heidelberger Centrum für Transkulturelle Studien, Forum Transregionale Studien), and Pierre Monnet (Institut franco-allemand de sciences historiques et sociales). It brought together scholars from various disciplines and countries with the purpose to uncover some of the dynamics behind particular cultural and historical uses of periodisation schemes, as concepts for ordering the past, and thus to reconsider these terminologies.

On December 8th, Barbara Mittler gave an introduction to the conference theme and pointed out some of the central arguments related to periodisation schemes. Mittler is a Professor of Sinology, Deputy Director of the Centre of Asian Studies, and Director of the Cluster of Excellence Asia and Europe in a Global Context at the University of Heidelberg. Since 2015, she is a board member of the Forum Transregionale Studien.

The Annual Conference 2017 on “Chronologics” was part of the strategic cooperation between the Forum Transregionale Studien and the Max Weber Stiftung. It was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and arranged in a cooperation with the Einstein Center Chronoi, the Institut français Berlin and the Graduate School Global Intellectual History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.