Centre for Transimperial History

Empires have all too often been studied in isolation, and many, especially non-European ones, have been rather marginalized. Countering this silo approach, the Centre advances the transimperial history approach of investigating the breadth and depth of empires.

By incorporating diverse perspectives, the Centre aims is to strengthen the dialogue between European and non-European as well as Global North and Global South institutions and scholars working on transimperial history.

Transimperial history has the potential to address a broad spectrum of global spaces and historical periods. The Centre promotes the field’s diversity by dedicating itself to interdisciplinary research approaches and projects that incorporate different perspectives.

Transimperial history is a field in the making and, as such, remains comparatively less institutionalized than other history fields. The Centre serves as a contact point for existing projects while helping to develop and support new ones.

The Centre develops innovative teaching tools for transimperial history, particularly for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, that merge analogue and digital approaches.

The Centre organizes the “Meet the Author” series for an interested public to introduce books that are breaking new ground within transimperial history. Furthermore, the “Research Showcase” series acts as a platform for young scholars to present their work. Both are organized in partnership with Doshisha University Kyoto.

• Samuël Coghe (Ghent University)
• Emanuele Ertola (Università di Siena)
• Damiano Matasci (University of Geneva)
• Satoshi Mizutani (Doshisha University)
• Cyrus Schayegh (Geneva Graduate Institute)
• Shellen Wu (Lehigh University)

Books:

Daniel Hedinger, Nadin Heé, Satoshi Mizutani (eds.), What is Transimperial History?, Columbia University Press, 2025/2026

Cyrus Schayegh, Daniel Hedinger, Nadin Heé, Damiano Matasci, Shellen Wu (eds.),  The Oxford Handbook of Modern Transimperial HIstory, OUP, 2025/2026.

Articles:

Daniel Hedinger, „Transimperial“, Christopher Balme, Burcu Dogramaci, Roland Wenzlhuemer (eds.), Dis:connectivity in Processes of Globalisation: Concepts, Terms and Practices, Berlin (De Gruyter),  2025.

Articles:

Daniel Hedinger, Nadin Heé: “Transimperial History. Connectivity, Cooperation, and Competition”, Journal of Modern European History, 2018.

Daniel Hedinger, “The imperial nexus. The Second World War and the Axis in global Perspective”, in: Journal of Global History 12,2 (2017), pp. 184–205.

• 11 September 2024: Meet the Author - Chris Suh: The Allure of Empire: American Encounters with Asians in the Age of Transpacific Expansion and Exclusion
• 12 June 2024: Druckfrisch/Meet the Author - Jane Burbank & Frederick Cooper: Post-Imperial Possibilities

• 23 February 2025: 
  “The Possibility of the Nonhuman in Transimperial History: A Methodolocigal Inquiry” with Vicky Shen
• 29 November 2024: 
  “European Trans-Imperial Corporate Cooperation in the French Colonies: The Eurafrican Illusion in Italy and West-Germany, 1950-1960” with Giovanni Costanaro

• 5 & 6 December 2024: 
  “New Approaches to Transimperial History" Young Scholars Workshop
• 23 & 24 May 2024: 
  Workshop on settler colonialism, Project Imperial Entanglements, University of Naples
• 12 April 2024: 
  Roundtable organized by the Transimperial and Anti-colonial History Group at the University of Pittsburgh