Courses
Spring Term 2024
Pastime, Disciplinary Tool, Mass Culture Culture: A Global History of Sport (ca 1700-2000)
Lecture (Language: English)
Prof. Dr. Harald Fischer-Tiné
TIME: Monday 12:15 – 14:00 (starts 19 February 2024)
Room: HG D 3.2
Ever since the early modern era, organised physical leisure activities have exerted a profound influence on societies and individuals all over the globe. The course gives an overview of the historical trajectories of sports and games in various parts of the world since around 1700. It seeks to understand sports as a recreational activity, a method of physical (self-) optimization, a political tool of disciplining populations and a form of (mediatized) mass entertainment. The lectures explore the interrelation of games and sports with moving forces of modernity such as capitalism and consumeristic culture, nationalism as well as colonialism and anti-colonialism.
The course aims to familiarise students with the historical development of a ubiquitous aspect of modern everyday culture, namely leisure, sports and play. Each case study is used to deepen the participants' understanding of complex historical transformations by critically analysing what has been termed "the ludic diffusion", i.e. the rapid popularisation of sports and games and the emergence of sport as a ‘global language’ across geographical, cultural and class divides. By giving weight to non-western regions of the globe, the course adopts a decidedly transnational and non-Eurocentric perspective.
WOMEN IN GLOBAL HISTORY: AN INTRODUCTION (C. 1800–1950)
Seminar (Language: English)
Lecturer: Dr Elena Valdameri
Time: Wednesday, 12:15–13:45
Room: HG E 21
The course explores women’s contributions to global history and contemporary society between c. 1800 and 1950. Explaining why women’s history exists and why it complicates our understanding of the past, the course critically engages with debates about the role played by women across time, space and cultures. Using family structure, gender ideology, racial and social hierarchy as analytical lenses, it considers key developments in the history of the modern world – and in the particular in the colonial world – that are still largely analysed through a masculine lens such as industrialisation, nationalism and colonialism. Other thematic foci are the emergence of feminist movements and the role of women in the birth control movement and eugenics; women’s activism in social reform and colonial ‘civilising missions’ with a focus on their role as medical doctors and scientific experts; women’s achievements in the scientific and academic fields and how these contributed to challenge the ideology of gender. Using primary sources and secondary material and considering the intersections existing between gender, race, class and ethnicity, students will reflect on how gender and sexuality have been socially and culturally constructed by global historical developments into different and historically shifting systems of power relations, and have, in turn, shaped structures, institutions and events.
GESCHICHTE II (GLOBAL)
Anti Imperialismus und Dekolonisation , ca 1905 1975
Lecture (Language: German)
Prof. Dr. Harald Fischer-Tiné
Time: Wednesday 16:15-17:45
Room: HG D 1.1
Die Vorlesung bietet einen historischen Überblick über den Niedergang und Zerfall der grossen europäischen Kolonialimperien in Asien und Afrika seit dem Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges. Dabei steht die Geschichte antikolonialer Bewegungen ebenso im Mittelpunkt wie die Probleme nachkolonialen nation-buildings. Nach einer einführenden Sektion in den beiden ersten Vorlesungen werden anschliessend anhand von sieben Fallbeispielen aus Asien, Afrika und dem Nahen Osten unterschiedliche Varianten des Ablaufs von Dekolonisationsprozessen herausgearbeitet und analysiert. Im letzten Block finden übergreifende Themen wie die Konstitution internationaler anti-imperialistischer Organisationen, die ideologische Vielfalt post-imperialer Weltentwürfe sowie, last but not least, die Spuren der kolonialen Vergangenheit in den Erinnerungskulturen imperialer Nationen Berücksichtigung.
DownloadSyllabus (PDF, 753 KB)
Deviance: Transgressions and Taboo in the Colonial World, ca. 1800-1940
Seminar Course (Language: English)
Time: Thursday (every fortnight) 10:15 – 11:45
Venue: CHN D 46
Lecturer: Zhi Qing Denise Lim, M. A.
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Offering students a refreshing approach to the social history of colonialism through the lens of deviance, the course critically engages with the discourse surrounding deviance and how deviance at once reaffirmed and challenged colonial hierarchies. To do so, it considers important developments in the history of the modern world, such as the eugenics movement in the late 19th century, global anti-vice and anti-trafficking campaigns, and the medicalization of alcoholism, addiction, and insanity. The course also looks at how scientific discourse had been incorporated into the discussions surrounding what deviance was and how to regulate or ‘treat’ deviance. The examination of the role of science in shaping deviance and the responses to it intends to foster students’ awareness of the historical continuities in today’s discussions surrounding deviant behaviour, such as homelessness and drug addiction, and how they are reflected in the built environment.
Students approach the history of colonialism through the lens of deviance in various contexts, especially—though not exclusively—in South, South-east and East Asia, from around 1800 to 1940. Specifically, students are sensitized to the circumstances under which behaviour, persons or situations were constructed as deviant and the ways in which such designation was used to reinforce or challenge colonial hierarchies by different actors. At the same time, students become aware of the connections between construction of deviance in colonial settings and global developments.
This course is structured thematically and uses theoretical texts from multiple disciplines, as well as empirical case studies. By the conclusion of the course, students will be able to a) develop new perspectives on the history of colonialism; b) familiarize themselves with the relevant topics and themes examined by recent scholarship; c) understand how norms and deviance were defined in different historical contexts; d) think critically about how norms and deviation are defined in their own disciplines and today’s society.
Der Bau: die globale Geschichte der Gefängnisarchitektur
Lecture (Language: German)
Time: Thursday 18:15 – 20:00
Place: Zoom-Recording / HG E 1.1
Lecturer: PD Dr. Stephan Scheuzger
Die Vorlesung behandelt die Geschichte der Gefängnisarchitektur in ihren breite-ren gesellschaftlichen, politischen, wirtschaftlichen, wissenschaftlichen, rechtli-chen und kulturellen Kontexten. Gefängnisbauten und deren Entwicklungen werden vom 18. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert insbesondere in den Zusammenhängen der sich wandelnden Konzepte und Praktiken des Strafens beleuchtet. Dabei öffnet die Veranstaltung eine globale Perspektive auf den Gegenstand.
Research Colloquium. Extra-European History and Global History
Prof. Dr. H. Fischer-Tiné (ETHZ), external pageProf. Dr. M. Dusinberre (UZH), and external pageProf. Dr. Roberto Zaugg (UZH)
Thursdays, 18.15-19.45, KOL-G-220 (University of Zurich)
The fortnightly colloquium provides a forum for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to present and discuss their current work. Half of the slots are reserved for presentations by invited external scholars.