The Politics of Sovereignty and Globalism in Modern Germany

Conference
Datum: 22.03.2019 bis 23.03.2019
Ort: Washington DC (USA)

Conveners:
Rüdiger Graf (ZZF Potsdam), Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley College), Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia), Anne Schenderlein (GHI Washington) 
 

Given the present challenges to what has been called the liberal world order, the conference seeks to revisit and reexamine the relationship of sovereignty and globalism in the modern era. The participants will use the case study of Germany and German-speaking Central Europe, which has been the site and source of extreme claims for both sovereignty and globalism over the last 150 years. From the colonial annexations of the late 19th century to the hypertrophy of sovereignty claims under the National Socialists, from the two Germanies' limited sovereignty within the postwar globalist projects of East and West blocs to unified Germany's current status as both global capitalist power and proponent of shared sovereignty in European institutions, modern Germany offers a paradigm case of the entangled histories of sovereignty and globalism. The arc of imperial dissolution annexation and independence in Austria offers a similar passage through degrees of self-rule.
Rather than seeing sovereignty and globalism as factual descriptions of the world or properties that states either have or lack, the conference seeks to historicize the concepts in question, conceiving of them as claims that historical actors made, challenged, and denied.

 

Program

FRIDAY, MARCH 22

Panel 1: THE DEFENSE OF OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL IN A GLOBAL AGE
9:30-11:00

  • Natasha Wheatley (Princeton): A State-Making Laboratory: Austria-Hungary in the History of Sovereignty
  • Anna Ross (Warwick): Property and Sovereignty: The Case of the German Legation in Spanish-Occupied Tangier, 1941-44

11:00-11:30  Coffee Break

Panel 2: ACHIEVING NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH GLOBALIZATION
11:30-13:00

  • Heidi Tworek (UBC): Communicational Sovereignty in the Age of Empire
  • James Stafford (Bielefeld): The Kaiserreich, ‘Tariff Autonomy’ and the ‘System of Commercial Treaties’, 1892-1903

13:00-14:00  Lunch

Panel 3: GOLD, DIAMONDS, AND MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
14.00-15.30

  • Steven Press (Stanford): Sovereignty and the German Colonial Empire, 1884-1918
  • Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley): Exit Fantasies: Global Goldbugs and the Rise of the German Far Right

15.30-16.00   Coffee Break

Panel 4: GERMAN VISIONS OF SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH DECENTRALIZATION
16.00-17.30

  • Martin Deuerlein (Tübingen): Globalism and Sovereignty in German Social Sciences, ca. 1868 ‒1977
  • Clara Maier (Hamburg): Narrating German Sovereignty in the Federal Republic of Germany
     

SATURDAY, MARCH 23

Panel 5: SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CONSTRAINTS OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
9.00-10.30

  • Rüdiger Graf (Potsdam): Transitional Injustice –Sovereignty and War Crimes in Leipzig and The Hague
  • Sebastian Gehrig (Roehampton): German Legal Exceptionalism: Sovereignty, national division, and the accession of the two Germanys to the United Nations

10:30-11.00   Coffee Break

Panel 6: MOBILITY AND MIGRATION AS CHALLENGES TO SOVEREIGNTY
11.00-13.00

  • Benjamin Hein (Stanford/Brown): Stories on Migration. The Global Turn in German Citizenship in the 19th Century
  • Adam Seipp (Texas A&M): ‘Dear Allies, Germany is not Disneyland’: Sovereignty, the US Army, and Everyday Life in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-95
  • Lauren Stokes (Northwestern): Jet-Age Asylum Seekers, or Sovereignty at the Schönefeld Airport
     

Veranstaltungsort

German Historical Institute
1607 New Hampshire Ave NW
Washington DC 20009-2562
U.S.A.

Kontakt und Anmeldung

Kontakt:

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Rüdiger Graf
Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam
E-Mail: graf [at] zzf-potsdam.de

Veranstaltungen

The Politics of Sovereignty and Globalism in Modern Germany

Conference
Datum: 22.03.2019 bis 23.03.2019
Ort: Washington DC (USA)

Conveners:
Rüdiger Graf (ZZF Potsdam), Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley College), Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia), Anne Schenderlein (GHI Washington) 
 

Given the present challenges to what has been called the liberal world order, the conference seeks to revisit and reexamine the relationship of sovereignty and globalism in the modern era. The participants will use the case study of Germany and German-speaking Central Europe, which has been the site and source of extreme claims for both sovereignty and globalism over the last 150 years. From the colonial annexations of the late 19th century to the hypertrophy of sovereignty claims under the National Socialists, from the two Germanies' limited sovereignty within the postwar globalist projects of East and West blocs to unified Germany's current status as both global capitalist power and proponent of shared sovereignty in European institutions, modern Germany offers a paradigm case of the entangled histories of sovereignty and globalism. The arc of imperial dissolution annexation and independence in Austria offers a similar passage through degrees of self-rule.
Rather than seeing sovereignty and globalism as factual descriptions of the world or properties that states either have or lack, the conference seeks to historicize the concepts in question, conceiving of them as claims that historical actors made, challenged, and denied.

 

Program

FRIDAY, MARCH 22

Panel 1: THE DEFENSE OF OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL IN A GLOBAL AGE
9:30-11:00

  • Natasha Wheatley (Princeton): A State-Making Laboratory: Austria-Hungary in the History of Sovereignty
  • Anna Ross (Warwick): Property and Sovereignty: The Case of the German Legation in Spanish-Occupied Tangier, 1941-44

11:00-11:30  Coffee Break

Panel 2: ACHIEVING NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH GLOBALIZATION
11:30-13:00

  • Heidi Tworek (UBC): Communicational Sovereignty in the Age of Empire
  • James Stafford (Bielefeld): The Kaiserreich, ‘Tariff Autonomy’ and the ‘System of Commercial Treaties’, 1892-1903

13:00-14:00  Lunch

Panel 3: GOLD, DIAMONDS, AND MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
14.00-15.30

  • Steven Press (Stanford): Sovereignty and the German Colonial Empire, 1884-1918
  • Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley): Exit Fantasies: Global Goldbugs and the Rise of the German Far Right

15.30-16.00   Coffee Break

Panel 4: GERMAN VISIONS OF SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH DECENTRALIZATION
16.00-17.30

  • Martin Deuerlein (Tübingen): Globalism and Sovereignty in German Social Sciences, ca. 1868 ‒1977
  • Clara Maier (Hamburg): Narrating German Sovereignty in the Federal Republic of Germany
     

SATURDAY, MARCH 23

Panel 5: SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CONSTRAINTS OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
9.00-10.30

  • Rüdiger Graf (Potsdam): Transitional Injustice –Sovereignty and War Crimes in Leipzig and The Hague
  • Sebastian Gehrig (Roehampton): German Legal Exceptionalism: Sovereignty, national division, and the accession of the two Germanys to the United Nations

10:30-11.00   Coffee Break

Panel 6: MOBILITY AND MIGRATION AS CHALLENGES TO SOVEREIGNTY
11.00-13.00

  • Benjamin Hein (Stanford/Brown): Stories on Migration. The Global Turn in German Citizenship in the 19th Century
  • Adam Seipp (Texas A&M): ‘Dear Allies, Germany is not Disneyland’: Sovereignty, the US Army, and Everyday Life in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-95
  • Lauren Stokes (Northwestern): Jet-Age Asylum Seekers, or Sovereignty at the Schönefeld Airport
     

Veranstaltungsort

German Historical Institute
1607 New Hampshire Ave NW
Washington DC 20009-2562
U.S.A.

Kontakt und Anmeldung

Kontakt:

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Rüdiger Graf
Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam
E-Mail: graf [at] zzf-potsdam.de

Veranstaltungen