Launch of the Theme for 2017, ‘The End of Empires’, for the Historical Programme of the FKH

Monday, 30.01.2017, Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe

January 12, 2017

Launch of the Theme for 2017, ‘The End of Empires’, for the Historical Programme of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Goethe University of Frankfurt

From the fall of the Inca Empire in the 16th century to the reconfiguration of Europe after the First World War, the end of empires has always signalled a radical rupture and the search for a new world order. Historical writing has long treated such developments as a fairly inevitable process. Since the end of the Cold War and in the wake of the recent wave of nationalism in Europe, this view is attracting ever more criticism.

This year international experts will research the topic of early modern and modern ‘ends of empires’ as fellows at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities. The calendar of events treating this year’s theme includes public lectures at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, academic conferences as well as a public lecture series, which has been co-organized by the Hessian Administration for Palaces and Gardens and will take place at Bad Homburg Palace. The latter is devoted to the collapse of modern empires in various European regions as well as the subsequent quests for new orders. The year will close with a panel discussion featuring experts on this topic.

Thomas Maissen, Director of the German Historical Institute, Paris, will open this year’s programme at 7 pm on 30.01.2017 with a lecture on ‘The End of Empires: Transepochal Considerations’ in the lecture hall at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities. Maissen connects the Roman Empire to the later Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires as well as the short-lived empires of the 19th and 20th centuries to highlight the motifs of the ‘fall’ and ‘collapse’ as perennial elements in narratives about empires.

The programme’s directors are Prof. Dr. C. Cornelißen (Goethe University) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Duve (Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History/Goethe University).

The Historical Programme was founded in 2014 as a special branch of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities along with the History Department of the Goethe University and with considerable support from the Dagmar Westberg Foundation.

Topics

  • ‘The End of Empires’: Decisive Fissures on the Political Map
  • Introduction of the Theme for 2017 of the Historical Programme at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities
  • Information on Visiting Fellows of the Historical Programme in 2017
  • Information on the Historical Programme of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities

Further information on the website of the Forschungskollegs Humanwissenschaften

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