Synchronisms and Concurrences: Visions of Simultaneity in 18th-century Cultures of Knowledge in Europe

Lecturer
Helge Jordheim, Professor of Cultural History, Department for Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo

Title
Synchronisms and Concurrences: Visions of Simultaneity in 18^th-century Cultures of Knowledge in Europe

Abstract
In this talk I aim to analyze the genres and practices of synchronism in 18^th-century European knowledge cultures, mainly in the German-speaking area. Based mostly on visual representations, or rather diagrams of knowledge, I will discuss the existence of an alternative way of organizing time and space, eclipsed by the rise of historicism and the idea of progress, with which this period is mostly associated. More specifically, I will trace the idea of multiple parallel histories distributed across global space, which, I would claim, exist as something of a ‘road not taken’ in German historiography, which has later hastily been identified with Herder and Hegel.

Information
The seminar will be held in English. 

Please send an email to concurrences@lnu.se if you want to participate via Zoom. 

Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies