Reading Group

The Institute of Transnational and Spatial history has a Reading Group and runs Manuscript Workshops. Both are open to all interested colleagues and students. We meet occasionally during the year to discuss both classic and new works in our field as well as discuss our own work.

Reading Group – In this activity we ask one institute member to present to us about a book relevant to Transnational or Spatial History, summarizing it and offering comments on its contribution to our themes of interest. Optionally, a second person offers some comments from their perspective. Those who attend are not expected to have read the work, but they are most welcome to do so. We will also usually distribute some selection from the book for discussion. The discussion that follows need not be limited to the book but can range more broadly on the theme as relevant to our own interests and research.

Manuscript Workshop – An institute member submits a chapter or article draft for reading by attendees and after giving some comments at the beginning of the workshop setting the context for the work and any other preliminary comments, the workshop works through the text and offers comments and suggestions.

2018-19

Mon Oct 15 13:15-3pm ITSH Reading Group – Old Class Library, South Street, Su Lin Lewis Cities in Motion: Urban Life and Cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia, 1920-1940 (Konrad Lawson presenting)
Mon Oct 29 13:15-3pm ITSH Manuscript Workshop – Old Class Library, South Street (Chapter submitted by Calum Daly)

Mon Nov 12 13:15-3pm ITSH Manuscript Workshop – Old Class Library, South Street (Chapter submitted by Bernhard Struck)

Mon Nov 19 13:15-3pm ITSH Reading Group – Old Class Library, South Street, A. K. Sandoval-Strausz and Nancy H. Kwak eds. Making Cities Global: The Transnational Turn in Urban History (Emma Hart presenting)

2016-2017

First meeting: We are going to discuss the Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany by David Blackbourn. Konrad Lawson will offer an overview.

20 October 2016

3.30-5.30, venue tba

2014-2015 Theme: Spatial History

Discussing spatial & transnational history #MappingFlows2014, St Andrews August 2014

The theme for our reading group this year will be “spatial history” and we will be looking at a number of texts from history and other disciplines that have helped shape emerging approaches in this area. Each meeting will open with a presentation on a text with a summary of the main arguments, additional comments and discussion questions raised by a second participant, followed by a discussion with all participants.

Meetings:

25 November, 2014
5-6:30pm in St Katharine’s Lodge 0.02

Text:
Charles Withers Placing the Enlightenment (Chicago UP, 2007)
Presentation: Kelsey Jackson Williams

Recent:

23 October, 2014
Overview: Konrad M. Lawson
Comments and Questions: Bernhard Struck

Text:
Moretti, Franco. Atlas of the European Novel, 1800-1900. Verso, 1999.