Xu Duo (Hamburg), The Travel of Central Asian music to the East — Transmission and Transformation in the mediaeval times

Due to the extensive exchange of trade and religion the location facilitated; the Silk Roads had become the meeting point for various cultures. With the increasing travel of commercial traders, exchange of religion or migration of residence in between Central Asia and medieval China, Central Asian music was transmitted towards the East, being adapted in the Sui-Tang courts and eventually arrived in Japan. The paper will firstly introduce the court music in Sui-Tang periods, by providing the descriptions of Central music found in Chinese literary sources such as in Sui shu (隋 書). In order to present their settings in the Sui and Tang court, and to explain the relation in between the settlement of Central Asian music in the courts and its political purpose. Secondly, this paper will introduce the Central Asian musical images in Kizil (Kucha, Xinjiang province), Bezklilk (Turfan, Xinjiang province) and Mogao (Dunhuang, Gansu province) caves. With an aim to present an overview and the usage of such musical imagery in Buddhist paintings. Furthermore, the paper will introduce the spread of Central Asian musical images in medieval Japan, to emphasis the acculturation and assimilation that occurred between Central Asia and its East. Thirdly, this paper aims to introduce the Dunhuang manuscripts which contain lute musical notation. As a musical instrument which was originated from Central Asia, there had been copying of the lute musical notation in both Dunhuang manuscripts and manuscripts preserved in medieval Japan. By providing evidence from Chinese literary source, musical imagery and manuscripts, this panel aims to offer new perspectives on combining different methodological approaches and disciplines in order to discuss the transmitted and transformed Central Asian culture in the East during the mediaeval times.

Sara Zanotta (Pavia), The Vokalā and the Dissemination of News among Globally Scattered Iranian Communities in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

During the second half of the 19th century, the political and economic conditions of Qajar Iran and technological developments on a global scale pushed a growing number of Iranian subjects to move, often not permanently, to foreign territories. While low-waged workers mostly moved towards the proximate lands of the Russian and, to a lesser extent, the Ottoman empires, a growing number of merchants and traders, constantly travelling along trans-imperial trade routes, students, and political and religious opponents formed Iranian communities of various sizes between Asia, Africa, and Europe. This paper aims to present how the vokalā (representatives), i.e., individuals, in most cases merchants, involved in the dissemination of newspapers connected geographically distant communities and allowed them to maintain contacts and organize forms of political cooperation between the last three decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century. By combing host-country censuses and Persian-language diplomatic sources, memoirs, and newspapers, I will first map the presence of various Iranian communities abroad and reflect on phenomena of integration and separation in the context of arrival, also leading to the establishment of Iranian newspapers, intended not merely as community papers but aimed at a broader Iranian and Persian-speaking audience. Then, I will investigate the role and networks of the vokalā in the distribution of these Iranian newspapers on a global scale. These individuals, largely merchants, supplemented their main commercial activity with that of newspaper distributors, thereby transporting newspapers printed in Iranian communities in Istanbul, Cairo, Alexandria or London, to other Iranians or Persian-speakers located in various parts of Asia, from Izmir to Rangoon, and in Egypt. In this way, I will argue that they managed to connect these geographically scattered communities to the point of creating a single distant community, sharing news and discussing the need of reform of Qajar Iran and reaching beyond subscribers to the newspapers and the literate public.

Sujato Datta (Berlin), Diplomacy ‘Before’ Independence: The British Indian Agent-General in Washington and the Second World War

This paper looks at the relations between British India and the United States between 1938 to 1946, focusing on the office of the British Indian Agent-General in Washington. As the 1930s drew to a close and war broke out, one concern moved to the forefront of the already uneasy relationship between the governments of Britain and the United States : the cause of Indian independence. After the involuntary inclusion of India into the Second World War by the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow, the nationalist movement in India intensified. In a period of wartime anxiety, this put Franklin Roosevelt and his government in a dilemma of whether to stick to their commitment to ‘self-determination’ in foreign policy terms or choose not to irk a fellow Allied power. In this backdrop, in 1941, British Indian appointed Girija Shankar Bajpai (1891-1954) as the Agent-General in Washington. The office of the Agency-General was originally a diplomatic innovation to address the cause of British Indians residing in Commonwealth territories. It was established as a part of the Cape Town Agreement in 1927, between the Government of India (GoI) and the Union of South Africa. The appointment to Washington was the first outside the British Commonwealth. This paper, using archival sources from the US Record Group 59 and Bajpai’s own essays, recounts the history of Indo-US relations starting from discussions for a Draft Treaty of Commerce and Navigation in 1938, under which the Agent-General was appointed, and the withdrawal of the mission in 1946. This work thus uses a ‘thick description’ of Indian diplomacy before independence. In doing so, it posits the question of how British Indian diplomats navigated the tension, of being employees of the British administration, and at the same time, being informed by ruminations of how a post-independence foreign policy might look like.

Jonathan Jackson (Cologne), Their Majesties and the Metropole: King Lewanika of Barotseland in Britain and the Coronation of King Edward VII, 1902

In 1902, King Lewanika of Barotseland travelled from the Upper Zambesi floodplain and his central African capital, Lealui, to London to attend the coronation of King Edward VII. The British South Africa Company hoped the visit would stabilise diplomatic relations with Lewanika and the Barotse nation. Lewanika had his own ulterior motives. Set within a complex set of circumstances, each leveraged the occasion for distinct political ends. Enshrouded by the celebration of sovereignty – British, African, or otherwise – the visit was underlaid by political dealings which went far beyond superficial presentations of his visit as an expression of loyalty and affection. While many histories of colonialism centre conquest and dispossession, and others highlight realities along the ‘resistance–collaboration’ dichotomy, Lewanika was one of few African statespeople to continuously engage colonialism along diplomatic lines. When colonialism came to Barotseland, however, it was not a united force. As much as efforts were made to present the imperial presence as indivisible, Lewanika realised the convoluted relationship between the Company, the Colonial Office, and the Crown. His under-examined visit to the heart of the metropole played a pivotal role in these relations, with much resting on the extent to which the colonial veneer could be restored. The result reveals critical insights into complex and fractious relations with and within ‘the imperial machinery’ at work in Britain and Barotseland. The visit serves as a prism which refracts broader dynamics and throws new light on concepts of sovereignty, kingship, loyalism, and imperialism (both European and African).

Global Gender History

Michele Pajero (LSE), Gender and Violence in Settler Societies at War: Libya and Tunisia  (1940-43)

Yiwei Zhang (Nanjing), Comparison of the 1970s Women's Movements in China and the U.S.: Focus on the MacLaine Delegation to China

Transnational Science

Sanandita Chakraborty (AUD), Botanical as a Transnational Endeavour

Audrey Ke Zhao (UC Santa Cruz), Tracing the Global Circulation of Ginseng: Commerce, Culture, and the Qing Empire in Transnational Context

Global Intellectual History

Rohan Chopra (Oxford), ‘Persians are next to the Indians in everything’: Imagining Non-National Spatialities between India and Persia in Mohan Lal’s Travelogues (1831-34)

Zaki Rehman (Oxford), Muslims, Minorities, and Monopolies

Diasporic Culture

Kassie Drodge (Ottawa), Unveiling the Cod's Legacy: Newfoundland's Folklore, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and Lost Stories of the Diaspora

Julianne Chua (Berlin), “oba sobs”: Saltwater, Kinships and Sounding Embodiments in Zong!

Vladimir Bortun (Oxford), United We Stand? Rebuilding Left Internationalism in Times of Polycrisis

The history of international solidarity and cooperation within the socialist movement is almost as old as the movement itself. Going back to the mid-nineteenth century, workers’ internationalism was rooted in the objective need to organise across national borders the fight against capitalism, an inherently international system. The failure of workers and socialists to coordinate internationally would undermine their efforts for emancipation in their own countries. The history of socialist internationalism, however, is also a history of splits and fragmentation. Today, as we face the deepening polycrisis of global capitalism, the international unity and cooperation of left-wing parties and movements seems weaker than ever, despite it being perhaps more imperative than ever. This also hinders the left’s ability to pose a strong alternative to both the neoliberal status quo and the rising forces of far-right populism. Building on my book published last year, Crisis, Austerity and Transnational Party Cooperation in Southern Europe: The Radical Left’s Lost Decade, my aim is to discuss the key factors inhibiting transnational cooperation on the left today – from the primacy of national politics to obsolete ideological differences to the parties’ top-down approach to internationalism. I argue that the current weakness of left internationalism fundamentally boils down to a reformist approach to politics that wrongly sees the representative institutions of liberal democracy as the main avenues for social change. Instead, I argue, left parties need to go back to the grassroots level to engage with, support and draw upon transnational movements and campaigns. It is there where the real power of the left lies, at both national and international levels. The movement in support of Palestine, arguably the biggest international movement this century, illustrates well the potential for rebuilding left internationalism in times of polycrisis.

Mariana Steiner Farias, (Rio Grande do Sul), Educational Cooperation Between the German Democratic Republic and Mozambique During the 1970S and 1980S

This research analyzes the educational relations and cooperation created in the 1970s and implemented in the 1980s between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the People's Republic of Mozambique. This time frame takes into account global elements, such as the Cold War, and local ones, such as the governmental and cultural structure of East Germany and the creation of a governmental and cultural structure in Mozambique after its independence in 1975. The aim of this research is to analyze the educational cooperation projects that were created and implemented in order to understand the global and national objectives of these projects, such as the expansion of a communist cosmopolitanism, the creation of the Mozambican New Man and the growth of the East German solidarity network. These elements are analyzed through the Neues Deutschland newspaper, transcribed interviews with Germans who lived in the GDR and participated in the educational cooperation projects and with the Global History methodology of Anna Konieczna and Rob Skinner, who argue that Global History is a way of analyzing the different processes that occur in globalization, which means paying special attention to the relationships that occur at all levels of relations and exchanges that take place outside national borders and have an impact on society and the state. The aim is to understand the paths that lead to the connections, relationships and exchanges, whether regulated or not, that have been created, accepted, modified, expanded and destroyed between the local/regional and global spheres. This article is part of a master's research in History by the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, located in southern Brazil, and is funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel Foundation (CAPES).

Jake Gasson (KCL), The Social Dynamics of Imperial War: Service Records and the Global History of Mobilisation in the British Empire during the Second World War

Wartime mobilisation during the Second World War generated unprecedented quantities of data about society. Attestation, medical, and demobilisation forms contained information as varied as date of birth, address, physique, ethnicity, civilian occupation, and service history. Yet, the rich social history potentially ‘hidden’ in service records has remained largely out of reach. Only four out of the eighteen million German records for the war have survived and around 80 per cent of American files were lost in a fire in 1973. Until recently, moreover, the vast extant archives across the former British Empire remained closed. But the unique and transformative opportunity for building a transnational social profile of a people in armed service to the state offered by these collections is becoming ever more attainable. This paper utilises record samples examined by the National Army Museum and King’s College London funded Forces Record Project to explore how such sources can not only transform our understanding of the individual experience of the conflict but provide a more inclusive picture of how the British Empire fought a world war. In part, this paper is methodological, outlining the challenges of using underutilised process-generated data in comparative transnational perspective. Exemplar files for Australian, British, Canadian, East African, Ghanaian, Sierra Leonean, and New Zealand service reveal how local variations as much as imperial commonalities determined the information contained therein and how this was recorded. On the other hand, through unit case studies, this paper reveals how service records, in detailing the journeys of servicemen from enlistment to the battlefield, shed light on variations in service and sacrifice across the empire as well as reveal the transnational ties of belonging created by intra-imperial migration. In doing so, this paper outlines the methodological and evidential basis for more comprehensively interrogating surviving collections of service records.

Salvador Lima (EUI), Transnational Trajectories in the French Foreign Legion. Warfare, Politics and Migrations in Europe and the Mediterranean, 1919-1939

The French Foreign Legion was a colonial military corps created to mobilise expendable military assets to the empire. As a professional unit that did not demand documentation from potential volunteers, it was a seductive destination for economic migrants, defeated soldiers and exiled activists. This proposal addresses the transnational trajectories of foreign legionnaires in the interwar period, from their home countries through France to the imperial territories. The years from 1919 to 1939 were marked by turmoil in Europe and the Mediterranean, impacting the recruitment, organisation, and esprit de corps of the Legion. European civil wars, colonial conflicts, rearmament campaigns and political radicalisation shaped global migration patterns and influenced the availability of recruits, as well as the overall direction of the Legion.  Having its headquarters in Marseille, the Maghreb and Syria, most legionnaires would serve and circulate over the military outposts of the Mediterranean basin for the duration of their contracts. This paper aims to provide a twofold analysis of foreign legionnaires through a combination of French military documents, soldiers’ memoirs, and press articles. First, I intend to explore how military events in Europe and the Mediterranean had an impact on the Foreign Legion’s manpower and morale. The transnational and global dimensions of France’s most renowned colonial corps could serve to understand different perspectives on the interconnected networks between European powers’ politics and their Mediterranean empires. Then, I aim to explore the intersection of personal circumstances and ideological factors that shaped the legionnaires’ transnational journeys. As colonial soldiers and foreign volunteers, they offer an alternative perspective on the relationship between the army and the state; their motivations and experiences may suggest that military actors in the colonies functioned with a certain degree of autonomy from prevailing political or nationalist ideologies.