Transnational History

La fine dell’età dell’oro (nero). Le grandi compagnie e la prima crisi energetica

by Francesco Petrini

Draft
paper presentato a:
Sissco, Cantieri di storia VI. La storia contemporanea in Italia oggi: linee di ricerca e tendenze
Panel: Shock al sistema. La crisi petrolifera del 1973 e le origini del mondo contemporaneo
Forlì, 22-24/9/2011

L'impennata dei prezzi di fine 1973 fu il culmine di un processo lungo quasi un decennio di progressivo indebolimento... more L'impennata dei prezzi di fine 1973 fu il culmine di un processo lungo quasi un decennio di progressivo indebolimento del sistema di governo dei mercati petroliferi costruito dalle majors dopo la seconda guerra mondiale. La domanda cui intende rispondere questo saggio è: quale fu il ruolo in questo processo delle grandi compagnie? In che modo le artefici di un complesso sistema di spartizione dei mercati e di controllo dei prezzi che, nel secondo dopoguerra, aveva assicurato ai consumatori un approvvigionamento stabile e a bassi prezzi di petrolio, reagirono al crollo del sistema? Per fare ciò l'articolo si concentra sullo snodo decisivo che, evidenziando il cambiamento degli equilibri sui mercati petroliferi, preparò l'esplosione dei prezzi di fine 1973: gli accordi siglati a Teheran e Tripoli a inizio 1971 tra OPEC e compagnie petrolifere sul prezzo del greggio.
Le fonti primarie su cui si basa il contributo sono essenzialmente: Archives de la Compagnie Française de Pétrole, Parigi; British Petroleum Archive, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry; Archivi dell'ENI, Pomezia, Roma.

Capital hits the road: regulating multinational corporations during the long 1970s

by Francesco Petrini

draft

This paper describes the rise and fall of the attempts at setting up a regulatory framework of multinational... more This paper describes the rise and fall of the attempts at setting up a regulatory framework of multinational corporation (MNC) activities during the “long 1970s” (1968-1985). In those years international trade union organizations and Third World countries were, for different reasons, the driving forces behind a series of proposals for the regulation of the activities of MNCs. These efforts equated to an attempt to regulate, from an international level, the geographical restructuring of manufacturing or, in other words, to curb the fledgling second wave of globalization. The relocation of production was in large part the offspring of the crisis of the social compact that had governed the post World War II long boom. The paper focuses on the dialectic between international trade union organizations and business circles and is based mainly on primary sources coming from these societal actors.

Missionaria o in pericolo di apostasia? Donne cattoliche e matrimoni misti nei dibattiti del Sant’Ufficio, in: Famiglia e religione nella prima eta` moderna. Saggi in onore di Silvana Seidel Menchi, Hg. Ciappelli, G., Luzzi, S., Rospocher, M. (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011), 175-186.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Does the Priest Have to Be There? Contested Marriages Before Roman Tribunals. Italy, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3, 2009, 10-30.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more... more The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more witnesses be present at the marriage (1563), but neglected to specify who the parish priest was. The decrees provoked confusion among both laymen and churchmen. Traces thereof can be found in the hitherto essentially unexplored documentation of The Congregation of the Council. This institution was founded in 1564 specifically to resolve the questions that arose all over the catholic world by the application of the decrees promulgated at Trent. The related records are held in the Vatican Secret Archive. Through an examination of this documentation, complemented by files of the Holy Office the author analyzes how the new rules were understood, experienced, used, circumvented, and manipulated both by laymen and churchmen in order to end an unwanted marriage, to facilitate a union that was socially transgressive, opposed by family, or even heterodox, and to respond to pastoral concerns.

Οι δύο όχθες του ποταμού: υπερεθνική εναντίον εθνοκεντρικής ιστοριογραφίας

by Christina Koulouri

Conference: British Art as International Art, 1851 to 1960

by Kate Aspinall

Members of the University of East Anglia’s World Art Studies and Museology Department Greg Salter, Kitty Hudson, Rosanna Eckersley and Kate Aspinall are organising the graduate symposium 'British Art as International Art, 1851 to 1960' on Friday the 20th and Saturday the 21st of April (programme available on website).

Keynote speakers:

Emma Chambers of Tate Britain, presenting “Migrations: Émigré Artists in British Art”, and Michael Hatt of the University of Warwick, presenting “From New England to Nowhere: Edward Carpenter, Fred Holland Day and the Dream of Placelessness”

Registration:

The symposium is free, but spaces are limited, so please register before 2nd April, either by emailing the organisers at britartinternational@gmail.com or on the website: http://www.uea.ac.uk/art/ events-news/event

Americanasana (review essay on history of yoga in America)

by Jared Farmer

Special attention given to Mark Singleton's YOGA BODY, Stefanie Syman's THE SUBTLE BODY, and Robert Love's THE GREAT OOM.

The English Experience of Judicial Violence in Asia: three case studies, 1600-1625

by Edmond Smith

University of Cambridge, Violent Culture/Cultural Violence conference, 9th June 2012

Cree Contraband or Contraband Crees? Early Montanan Experiences with Transnational Natives and the Formation of Lasting Prejudice, 1880-1885

by Brenden Rensink

Die Anfänge des kommerziellen Rundfunks im Saarland. Die Geschichte der Saarländischen Fernseh AG (Tele-Saar und Europe No. 1)

by Andreas Fickers

Published In Clemens Zimmermann, Rainer Hudemann, Micheal Kuderna (eds), Medienlandschaft Saar von 1945 bis in die Gegenwart. Band 1: Medien zwischen Demokratisierung und Kontrolle (1945-1955) Oldenbourg Verlag: Muenchen, pp. 241-310.

This chapter reconstructs the fascinating story of the first commercial television station in Europe: Tele-Saar.... more This chapter reconstructs the fascinating story of the first commercial television station in Europe: Tele-Saar. Funded by the French occupational government in the Saar region, the station aimed at promoting the French high-definition television system (819 lines) in Germany. In order to finance this act of technopolitical diplomacy, the French started a commercial radio station (Europe nr.1) which became one of the most popular French speaking radio stations in post-war Europe.

A European television history

by Andreas Fickers

This is the final draft version of the book which is published as:
Jonathan Bignell & Andreas Fickers (eds.) A European Television History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).

European Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of... more European Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of television in Europe since its inception. The volume interrogates the history of the medium in divergent political, economic, cultural and ideological national contexts.

Taking a comparative approach to the topic, the volume is organized around a set of common questions, themes, and methodological reflections. It deals with European television in the context of television historiography and transnational traditions. Case study chapters written by scholars from different European countries to reflect their specific areas of expertise

TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION HISTORY: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH

by Andreas Fickers

Published as special issue of the Journal Media History Vol 16 / issue 1

The Transnational Networks of a National Company: the EIC as a diaspora in Asia and employer in Europe, 1600-1660

by Edmond Smith

University of Ghent, 6th International Congress of Maritime History, 2nd-6th July 2012

Preventing 'Peace'

by Wes Ullrich

From Czarnobyl to Żarnobyl: The impact of Chernobyl on the Polish green opposition until 1989 (and beyond)

by Kacper Szulecki

in: Arndt, Melanie (ed.) "After Chernobyl", ZZF/Böhlau Verlag, forthcoming in German in February 2012.

“Are you crazy? You wanna protest for the damn white mice, is that what you want?” – the prominent opposition leader... more “Are you crazy? You wanna protest for the damn white mice, is that what you want?” – the prominent opposition leader Jacek Kuroń supposedly exclaimed in 1981, when ap-proached by some young activists with the idea of the “Solidarity” trade union actions for environmental protection. One of the youngsters, since then and until this day an activist in Warsaw, Jarosław “Jarema” Dubiel, explains that “it was not yet the time for environmental concerns”. That time had come only after the Chernobyl catastrophe, and in Poland too, it was largely, although not exclusively, about nuclear energy and its dangers. The attitudes soon changed so that several thousand protesters were gathered at a march condemning the state’s notorious information policy on Chernobyl’s fallout risks in June of 1986. With time methods too changed and green activism became an example of the best and most spectacular non-violent actions that Polish dissent had to offer in the second half of the 1980s. To give a hint of the direction the protests took – in October 1987, in a manner as unbelievable as the spelling of the place where it took place – Gdańsk district of Wrzeszcz – four followers of the “Freedom and Peace” (Wolność i Pokój – WiP) Movement, climbed the rooftop of a local pharmacy dressed up as animals (a fox, a hare, a hedgehog and a fish). Following one of the key principles of the Movement’s non-violent strategy: “it takes only a single cop to arrest a standing protester, but up to four to arrest a sitting one” (and a whole platoon if you climb a rooftop and pull the ladder up), they remained atop the pharmacy for some time, displaying their banners and scattering fliers. Their colleagues on the same day in different points of the city distributed some ten thousand leaflets altogether. The human-animals were arrested eventually, but only once they stumbled down from the roof after peaceful negotiations and a long “performance” for quite a large audience of sympathetic bystanders.

‘Freedom and peace are indivisible’: On the Czechoslovak and Polish dissident input to the European peace movement 1985-89

by Kacper Szulecki

in: Brier, Robert and Agnes Arndt (eds.) Transnational Perspectives on Dissent and Opposition in Central and Eastern Europe, DHI: Warsaw, forthcoming 2012.

The chapter looks at the interactions across the Iron Curtain and across internal bloc borders, which in the 1980s... more The chapter looks at the interactions across the Iron Curtain and across internal bloc borders, which in the 1980s lead to the emergence of a pan-European peace movement. In looking at the contacts between the Western peace movement and the Central European dissidents in the 1980s, my aim is not merely a recapitulation of the various open letters and encounters. I show the circulation of ideas across the divided Europe, and argue that the dissident movements played an important role in this dialogue. In fact, they influenced the peace movement so that it changed its course from disarmament to the idea of ‘indivisible peace’ – that freedom and peace are indivisible and cannot be played off against each other.

Needing to select only the most important elements of the transnational network of peace groups, I focus on the Czechoslovak Charter 77 and the Polish WiP as well as the Societal Resistance Committee (KOS). On the western side I look at those parts of the peace movements that were, first of all, willing to discuss the fundamentals, and secondly, were interested in maintaining contacts with the independent groups in the East. That means especially the European Nuclear Disarmament (END), as well as other Western European organizations, independent but linked to END (i.e. the Dutch IKV – Inter-church Peace Council, the French CODENE - The Committee for the Denuclearization of Europe), as well as the German ‘Greens’.

I begin with a review of theoretical and empirical literature constituting the ‘transnational approach’ to position my work within it. I then move on to the story of the dialogue between the Czechoslovak and Polish dissidents and the Western peace activists, showing the way in which the definition of peace and the priorities of the peace movement were altered because of the transnational exchange.

Transnational Histories of Voluntary Action

by George Campbell Gosling

VAHS blog (January 2012)
Co-authored with Dr Melanie Oppenheimer of the University of New England, Australia

In 1989 Francis Fukuyama declared the ‘end of history’ was underway. The fall of the Berlin Wall had marked the end of... more In 1989 Francis Fukuyama declared the ‘end of history’ was underway. The fall of the Berlin Wall had marked the end of the fundamental clash of ideas that had defined modern history. Liberal democracy (or globalised capitalism to its critics) had won the war, which meant the end of the nation state being able to choose a different path and, by extension, the end of history itself. As British troops enter their eleventh year in Afghanistan, things look rather different.

However, one thing that still rings true is that we live in a globalised age – although, of course, there are many remaining divisions. The Berlin Wall may have fallen, but we have a new wall separating Israel from Palestine and there are still 49 walls separating Catholics from Protestants in Belfast. However, those boundaries are notably porous in an age of facebook revolutions, where protests are tweeted as well as fought on the streets of countries around the world.

The flow of information has been globalised and the availability of that information has personalised a globalised culture. Consequently, it is harder than ever to see our own story, personal or national, in a vacuum from what happens elsewhere...

'Jonathan’s Jokes: American Humour in the late-Victorian Press’, Media History, 18:1, (2012), pp. 33-49.

by Bob Nicholson

During the final quarter of the nineteenth century, columns of American jokes became a regular feature of numerous... more During the final quarter of the nineteenth century, columns of American jokes became a regular feature of numerous British newspapers. The Newcastle Weekly Currant, for example, had a weekly column of ‘Yankee Snacks’; The North Wales Chronicle had ‘American Humour’; the Hampshire Telegraph its ‘Jonathan's Jokes’; and the Northern Weekly Gazette sported a ‘Stars and Stripes’ column. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper introduced a regular column of ‘American Jokes’ in 1896, the same year it achieved an unprecedented circulation of one million readers. Almost half a century before Hollywood, here was a distinctively American form of popular culture which took Britain by storm. It has, however, received little academic attention. This article explores the development of the American humour column, considers the way in which it was consumed by British readers, and argues that these seemingly ephemeral jokes played a key role in shaping Victorian encounters with America.

Globalization and Nationalism in Latin America, c.1750-1950, New Global Studies, vol. 3, no. 3 (2009).

by Michael Goebel

Gauchos, Gringos and Gallegos: The Assimilation of Italian and Spanish Immigrants in the Making of Modern Uruguay 1880-1930, Past and Present, vol. 208, no. 1 (2010), pp. 191-229.

by Michael Goebel