The Future of Global History

Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, April 2026

Global history has established itself as one of the most productively contested approaches to understanding the past. It challenges inherited boundaries--national, regional, and continental--by foregrounding comparison, tracing connections, and, crucially, identifying moments of disconnection that unsettle teleological interpretations of increasing integration. Yet global history unfolds within a changing political landscape. The resurgence of nationalism, the prominence of personalized power politics, and the persistence of geopolitical conflict pose pressing challenges to global modes of interpretation. Can global history retain its critical and analytical edge? Or does it risk becoming silenced by the very structures it seeks to transcend?

A discussion on this topic featured Valeska Huber (Associate Professor at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna and Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg 2025/2026), Ronald C. Po (Associate Professor at the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg 2025/2026), Marcia C. Schenck (Professor of Global History at the University of Potsdam, moderator), and Dorothea Weltecke (Professor of Medieval History in Europe at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).

The discussion can be accessed here.