Global Pasts grew out of Global Antiquities, a founding pillar of the Yan P. Lin Centre at McGill University in Montreal.
About
Global Pasts investigates how past societies experimented, often concurrently, with similar ideas, political strategies, relations of power, and technologies and draws attention to the complexities of global connections that developed between them. ‘Pasts’ seeks to bypass terms such as “ancient” or “medieval” that, unwittingly, transfer conceptual categories between areas, eras, and disciplines and avoids negative formulations such as “pre-modern.” “Global” signals our continued mission to think comparatively and capaciously across a broad geographical scope. The group will present novel and innovative scholarship with a cross-disciplinary focus as it explores a variety of diachronic and synchronic themes. Drawing on the potential of broad collaborative work that extends across a range of temporal and spatial contexts, the research group aims to be an important voice on campus to showcase the importance of studying distant pasts synoptically and from a variety of disciplinary angles.
History
In March 2023, Global Pasts emerged out of the Global Antiquities research group, in an effort to broaden the group’s geographical and temporal scope. Global Antiquities itself developed in two distinct phases, a first one where the focus was on juxtaposing the foundations of the Mediterranean world and ancient China, and a second one in which the widening in temporal and geographical scope that eventually would yield Global Pasts had already begun.
Global Antiquities, Phase 1
Globalization has changed the organization of research and teaching in the Humanities. The composition of the faculty and of the student body at our universities has diversified, and this process is accompanied by a transformation of research portfolios and teaching curricula. At many universities, Western Civilization courses have already given way to offerings that apply a more multi-faceted approach to history, society and culture. While these developments are well under way, it is only gradually that we have come to realize that the current re-negotiation of concepts and contents requires a new approach towards the cultural foundations of human society.
Global Antiquities is designed as an academic engine that helps us to pioneer through the junctures of cultural reflection today. Our network explores the history and social impact of cultural paradigms and practices from a distinctly global perspective. We call for a sustained study of some of the most basic cultural foundations of the world. While aiming at the production of new academic knowledge, our team also seeks to employ the knowledge of past cultures, and make the scholarly dialogue between them relevant to the intellectual and ethical reflections that accompany the forces of globalization.
Global Antiquities explores the creative potential of juxtaposing the cultural foundations of the Mediterranean World (‘the West’) and ancient China (‘the East’). The research group embarks from the observation that ancient Greek, Roman, and Chinese societies were governed by similar features that were also characteristic of other civilized pre-modern societies. In order to provide for a meaningful comparative methodology, we examine three topical clusters that are central to their political cultures in a series of workshops: people (2014), places (2017), performances (2020).
From our experience in the classroom we have learned how fascinated students are by cultural legacies other than their own. Global Antiquities attempts to transform their, and our, academic curiosity into new intellectual discoveries. It is hoped that the comparative knowledge fostered by our network will also contribute to the generation of a new type of cultural meaning in globalized societies.
Global Antiquities, Phase 2
Globalization has changed the organization of research and teaching in the Humanities. The composition of the faculty and of the student body at our universities has diversified, and this process is accompanied by a transformation of research portfolios and teaching curricula. While these developments are well under way, it is only gradually that we have come to realize that the current re-negotiation of concepts and contents requires a new approach toward the cultural foundations of human society.
Global Antiquities is designed as an academic engine that explores the history and social impact of cultural paradigms and practices from a distinctly global perspective. We call for a sustained study of some of the most basic cultural foundations of the world. While aiming at the production of new academic knowledge, our team also seeks to employ existing understandings of past societies, cultural logics, and practices, and make the scholarly dialogue between them relevant to the intellectual and ethical reflections that accompany the forces of globalization.
In its first cycle of investigation, under the directorship of Hans Beck and Griet Vankeerberghen, Global Antiquities focused on juxtaposing the cultural foundations of the Mediterranean World and ancient China via three topical clusters that are central to the political culture of ancient Greece, Rome, and China: people, places, and performances. This research program has already resulted in three workshops (2014: people; 2017: places; 2020: performances), and a co-edited volume Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China (Cambridge University Press in 2021) based on the ‘people’ cluster. Another volume, Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China is in preparation.
Currently, Global Antiquities is broadening the geographical and temporal scope of its investigations. Ancient societies (e.g., Mediterranean, East or South Asian, South American) were often experimenting with similar ideas, political strategies, and relations of power. The investigation of these transhistorical regularities have a legacy of engaging problematic conceptual categories that universalize diverse social and political practices into ideal types. Yet, the similarities between these ancient societies remain as interesting as their differences and warrant fresh analytic attention. In addition, we also explore the complexities of global connections that developed between these ancient societies throughout the first millennia BCE and CE.
From our experience in the classroom, we have learned how fascinated students are by cultural legacies other than their own. Global Antiquities transforms their, and our, academic curiosity into new intellectual discoveries. It is hoped that the comparative knowledge fostered by our network will also contribute to the generation of new types of engagement and meaning in our globalized societies.
During this phase, Global Antiquities, had an Advisory Board [Anthony Barbieri-Low (UC Santa Barbara), Josiah Ober (Stanford), Kurt Raaflaub (Brown), and Lothar von Falkenhausen (UC Los Angeles)], Members at McGill University, Graduate Student Members and Associate Members [David Engels (Université libre de Bruxelles), Luke Habberstad (University of Oregon), Hyun Jin Kim (University of Melbourne), Carlos Noreña (UC Berkeley), Garret Olberding (Oklahoma), and Laura Vigo (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts]
People
Coordinators
griet.vankeerberghen [at] mcgill.ca (Griet Vankeerberghen)
Members at McGill University
Hans Beck (Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Arts),
darian.totten [at] mcgill.ca (Darian Totten) (Classical Archaeology),
robin.yates [at] mcgill.ca (Robin Yates) (History, East Asian Studies),
Peter Johansen (Anthropology),
heidi.wendt [at] mcgill.ca (Heidi Wendt) (Religious Studies, History & Classical Studies)
Travis Bruce (History & Classical Studies)
Michael Van Dussen (English)
Graduate Students
Wentian Fu (History and Classical Studies)
Briar Bennett-Flammer (History and Classical Studies)
Esther Guillen (History and Classical Studies)
Meghan McGill (Anthropology)
Callan Ross Sheppard (Anthropology) GA
Ruoxuan Wen (History and Classical Studies) GA
Alexis Lemonde-Vachon (History and Classical Studies)
Jean-Félix Caron (History and Classical Studies)
Zhang Xinyu (History and Classical Studies)
First Workshop Series
In its first cycle of investigation, Global Antiquities conducted a grounded comparison of Greece, Rome, and China through three thematic clusters: People, Places, and Performances. Each of these were studied in workshops that assembled the leading scholarly voices in the field. Proceedings from the first workshop have been published in a book entitled "Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China" (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Another volume, Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China is in preparation.
The time period under investigation is from the Late-Warring States through the Eastern Han Period (4th century BCE to the 1st century CE). In the Mediterranean world, we were aiming at an equivalent from the late Archaic period to the early Roman empire (6th century BCE to the 1st century CE).
2020 Workshop: Performance
Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
October 15-16, Online
The third Global Antiquities concludes the series with the cluster of Performance. The workshop will feature presentations on ancient Greek, Roman, and Chinese performances conducted in places such as tombs, palaces and temples, but also those involving more spaces of production, for instance, agricultural fields or a capital city’s hydrological network. Given the close connection between place and performance, attendees from the 2017 workshop will be invited back for short reflections.
2017 Workshop: Places
Place and Political Culture in ancient Greece, Rome, and China
October 25-27, McGill University, Thomson House, and The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The second workshop in the series is dedicated to the cluster of Places. Contributions will be grouped in four thematic rubrics: places of power, including the comparative analysis of palatial centres and monumental expressions of state authority; places of public, everyday interaction, with a discursive analysis of concepts of public and publicity; the ontology of place and the impact of the local; and places of memory.
2014 Workshop: People
Citizens and Commoners in ancient Greece, Rome, and China
October 22-24, McGill University, Thomson House, and The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The first workshop in the series was dedicated to the cluster of People. We explored the following key themes: the people as a citizen body and institution; their participation in political life of the community; the collective identity of people and their conceived ethnic origins; people and gender; elites vs. commoners; the public discourse; the public discourse on the people and rhetoric as well as free speech.
Outreach Lectures
2022
Professor Michael Gomez, NYU
“The Concept of ‘Race’ and Medieval Africa
2019
Professor Lynn Meskell, Stanford University
Engineering Internationalism: Colonialism, The Cold War and UNESCO’s Victory in Nubia
2018
Professor Kimberly Bowes, University of Pennsylvania
The Roman 90%: Poor People in the Roman World
View Gallery
2017
Professor Anthony Barbieri-Low, University of California Santa Barbara
Imagining the Tomb of the First Emperor of China
View Gallery
2016
Professor Irad Malkin, Tel Aviv
It's a Small World: Networks in Ancient Greece
View Gallery
2015
Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen, UCLA
China and the West - before the Silk Routes
View Gallery
2014
Professor Josiah Ober, Stanford
The Rise, Fall, and Immortality of Ancient Greece
View Gallery
Research Events
March 2018
Dr. Armin Selbitschka, Munich
Global Players? Revisiting the First Emperor's Acrobat Figurines
January 2018
Prof. Silvia Ferrara, Rome
The Invention of Writing
Co-sponsored with the Department of English
February 2017
Prof. Tamara Chin, Brown
Conceptual History and the Cosmopolitan
November 2016
Prof. Federico De Romanis, Rome
Aspects of ancient globalization: The Impact of Indo-Roman trade
Co-sponsored with the Italian Cultural Institute in Montreal
September 2016
Prof. Peter Fibiger Bang, Copenhagen
Rome: Universal Empire and the Challenge of World History
February 2016
Prof. Carlos Noreña, Berkeley
Provincial Spaces and Layered Monarchies in the Han and Roman Empires
View Gallery
October 2015
Prof. Kurt Raaflaub, Brown
Globalizing ancient political thought: Early Greece and China
February 2015
Prof. David Engels, Brussels
Parallel Lives? Caesar and Qin Shi Huang Di, Augustus and Han Gaozu
Reading Group
A reading group meets regularly to translate and discuss transmitted and excavated texts from Early China.