Taking the city of Lisbon, Portugal as an example, this seminar will look into the constitutive role of European capitals for imperial expansion and of imperial expansion for the political, social, and cultural life in the urban space of a European capital. It will cover the entire time span from Portugal’s short “golden age” of discoveries and the Manueline style of architectural ornamentation it brought in the early 16th century through the myriad effects that the end of Portugal’s African empire in 1975 had and continues to have on Lisbon’s cityscape. While thus broadly conceived, the focus will clearly be on the imperial and post-imperial urban history of Lisbon since the late 19th century. In 1890, the so-called British ultimatum triggered a wave of colonialist fervor in the capital; in 1940, the Portuguese World Exhibition displayed the country’s and the capital’s imperial splendor and re-created the historical neighborhood of Belém; in 1975, as the empire crumbled, the docks of Lisbon witnessed the return of the soldiers from the colonial wars in Africa, and the airport received up to 7,000 Portuguese settlers fleeing Angola and Mozambique every single day; since then, the city has been marked by the presence of migrants from the former colonies and by the passing through of millions of tourists who admire the remnants of the imperial cityscape or attend nation-branding events like the Expo ’98 that clearly tap into, but reinterpret in line with current talk about globalization, Portugal’s imperial history. The seminar is offered partly as a study trip to Lisbon that will be open to 16 students from the MA Global History program. They are selected on the basis of a short application consisting of a CV and a letter of motivation. The deadline for application is January 14, 2018.

Work requirements: Active participation in all preparatory meetings, the study trip, and the wrap-up session; thorough preparation of two different group presentations that students will deliver in the course of the study trip; seminar paper of 4,000 words on an aspect of the seminar, possibly building on one of your presentations. close