he Global History Collaborative (GHC) Students Workshop was held from April 5 to 7, 2016, at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris.

The workshop was undertaken by some graduate students who participated in the First GHC Summer School at Tokyo University in September last year. While attending the summer school, they found a common theme around the topics of global history. Thereafter, they decided to write collaborative articles and put them together as a dossier for the Atelier du Centre de recherches historiques. The workshop was organized by students from EHESS. Students from the GHC hubs at the University of Tokyo, Princeton University, and Freie Universität Berlin, took part in the workshop. Before the workshop, participants used Google Hangout and Skype in order to work together. Before the workshop began, all participants carefully read the draft paper, which had been submitted beforehand, and also prepared comments.

The first morning was for group meetings and preparation. The afternoon session began with opening remarks by Professor Silvia Sebastiani (EHESS) and an introduction to the workshop by Gabriela Goldin Marcovich (EHESS). Then three groups gave their presentations. Professor Silvia Sebastiani and Professor Zuniga Jean-Paul (EHESS) acted as commentators.

The first presentation was by Fabian Krautwald (Berlin), Thomas Lindner (Berlin), and Sakiko Nakao (EHESS) on the topic of Fighting Marginality. They used case studies of West African Pan-Africanists, Latin American anti-imperialists, and German colonialists, to discuss the Global Moment of 1917-19 and the Re-Imagination of Belonging. Questions from the floor were primarily centered on the relation between case studies and global moment, treating the Mexican Revolution as a secondary issue and the definition of marginal.

The next presentation, by Andrew David Edwards (Princeton), Fabian Steinberg (Berlin), and Andrea Giorgio Tosato (EHESS), was entitled “Reinterpreting Early Modernity: The Era of Chinese Global Hegemony.” The huge demand in China for silver in the early modern period was addressed in the first chapter. After a discussion on the debate over the nature of money and foreign trade in England, Steuart and the Bengal Democide, and Ottoman Money and Sovereignty, the speakers presented global history from the monetary perspective in the last chapter. There were questions on how China used the large amounts of silver, the relationship between the silver circulation network and hegemony, as well as recognition of the silver trade network by scholars in Qing China.

This was followed by a video presentation by Jiyoon Kim (Tokyo) and Marcia Schenck (Princeton). They took the novel conversation form to discuss global lives in global history, employing the cases of South Korean overseas travelers and Angolan and Mozambican laborers in East Germany during the Cold War. By asking questions about the study of “global mobile lives” in the form of collective biography, life history, and travel writing, they contributed to world history from a microhistorical perspective, which might be called “global microhistory.” The general discussion and suggestions were focused on questions about the feasibility of this dialogue style, the proportion of methodology and wiring, directly tackling common themes such as global cold war and the chronological problem.

On the second day, the ideas of two groups were discussed. Professor Silvia Sebastiani, Professor Étienne de la Vaissièr and Professor Jean Frédéric Schaub attended the morning session.

Mandkhai Lkhagvasuren (Tokyo) and Yongchao Cheng (Tokyo) gave a presentation on how to interpret the history of East Asia from the 13^th century to the 18^th century from the perspective of global history. This duo struggled to agree on a topic that would enable contribution from both participants. The disagreement stemmed from the duo’s different geographical and periodical specializations. Although some possible common grounds were suggested, writing separate papers with a common framework or introduction was thought to be more advisable. For Mandkhai, reinterpreting the 13^th and 14^th centuries from the connections and entanglements, which resonate with the global history approach, is a good direction. It was suggested that Yongchao continue re-deciphering resistance/negativity from a global historical perspective. The professors also pointed out future problems such as stepping out of the time frame of the papers in different ways in terms of geography as well as time frame.

Gabriela Goldin Marcovich (EHESS) and Emily Kern (Princeton) gave the last presentation, entitled “The Geopolitics of Paleontology in Wartime: Global History on the Small Scale, 1941-1946”. This draft explored the disruption and reconstitution of systems of international exchange in East Asian human paleontology during the massive geopolitical disjuncture during World War II. Since this draft was mainly written by Emily, the discussion focused on how could Gabriela be a co-author as well as further development of the idea.

This was followed by a roundtable on presentations. Participants summarized discussion points and possible future directions. They reached a consensus on continuing the criticism of Eurocentrism, joint research that needs to deepen the discussion as well as go beyond area studies, and the word “global,” which does not mean the whole world. In the afternoon, they collated notes from the workshop and drew up the minutes of each session.

On the third day, Zuniga Jean-Paul, the editor of Atelier du Centre de recherches historiques, gave a speech on the layout, procedures and schedule of article submission. Participants then presented several proposals on the name of the dossier. “Experiments in Global History-a collaborative approach” was decided upon by a final vote.

The three-day workshop was marked by intense discussion, giving a clear impression that the graduate students from the four GHC hubs had forged a connection. Given that the participants are from different universities and different cultural backgrounds, the co-authoring itself is a global phenomenon. The collaborative workshop was an experimental endeavor, which not only helped us discover the advantages and limitations of joint research, but one that will also be a challenge to the traditional global history research method.

(CHENG Yongchao)