On the second day of 2017 GHC Summer School, two paper sessions and one discussion session were held. During the first session, Professor Alessandro Stanziani (EHESS) assumed the role of moderator. Reports on two different fields, East Asian intellectual history and public sphere discourse, were given. The first report, entitled “Imagining the Self with the Other’s Voice: Karl August Wittfogel and East Asia (1926-1945),” was presented by Zhou Yufei (Osaka University). The German-American sociologist Wittfogel was well-known worldwide as the author of Oriental Despotism and then for his fierce anti-communist campaigns. From the analysis of primary sources, Zhou’s report started by asking the question of why Wittfogel gained extraordinary attention in China and Japan before and during the Second World War. In addition, she presented details of personal connections between Wittfogel and East Asian intellectuals and the latter group’s translation, publishing, and recontextualization of Wittfogel’s works. Professor Sebastian Conrad asked how this case study should be placed in relation to other studies on the creation of the concept of “Asia” in both Japan and China since the early modern era. Participants from the floor discussed the possibility of global history that focuses on a micro level of history.

The second report of the first session was Susanne A. Schmidt (Humboldt University of Berlin)’s “The Midlife Crisis, Gender, and Social Sciences in the United States, 1970-90.” Based on various past studies in the fields of sociology, psychoanalysis, and gender studies, Schmidt traced the formation of and changes in the discourse of the “midlife crisis” in American society from the 1970s to 90s. She sought to elucidate the changes in the understanding of life cycles and lifestyles by those in American public sphere, including agents such as social scientists, physicians, social critics, journalists, and social activists. After this report, floor participants made many remarks on “midlife crisis” discourses as seen in societies outside of the U.S. They also discussed how this research can be placed in the context of global history.

During the afternoon session, two reports on modern Indian intellectual history were given. Assistant Professor Natasha Wheatley (Princeton University) served as the moderator. First, Yorim Spoelder (Free University of Berlin) presented a paper entitled “Staging the Nation beyond the Raj: Visions of Greater India, the Discourse of Civilization and Nationalist Imagination (1905-1964).” Based on obtained primary literature and focusing on the Greater India Society (founded in 1926) and regular contributors of its organ, Spoelder’s presentation gave an overall picture of the origin and setbacks of pan-Indian ideology. His report especially dealt with Tagore’s rich network of personal supporters and intellectuals in East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as the pan-Indian ideology espoused by Dutch and French Indologists. It sought to examine in detail how these influences had been incorporated in the discourses of Indian nationalism. During the Q&A time, in addition to confirming facts about modern Indian intellectual thought, participants discussed how the rise and fall of dramatic intellectual paradigm shifts in the first half of the twentieth century, such as historical sociology, the theory of evolution, Marxism, and geopolitics, influence discourses that are being studied.

Next, Disha Karnad Jani (Princeton University) gave a report entitled “‘A People Gets the Kind of Leader It Deserves’: M. N. Roy and The Problem of Freedom.” Using conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) proposed by Reinhart Koselleck as the analytic framework, Ms. Jani’s paper studied how “fascism,” a concept that arose amid Europe’s political conditions was reinterpreted in the Indian context in Roy’s The Problem of Freedom published in 1945. Floor participants observed that it was difficult to establish the theory of conceptual history from a single text. Finally, Professor Andrea Eckert raised the issue of legendarization of figures who devote themselves to transgressive social movements, including M. N. Roy.

For the final session, discussion was held on Professor Jeremy Adelman’s article “What Is Global History Now?” (Aeon, March 2, 2017). This article revisited the question of the course of global history research amid the rise of anti-globalization sentiments seen around the world, such as the Trump phenomenon in the U.S., the U.K. Brexit, and the emergence of the National Front in France. Professor Adelman observed that the writing of history known until now as global history is full of cognitive gaps between the researchers belonging to the elite class and the common people. He pointed out the problem that global history that seeks to “overcome eurocentrism” is nothing more than the reproduction of the discourse of privileged intellectuals in hegemonic English-speaking countries. Floor participants introduced examples of the current state of global history research and historical research of a single country in different countries. In addition, they raised practical challenges such as the difficulty of finding employment faced by young researchers who study interdisciplinary areas such as global history. Finally, Professor Masashi Haneda asserted that we should also behold global history told in cultural and social contexts outside English-speaking countries, suggesting diversities and possibilities in global history research. (Zhou Yufei)