13314

WiSe 23/24: Borders. Concepts, Perceptions, and Experiences in Global History

Franziska Exeler

Kommentar

This seminar investigates concepts, perceptions, and experiences of borders. It interrogates historically different meanings of borders and their shifting functions, examines the main historiographical debates about “frontiers” and “borderlands,” and assesses the impact that shifting border regimes had on the lives of people. Chronologically, the focus is on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thereby tracing the global development toward territorial state formation. Geographically, the seminar draws from different examples around the globe, empires and nation-states alike. Analytically, equal attention will be paid to macro and micro levels, from the level of states down to communities and individuals on whom border regimes made themselves felt – and who in turn contested, supported or undermined them. Themes to explore include: Migration, mobility and (non)permeability of borders; debates about borders vs. boundaries vs. borderlands; power, cartography & the political imaginary; the invention of passports, international law and the problem of statelessness; and the relationship between center, periphery and borderlands. As part of the course (and if possible), students will visit one of the two following museums or memorials in Berlin that are important historical sites relating to the history of the border between East and West Germany: the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse and the Marienfelde Refugee Center Museum that is dedicated to the history of inner-German flight and emigration in divided Germany. The purpose of these visits is to explore the connection between public history and academic discussions, to examine how the history of the German-German border and the movement of people are represented at these sites, and to analyze how the historical sites are incorporated into the exhibitions. Alternatively, students are invited to undertake their own field research by uncovering (with the help of photography) the visual traces that the Wall has left in the urban landscape of Berlin. Schließen