Presentation

The PhD programme in Global Histories, Cultures, and Politics promotes research activities on the global dimension of socio-historical phenomena. The "global" is not understood here as a mere adoption of an enlarged geographical scale, but as an epistemological device that orients the study of the present and the past. Globalisation is a set of processes shaped by political, social, and economic forces within an interplay between transnational and local dimensions. Therefore, studying such processes requires a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach capable of shedding light on their complexity.

History, Area Studies, Oriental Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Geography, Political Theory, and the History of Political Concepts represent the main disciplinary axes of the PhD which aims at analysing both spaces and socio-historical phenomena traversed by transnational flows of people, ideas, and goods. In this framework, specific attention is paid to non-Eurocentric perspectives of thought that allow us to grasp the limits of Western grand narratives and to valorise approaches from the debate of cultural studies, postcolonial studies, feminist political theory, and gender studies. 

The training and research activities of the PhD programme are characterised by:

• the redefinition of the spatial arrangements of the humanities and socio-political sciences 

• the study of phenomena related to intercultural contact/conflict 

• the analysis of the genesis and transformation of political, social, and cultural phenomena from a global perspective

• the affirmation and critique of rights in connection with the redefinition of subjectivities and identity-building processes

• a rethinking and renewal of specific disciplinary traditions and their analytical categories to develop innovative conceptual and methodological perspectives

• the adoption of a multilinear, non-progressive, and non-cumulative conception of temporality

• the interweaving of different scales of analysis, combined with the use of comparative and transnational methodologies

• an emphasis on the interplay between the conceptual and empirical dimensions of historical, philological, social, geographical, and anthropological research

• a focus on the relationship between technological development and environmental issues.