The aim of this project is to revise the history of transnational encounters among intellectuals by examining these interactions through the interconnected lenses of European, Middle Eastern, and Asian intellectuals and their networks. These networks, often established during early periods of study abroad, proved remarkably durable over the decades. While a wealth of existing research has already illuminated facets of these encounters these studies often focus on individual dyadic exchanges, such as those between European and Japanese intellectuals or European and Muslim thinkers, primarily within the tumultuous era of the world wars and the interwar period. Furthermore, the transnational scope of intellectuals displaced or compelled to relocate during the early decades of the 20th century has been astutely examined.
However, what is conspicuously absent in the existing literature is a uniZied analytical perspective that considers all three groups—European, Middle Eastern, and Asian intellectuals—in their various interactions.The sustained intellectual exchanges between these groups, as identified through previous collaborations among the project’s participants, reveal an intricate web of connections. These networks often originated in key intellectual hubs such as Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, London, New York, Shanghai, Paris, and Tokyo—a city whose global significance during the prewar era has been regrettably overlooked—as well as colonial metropolises like Singapore. This project will not only take a bold transnational approach but also adopts a trans-war perspective, consciously transcending the traditional historiographical “watersheds” of 1918/19 and 1945, and a trans-imperial lens.
Furthermore, the collapse of empires—such as the Russian Tsarist and Ottoman Empires—provided a critical backdrop to the transnational encounters of intellectuals and the formation of their networks. Simultaneously, the ongoing contestation of still-existing empires—such as the British Empire, with its perennial challenges in India, and the Japanese Empire, marked by pivotal moments such as the Korean independence movement and the May Fourth Movement in China in 1919—served as fertile ground for these intellectual entanglements.
The aim of this project is to explore a comprehensive framework for a global history of such transnational encounters by discussing carefully crafted case studies in two academic events in collaboration with KU Leuven.
