European History in Global Context

This joint research project challenges two popular doctrines which have come up in cultural studies in the wake of two influential books: Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) and Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe (2000). Today, Said is seen as the founding-father of postcolonial studies, while Chakrabarty is considered to be one of its most eminent representatives. However, this project assumes that their approach to postcolonialism runs the risk of producing blurred results, especially with regard to the European impact on the design of the modern world.