Michael Goebel

@mgoebel.bsky.social

1139 Followers 494 Following

Historian at @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social Global urban history, histories of capitalism.

PROGRAM 2026 LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY IN NEW PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL CAPITALISM: ACTORS, CONCEPTS, AND PROBLEMS OF SCALE 10.04.2026 08.05.2026 05.06.2026 04.09.2026 02.10.2026 06.11.2026 04.12.2026 Sven Beckert (Harvard University): A Conversation with Sven Beckert: Capitalism in Latin American History Roy Hora (Universidad de San Andrés - Buenos Aires): Capitalism and Society in Argentina in the 19th and 20th Centuries Rossana Barragán (CIDES - UMSA - La Paz): The Empire of Work: History of the Social Production of Silver from Potosí for the World Pablo Pryluka (CUNY - New York): Markets, Consumers, and the Making of Developmental Capitalism in Postwar Latin America Constanza Castro (Universidad de los Andes - Bogotá): "En este puerto está el mundo". A Microhistory of Global Tobacco: Honda, Columbia, 1846 — 1880 Melissa Teixeira (University of Pennsylvania): "Tem que dar certo": Inflation and the Remaking of Brazilian Democracy John Tutino (Georgetown University): The Revolution that Remade Global
Gauging the Black Undercount: Race and Censuses in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires Michael Goebel, Freie Universität Berlin Abstract This article proposes a mixed-method approach to examine historical censuses with regard to race. It does so by exploring various kinds of demographic records from nineteenth-century Buenos Aires in order to test the conventional hypothesis of a significant census underenumeration of the city’s population of African descent. Starting from the overall progression of census results, the article is divided into three parts. The first of these deals with potential under-coverage, the second with the possibility of classificatory changes, and the third with vital statistics, largely derived from parish books. With special attention to two censuses of the 1850s, it concludes that Buenos Aires’s Afro-descendant population likely did suffer serious demographic decline between 1840 and 1890.
Nov 3: Romain Tiquet (Centre Marc Bloch) Thinking Through Cases: A Political and Social History of West Africa Through Psychiatric Records Nov 17: Matt Fitzpatrick (Flinders University) The Diplomacy of Colonial Cruelty: German Samoa and the Treatment of Chinese Labourers Nov 24: Dora Vargha (Humboldt Universität Berlin) Communist M*A*S*H: The Making of Socialist International in a North Korean Field Hospital Dec 1: Denis Cogneau (Paris School of Economics) joint event with the Frankreich-Zentrum Empire on the Cheap: An Economic History of French Colonialism, 1830–1962 Dec 8: Elise Dermineur Reuterswärd (Stockholm University) A History of the Moral Economy: Community, Institutions, and Social Norm Jan 12: Martin Hamre (Freie Universität Berlin) Fascists of the World, Unite? A History of Fascist Interna-tionalism in the 1930s Jan 19: Ned Richardson-Little (ZZF, Potsdam) The Mutating Menace: The Global Politics of Narcotics Trafficking in Germany, 1880 to the Present Feb 3: Brigitte Le Normand (Maastricht University) A Global History of Socialist Rijeka: How a Port Con-nected Yugoslavia to the World Feb 9: Laetitia Lenel (Universität Duisburg-Essen) Decline: On the Circulation of Narratives of Decline in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Politics
Contagion, Inevitability, and Teleology: Imperial Disintegration and Nation-State Formation in Global History. Michael Goebel, Freie Universität Berlin.
Catherine Davies, Bernard Keo, Adam Mestyan, Lauren Stokes, Stefanie Gänger, Dominique Reill, Heather Jones, Jennifer Altehenger, Sarah Bellows-Blakely, Abosede George, Quinn Slobodian
Joseph Prestel, Neu-Positionierungen: Stellungnahmen linker Studentengruppen zum palästinensisch-israelischen Konflikt in der Bundesrepublik und Frankreich, 1967-69
nspired by anthropological rather than sociological models, Italian microhistorians were drawn to idiosyncratic figures and phenomena rather than to ordinary people and consistent patterns. In an often quoted aphorism that remains as captivating as it is enigmatic, Grendi spoke of the need to focus on “the exceptional normal,” that is, on 3 Statements by Levi (1991, 91, 111), Ginzburg (1993, 34), Grendi (1994, 540), and Revel (1996a, 16) denying the existence of a microhistorical canon are confirmed by the plurality of themes and approaches explored by these very scholars and those whom they inspired. 4 Under Ginzburg and Levi’s editorship, twenty-three titles were published in the series “Microstorie,” including both original work by Italian scholars and translations of studies by foreign historians such as Natalie Zemon Davis and E.P. Thompson. extra-ordinary documents that – if subjected to the proper micro-analytical reading – could nonetheless illuminate broad trends.5 The emphasis here, as in Ginzburg’s notion of spie, or “clues” in English (1986), is on the encounter with primary sources that at first sight contain details that are incongruent with standard narratives. From an apparently exceptional document, a historian can extrapolate typical and relevant indicators, not just exceptional stories. Thus, the eccentric sixteenth-century Friulian miller Domenico Scandella, better known by his nickname, Menocchio, became the vehicle through which Ginzburg (1976) repudiated the rigid separation between elite and popular culture,
Ultimately it all comes down to Waukesha County
Ulrike Schneider Michael Goebel Avner Ofrath Joseph Prestel Miriam Hartlapp Anne Tomiche Fabien Théofilakis Simon Teune Quentin Deluermoz Anna Karla Camille Bloomfield Laude Ngadi Maissa Elisabeth Fritz Martina Thiele Thomas Wieder Dirk Fuhrig
Global History Colloquium Convened by Sebastian Conrad and Michael Goebel Winder 2024-25 Mondays 4-6pm Koserstr. 20 Nov 11 Iza Ding Northwestern University Nov 25 Nell Irvin Painter Princeton University Dec 9 Nikolaus Wachsmann Birkbeck College Jan 7 Quentin Deluermoz Université Paris Cité Jan 13 Elise Franklin University of Louisville Jan 30 Onur Edur Humboldt Feb 3 Sherene Seikaly University of California Santa Barbara