About
Welcome to the Center for Transimperial History [CTH]
What is ‘Transimperial History’(TIH)?
‘Transimperial History (TIH) is an emerging field of research that examines the histories of modern empires and the resistances they provoked, as well as the enduring impacts of both on the contemporary world. Although it considers multiple empires within a single analytical framework, its purpose is not to produce comparative histories. Instead, TIH investigates how imperial agents and their opponents engaged in acts of comparison amid complex relations of cooperation and competition. By exploring cross-border circulations of ideas, policies, people, and material objects, it highlights historical moments in which relations of mutual influence and interaction unfolded across distinct colonial contexts situated within different empires.
Aims
The aims of CTH include:
- promote research on TIH
- connect institutions and scholars across the globe
- provide a supportive environment for graduate and postdoctoral students
History
Center for Transimperial History (CTH) evolved out of its precursor, ‘Studies in Trans-Imperial Histories’ (STIH), a research forum which existed between 2016 and 2022. STIH was part of a collaborative research project, ‘Colonialism and anti-colonialism as seen from the perspective of transimperial relationality: the historical structures of comparison, collaboration, co-existence, and movement’, which was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), Project Number 16H03501). On 1 May 2022, STIH was superseded by CTH, which started as one of the official research centers of Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. Between 2022 and 2026, CTH will be run in conjunction with a JSPS grant project, ‘The theory and practice of trans-imperial history: towards an open-ended framework of research’ (JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)’, Project Number 22H00690).
