The improbable synthesis

The planned workshop poses the question about ‚synthesis’ as a practical historiographical challenge. Today there seems to be a paradoxical tension between the critique of master narratives on all levels on the one hand and the success of ‘big books’ on national, European and world history on the other. What are the organising principles, thematic choices and representational strategies in such works? What do they include or exclude? How do cultural repertoires and established models influence the individual author’s choices? We propose to tackle those questions not on a theoretical or normative level, but on a hands-on level. Hence we would like to bring together highly successful practitioners, who will discuss their experiences with organising syntheses in spatial, chronological, analytical and thematic terms.

Workshop report (PDF)