Global Cultures of the Modern, 1750-1850

This research cluster brings together scholars from units across ASU whose work focuses on the period 1750-1850 to explore connections, convergences, and contradictions in our understanding of what it means to be modern. Even in our current post-modern (or post-post-modern) era, westerners still define themselves, their world, and the challenges they face in relationship to a concept of the modern which is based on the western experience from 1750 to 1850. In the west, this period marks the transition into the modern age.
While the western experience has often defined what it means to be modern, this research cluster seeks to rethink modernity by placing it within a global context. How can adopting a global perspective on the question of the modern help us think through what modernity is, and what it is not? How can it help us develop insights into the modern that can shed new light on how we think about the issues and problems we face today? What new research agendas might emerge from thinking globally about the modern?