Working Groups

The Fighting Temeraine tugged to her last berth to be broken up (1839) by J.M.W. Turner, National Gallery, London

”Europe 1815-1914” is supported by three working groups, which meet at an annual or biannual basis serving as a space of reflection for the team through input by external experts in important fields of the research agenda. The work will result in edited volumes. The groups are:

Teleology and History: A Critical Assessment of an Enlightenment Thought

Organised by Henning Trüper, University of Zürich in cooperation with Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago and and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, University of California

The aim is to examine and critically confront teleological perspectives in history and the social sciences through a series of workshops, and to discuss why teleologies recur and how alternative philosophies of history and time in social theories may be explored.

Paradoxes of Peace in 19th Century Europe

Organised by Thomas Hippler, Université de Lyon and
Miloš Vec, Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Frankfurt/Main

The aim is to explore and highlight the contradictions and paradoxes in nineteenth-century discourses on peace. Rather than being opposites, war and peace do constitute each other, while constituting a normative order within the international realm.

Constitutions and the Legitimisation of Power

Organised by Kelly Grotke and Markus Prutsch, University of Helsinki, The Research Project Europe 1815-1914

This working group will study the power implications of constitutions. Rather than seeing constitutions as instrument of a linear development towards parliamentarism the working group will shed light on how constitutions were used for restoration and reactionary politics as well as for reform and revolution

Ordering the World in the Nineteenth Century: Beyond Realism and Idealism

organised by Thomas Hopkins University of Helsinki, The Research Project Europe 1815-1914

The aim of this working group is to offer a fresh perspective on the emergence of novel ways of thinking about the international order in nineteenth-century Europe, with a particular emphasis on investigating the discursive landscape of legal and political theory.

Property and Poverty: Perspectives on the Nineteenth-Century Social Question

organised by Thomas Hopkins University of Helsinki, The Research Project Europe 1815-1914

This working group will investigate the rise of the nineteenth-century ‘Social Question’ and its decisive impact on European political, social and economic thought.  The aim is to produce new perspectives on the conceptual dislocation produced by the transformative social changes of the age of industrialisation.