Eighth European Congress on World and Global History 2025 “Critical Global Histories: Methodological Reflections and Thematic Expansions”

Taking place on September 10-12, 2025, at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden, the Eight European Congress on World and Global History invites participants to explore new avenues in global history.

At the congress 400 speakers from diverse disciplinary and national contexts who are organized in more than 80 panels will share their thoughts on how dominating meta-narratives in global history can be overcome by integrating a broader and more diverse range of voices and perspectives. In doing so, they will take stock of the thematical and theoretical expansions global history as a field has undergone in the past decades as well use the opportunity to critically self-reflect and to discuss methodological and thematic innovations.

Panels and Roundtables are organized in 11 congress themes:

• Temporalities and periodizations in global history
• Ethical aspects of doing global history
• Expanding the global archive
• Multivocality in global history
• Global history and decoloniality
• Transdisciplinary approaches
• Indigenous perspectives and methodologies
• Challenging modernity from the perspective of global history
• National history, nationalist backlash, and identity politics
• Global environmental history
• Nordic colonialism

A series of special events throughout the congress are equally dedicated to furthering critical reflection, diversity and inclusivity in global history. First and foremost among them the two keynote lectures by Laura de Mello e Souza and Fe/derico Navarrete. Fe/derico Navarrete explores “Cosmohistories, the multiplicity of worlds and their histories“ and presents cosmohistory as a concept that overcomes unilinear, Eurocentric and teleological perspectives on world histories by investigating historical communities as coexisting and colliding entities that refuse to conform to simplistic and homogenizing narratives. In her lecture on “Provisional Forms of Existence in Portuguese America – 16th-18th Centuries“ Laure de Mello e Souza showcases how the blended knowledge of indigenous, African, and Portuguese actors shaped present-day Brazil. Both keynotes, therefore highlight the multivocality and diversity but also the interdependency of diverse communities in history. The Plenary Session “Nordic Colonialism” convened by Janne Lahti equally seeks to overcome notions of exceptionalism and isolationist narratives by showing how the Nordic countries were involved in and connected to global colonial history. Bringing these various strands of academic interests together the Closing Roundtable on “Publishing Global History” organized by Birgit Tremml-Werner and Daniel Laqua investigates how the publishing industry in Global History can become more inclusive both in terms of content as well as in terms of practicalities.