The Global History Seminar Series LAUGH presents Liam Benison, University of Verona: ‘HealingUtopia’: Toward a Prescription for a Prosocial Change The COVID-19 pandemic showed how politics can derail evidence-based health policy, and experts recommend the promotion of prosociality (‘voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another’) to address this problem in the future. Similar challenges were faced in Europe during the first global age (c. 1492–1750) when, for example, merchants opposed Italian health boards’ mandates to manage the plague. Inspired by accounts of peoples in the Americas and the burgeoning Renaissance sciences of health and anatomy, utopian writers reflected on the conflict between individual freedom and prosociality to envision models of a healthy society. I define utopianism as a method of sociopolitical analysis that provokes reflection on social problems and proposes ideas and models for prosocial change. The aim of this paper is to present the outlines of a new research project, ‘HealingUtopia’, which will investigate the meaning of health in utopianism with an ambition to impact present day health policy debates.

Interest in broadening the historical perspective beyond national borders has grown since the early 1990s. Several researchers have spoken of a “world historical turn” or a “transnational trend”. The shift in perspective can be encompassed by concepts such as global history, world history, transnational history, comparative history, histoire croisée and entangled history. With this seminar we want to highlight ongoing research in the field and discuss the relationship between theory and empiricism and how these perspectives affect our view of the past.

We welcome all interested parties, students and researchers alike.

The seminars are typically held both in person and on Zoom. Contact Cecilia Lundström for Zoom link.

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