15past15 Podcast Series

S02E02 Simon Teuscher explores the thematic relevance of ‘wealth’ as a topic of study for historians, focusing in particular on some of the surprising continuities between wealth management in the medieval and modern worlds. Interviewed by Birgit Tremml-Werner and Martin Dusinberre; produced by Dario Willi.

S02E01 Martin Dusinberre offers an overview of season 2 of 15past15, a season which was planned and recorded in very different circumstances to those of the global Covid-19 crisis. What might the theme of wealth and the writing of history bring to our current understandings of a transformed world?

S01E15 Bettina Zorn explains how objects of entangled histories illustrate Chinese and Japanese pasts in the East Asia collection of the Weltmuseum Wien. Interviewed by Birgit Tremml-Werner.

S01E14 Martin Dusinberre examines both the importance of the Pacific Ocean in modern Japanese history and the challenges that come from trying to write the "Pacific Age". Interviewed by Joachim Kurtz and Birgit Tremml Werner.

S01E13 Barbara Mittler introduces the Chinese scholar Hu Shi's conception of a Chinese renaissance in the early twentieth century and its implications for the writing of global history. Interviewed by Joachim Kurtz and Birgit Tremml Werner.

S01E12 Pablo Blitstein discusses the methodological challenges that arise from studying "the Renaissance" in world history. Interviewed by Birgit Tremml Werner and Martin Dusinberre.

S01E11 Lorenzo Andolfatto shows how societal transformations in late-nineteenth century China were reflected in the utopian popular literature. Interviewed by Martin Dusinberre and Birgit Tremml Werner.

S01E10 Joan Judge traces the shifting repertoire of exemplary models for women as Qing China struggled with national reform and historical time on the eve of the 1911 Revolution. Interviewed by Martin Dusinberre.

S01E09 Jonathan Chappell explains how the historical reference points for Qing empire officials changed across the nineteenth century, especially with regard to the management of China's borderlands. Interviewed by Martin Dusinberre.

S01E08 Henrietta Harrison examines how Lord Macartney's mission to Qing China in 1793 has been archivally framed in the West and in China, leading to the idea that Chinese international relations particularly prioritised ritual and tribute.

S01E07 Birgit Tremml Werner introduces Yamada Nagamasa (1590-1630), whom some scholars called the "Columbus of Japan" in the 1940s-a label, she argues, which tells us as much about twentieth-century as seventeenth-century history. Interviewed by Joachim Kurtz and Martin Dusinberre.

S01E06 Lisa Yoshikawa illustrates how academic historians in modern Japan used the professionalisation of studying and writing about the past to establish politically opportune narratives for a modern imperial state. Interviewed by Birgit Tremml Werner and Martin Dusinberre.

S01E05 Stefan Tanaka suggests that Japanese intellectuals "discovered" Japan's past in the mid-nineteenth century, both by reconsidering China's place in the world and by thinking about time in new ways. Interviewed by Martin Dusinberre and Birgit Tremml Werner.

S01E04 David Mervart traces the entanglements of foreign trade and book collecting in so-called "closed Japan", and the ways that Japanese translators came to conceive of-and embody-the republic of letters. Interview: Martin Dusinberre and Birgit Tremml Werner

S01E03 Leigh Jenco considers what debates about the history of Taiwan in seventeenth-century China bring to our theoretical understanding of imperialism. Interviewed by Martin Dusinberre and Birgit Tremml Werner.

S01E02 Joachim Kurtz discusses the changing ways in which Confucius has been understood in the last five hundred years—from “philosopher” to “Chinese” sage whose teachings are incompatible with Western modernity. Interviewed by Martin Dusinberre.

S01E01 15past15 is a new podcast which discusses how the past is made, and by whom. Its first season focuses on history and history-writing in East Asia, from the sixteenth century to today. Interviewees debate Confucius’s comeback, the Chinese Renaissance, the Eurasian Republic of Letters, the Columbus of Japan, the methodologies and writing of global history, and much more—all in a fifteen-minute format (more or less). Interviews will be released weekly.