11.01.2021

New English translation of EGO article "Mediterraneum" by Manuel Borutta

On European History Online (EGO) a new translation has been published under the editorship of the IEG: "Mediterraneum" by Manuel Borutta. The article is now available in both German and English.
The Mediterranean region is a contact zone between Africa, Asia, and Europe – a "fluid continent" (Gabriel Audisio), where religious and cultural, political and demographic boundaries have shifted several times in different directions since antiquity.

The region can therefore be understood as a laboratory of globalization, in which "European" and "non-European" elements collided and mixed even before 1492. At the same time, transcultural encounters here produced essentialist concepts of cultural space, Eurocentric and postcolonial master narratives that dichotomized the Occident and the Orient. Europe's borders have thus simultaneously become more fluid and more fixed in the Mediterranean region. For this reason, the region is particularly well suited for taking a transcultural perspective on modern Europe (1450–1950).

Credits: Nicolas Sanson (1600–1667): The Mediterranean Sea Divided Into The Eastern and Western Seas, Subdivided Into Its Principal Parts or Seas. Map, 17. century; image source: Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/item/99466740/, Geography and Map Division, public domain.