L’Orientale strengthens its European research profile with the success of Federico Brusadelli, winner of an ERC Consolidator Grant for the five-year project SINOSELF: A History of Self-determination across the Sinosphere: Genealogies, Narratives, and the Geopolitics of a Concept.
Brusadelli, Assistant Professor of Chinese History and Global History of East Asia, will investigate how the concept of self-determination has evolved within the Chinese-speaking world and along its maritime borders, from the 1920s to contemporary global China. The project focuses on four key sites – Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei and Naha (Okinawa) – shaped by different historical and political forces, from nationalism to democratization movements.
The team led by Brusadelli will work on a wide range of primary sources, analysing and contextualizing them to map the discursive and material networks that supported the circulation of political ideas throughout the Sinosphere. The project aims to expand the methodological tools of conceptual history, using the “geopolitics of concepts” to highlight interactions, tensions and geopolitical implications in the various narratives of self-determination.
Through this achievement, L’Orientale confirms its leading role in the study of Asian histories and cultures and its strong participation in European excellence programmes.