Revolutions in the Atlantic World
(1750-1840)

26-29 August 2025
Hosted by Professor Pedro Cardim
Casa de Retiros in Praia Grande, Portugal

With the 250th anniversary of the American War of Independence looming large, it is time for the Summer Academy of Atlantic History to dedicate this edition to the topic of Revolutions in the Atlantic World.
When in 1959 Robert R. Palmer and Jacques Godechot (1965) developed the interpretive frame of an “Age of Democratic Revolution”, or “Atlantic Revolution” respectively, they suggested that the direction of historical change in the period from 1750 to 1850 was that of a uniform and unilinear movement from monarchy and feudalism to constitutionalism, natural rights liberalism, democracy and modernity.
In the last decades, this narrative has been challenged by scholars such as Willem Klooster, David Armitage, Sanjay Subrahmanyam and others, by the imperial turn or studies on loyalism, (forced) migrations and slavery in the Age of Revolution. While the Age of Revolution continues to be discussed as a “pivotal moment in the emergence of a particularly modern world” (Armitage and Subrahmanyam 2010, p. xii), it no longer appears as an age unified by a single and unilinear push towards freedom, democracy, and the nation-state.
This raises the question of what the Age of Revolution was about. Can we still speak of an Age of Atlantic Revolutions? And if so, how should we now define it? Where are its temporal and spatial boundaries and which concepts and developments hold it together, despite all specificities in terms of actors, concepts, and processes?
Against the background of changing/new paradigms in the history of Atlantic Revolutions, we conceive of “Revolutions in the Atlantic World” in a broad spatial perspective which could, e.g., also include PhD projects on revolutions in the Andes region or revolutions outside the Atlantic World impacting the latter. We want to look into the following aspects:

- The actors: colonial authorities, colonists, Africans, African-descendants, Native Americans, Atlantic Creoles.
- Transcultural Entanglements/Cultural and political transfer and the usages of other Atlantic Revolutions.
- Mobility and exile in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions.
- Patriotism, loyalism and indifference.
- Nations, nation-building and empire.
- Economies in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions.
- The History of Emotions: Love, Fear, Anger, Resentment,
Hopes and Disappointments in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions.

For the 9th Summer Academy of Atlantic History, we invite applications from PhD students working on the history of the Atlantic World between the fifteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. While all projects pertaining to Atlantic History will be considered, we are particularly interested in applications on this year’s theme.
As well as providing the selected students with an opportunity to present papers and engage in discussion with tutors and their fellow students on their research, the Summer Academy will also host keynote speakers who will address broad themes appertaining to Atlantic History.
Prospective student participants should send a CV and a summary (3-4 pages altogether) of their research projects to lauric.henneton@gmail.com and susanne.lachenicht@uni-bayreuth.de by 31 August 2024.
Successful applicants will be notified by 30 September 2024.

For more information go to:
https://www.fruehe-neuzeit.uni-bayreuth.de/de/tagungen-workshops/Summer-Academy-of-Atlantic-History/index.html

Organizers and steering committee:
This will be our first summer academy without or founding member and great colleague Professor Trevor Burnard who passed away on 19 July 2024. We will miss this eminent scholar greatly, his impressive expertise, his generosity and hospitality, his ability to bring together scholars from around the globe, to research and discuss Atlantic History. We want to dedicate our 9th Summer Academy of Atlantic History to Professor Trevor Burnard.
- Prof Nicholas Canny (NUI Galway, Ireland)
- Prof Pedro Cardim (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
- Dr Lauric Henneton (Univ. Versailles-Saint-Quentin, France)
- Prof Willem Klooster (Clark University)
- Prof Susanne Lachenicht (Univ. Bayreuth, Germany)
- Prof L.H. Roper (SUNY New Paltz, USA)
- Prof Bartolomé Yun Casalilla (UPO, Seville, Spain)