Historians of contemporary Europe(s) are more and more concerned with questions of how to decenter and how to write European histories in the 21st century (see e.g., Levsen/Requate 2020). For example, the (social) historian’s engagement with histories “from below” aims at diversifying narratives, and at the same time raises questions about methodology and sources. Amongst these approaches, histories of consumption and the consumer open up ways of ex-ploring the everyday, but also provide the possibility to combine political, economic and legal perspectives with social and cultural history (see e.g., van de Grift/van Zon/Conway/Leucht 2021; Brückweh/Villinger 2017). Nevertheless, the objects of consumption, the products, are often rather neglected in these endeavors. This is surprising, especially since histories of cer-tain (colonial) products like coffee, tea or wine already provide insights into their global jour-neys, careers and into the political as well as cultural dimensions of production and consump-tion. It is high time, then, to examine the possibilities (and limits) of approaching European contemporary histories departing from certain products.

To this end, the workshop seeks to explore the potentials of a product-based approach to Eu-ropean contemporary histories and brings together scholars from history and related disciplines with a diverse expertise in contemporary Europe. The participants will reflect upon the follow-ing, overarching questions:
- What is the place of products in the histories of Europe in the 20th and 21st century? How much attention could/should be ascribed to products and for what epistemologi-cal purpose?
- How would the narrative – or maybe even our knowledge of the past – change, if cer-tain products were put at the center of the investigation or used as “lens” through which one analyses contemporary European histories?
- What potentials does a product-centered approach have for contemporary histories of “Europe” as well as of European integration?
- Which insights might come to light if one were to investigate the product-life-phases of production, trade, consumption and disposal? In what way(s) could an emphasis on agents involved in production, trade and consumption inform and potentially broaden the historical narrative?

The workshop takes place in person at the Center for Advanced Studies (CAS), LMU Munich, Seestraße 13, 80802 Munich from February 19 to 20, 2024.

To participate, please register via info@cas.lmu.de.