Transnational Television History: A Comparative Approach

‘Going transnational’ is in. While some interpret this latest ‘turn’ in the intricate path of historiography as a challenge to older historiographic traditions like world or international history, others see it as a new paradigm, superseding the national perspective as the founding frame of reference for a ‘modern’ scientific production of history. In any case the vivid discussion of what transnational history is, or should be, witnesses an ongoing interest in and recognition of the importance of the historical phenomena and processes that lie beyond the explanatory framework of the nation-state.1 One of the most interesting phenomena in this discussion is not the careful handling of the term as the latest buzzword of the scientific circus by most historians (which might have to do with the ‘déformation professionelle’ to historicize the seemingly new and revolutionary), but the manifest theoretical engagement of historians in this debate. History as an academic discipline has often been accused of being hostile to abstract theoretical speculations and most of the latest turns in historiography can clearly be identified as belated theoretical importations from other disciplines.2 The debate on transnational history is exceptional in this respect, as the theoretical reflections predate – at least to a large degree – the practice of historical research and writing. As the Korean historian Young-sun Hong, Associate Professor of German History at the State University of New York, stated in her essay on the challenge of transnational history, ‘the call for the transnationalization of national histories has been eagerly taken up by many in the past few years, but done successfully by very few’ (online).