Detail of The Qianlong Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour (1770), Xu Yang. Mactaggart Art Collection. Reproduced with permission of University of Alberta Museums and Collections Services.
A University of Alberta researcher says that when it comes to understanding globalization, we need a grasp on our past to get a grip on the present. "In today's culture we tend to think about globalization as something new, something radically different," says Katherine Binhammer , professor of English and film studies. "We have this discourse that if only we can bring free trade to every developing nation, they will be free, have happier lives, have a better standard of living—but is that the case?" It's a question that affects people everywhere, from stock traders in New York to war-afflicted orphans in Sierra Leone. And as Binhammer points out, it's a question societies have been grappling with for a long time. "We see in the 18th century the dialectic of that utopian vision of global freedom, human rights and profit for all—and the other vision, the darker vision that recognizes that our search for profit, in a global framework, means selling humans. So my suggestion would be, then, how might we think about the present moment, so that we're not all jumping into that utopian vision?" This is partly why Binhammer teamed up with others, including the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, to bring scholars from around the world to Edmonton. During a three-day conference entitled Crossings: The Cultures of Global Exchange in the Eighteenth Century , they are looking to the past to help societies deal with the present and future.
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