Thomas BOOGAART

Biography

 

Biographic Profile

For world historians, globalization presents both an opportunity and a dilemma. Most accounts of world history remain rooted in a study of empires, nation states, GDP and other relict concepts that reflect older geopolitical realities. My interests lie in exploring how transnational forces are reshaping the economy, state, international institutions, global culture and the human consciousness while fundamentally altering the underlying physics of history.  During the long twentieth century from 1870-present, the world system originally put together by competing Western empires during the late nineteenth century is giving way to a more complexly integrated and cosmopolitan system where states, TNCs, Non-Governmental Organizations, international bankers, global syndicates, sub-national movements, the global poor and fragile ecosystems are intimately interwoven inside a planetary civilization that is petroleum addicted, technology dependent, financially unstable and ecologically destructive.  

 

Publications

• ‘The Humanities and Sustainable Universities: Greening the Modern Curriculum,’ Journal for Humanities Education 10 (2014): 49-61.
• An Ethnogeography of Late Medieval Bruges: Evolution of the Corporate Milieu, 1280-1349. London: Edwin Mellen, 2004.
• ‘Reflections on the Moerlemaye: Revolt and Reform in Late Medieval Bruges,’ Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 79(4) (2002): 1133-1158.
• ‘The Power of Place: From Semiotics to Ethnogeography,’ Midstates Geographer 34 (2001): 38-47.
• “Our Savior’s Blood: Procession and Community in Late Medieval Bruges”, in Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken (eds.), Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, pp. 69-116. Amsterdam: Rodophi, 2000.