Turning to Another Possible Medieval Millennium

Once we've performed the "global turn," which direction should we be looking?Unlike, for example, the "material," "linguistic," or "gender" turns, the "global" doesn't come with a proposed empirical focus, mode of analysis, or epistemological-methodological worldview.Scholars might propose any number of focuses, perspectives, and methodologies, but the global turn doesn't arrive with any as such-hence the many publications, conferences, and projects seeking to "define," "frame," and move "towards" a "global" [insert historiographical keyword here]. 1 The reason for this lack of specific approach, focus, or methodology is straightforward: the global turn is an almost one-to-one reflection of our own historical moment.The last three decades since the end of the Cold War have witnessed an inflection point in planetary space-time compression, the processes of political and economic integration, and the concomitant increase in connectivity and mobility, referred to as "globalization."While the high watermark of the "End of History" has receded since the financial crash of 2008 and subsequent political developments, these processes have themselves compounded the other fundament of our historical moment: the end of Euro-American hegemony, or at least the certainty of it, and the rise of political and economic "multipolarity," even potentially a new planetary hegemon in the shape of the People's Republic of China.The global turn is, then, the sometimes conscious, sometimes subconsciously channeled historiographical reflection of this moment's unprecedented planetary interconnection and communicative immediacy on the one hand, and the epochal unanchoring of political and economic gravity from "the West" on the other.The global turn isn't unique in forming a historiographical reflection of wider developments in its historical moment: the gender turn formed the academic echo of the Women's and LGBTQ+ liberation movements, the cultural turn emerged from the concerns of the New Left in concert with neoliberal de-industrialization and offshoring, and intersected with linguistic and narrative turns that tracked an emerging "post" modernity.But the global turn's unique lack of specification in material, analysis, and worldview makes 1. See most relevantly here: