Introduction: CLIOHRES and Gender as a Transversal Theme

The essay introduces the results of the 4th year's work in CLIOHRES, a network of excellence sponsored for five years by the European Commission with the proclaimed task of ‘Creating Links and Innovative Overviews’. In the language of the project description: they explore the possibilities of “a New History Research Agenda for the Citizens of a Growing Europe”. From 2005 until 2010 over 180 scholars have explored what it means to do historical research in an era when traditional national boundaries of historiography are rapidly eroding. The essay aims at presenting the concept and developing of the discussion at the basis of this volume. The participants in the network cross lines of generation, specialisation and national tradition in doing history. In this volume they show how they have also crossed lines of gender. The Network was namely asked to address the political and the scholarly aspects of gender in interaction: as a topic or a methodology for scholarly research, and as a code word for political and social commitment to gender equality. In that double sense gender histories resemble national histories, located at the crossroads of knowledge production and nationalism. The volume is modest in that it does not aspire to go beyond the wealth of historical research conducted in the field of gender history, however, we think that the volume will help scholars through- out Europe who are not very familiar with gender research to get an impression of the richness and diversity of ways to include gender as a topic in one’s research.