Tag Archives: Treaty of Versailles

CfP: The People’s Conference: The Transnational Legacies of 1919

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Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston (Ontario)
November 7-8 2019

Download bilingual CfP: Symposium 2019 – Call for paper (bilingual)

On the hundredth anniversary of the world changing Paris Peace Conference and of the Treaty of Versailles, the Department of History of the Royal Military College of Canada is hosting a conference to examine their impact on transnational and international movements and institutions. Most scholarship to date has focussed on what happened in Paris in 1919 from the perspective of the coming of the Second World War, and on the inability of the Treaty of Versailles and of the League of Nations to prevent a second global conflagration. Only recently has more attention been paid to the explosion of international and transnational institutions and organizations created in aftermath of 1919. The Paris Peace Conference was the first international conference to draw upon the input of individuals and private groups, while others met in parallel conferences to discuss what was happening or should be happening within the halls of Versailles. In that sense, Paris 1919 opened the door to popular participation in global treaty making that continues to this day.

The organizing committee solicits proposals for papers on the short and long term legacies that the Paris Peace Conference (1919) has had on international and transnational movements and institutions over the past century. Areas of study might include, but are not limited to:

• International, transnational, non-governmental organizations;
• Human Rights;
• Disarmament and Rules of Armed Conflict;
• Veterans’ Rehabilitation/Demobilization;
• Human migration (Refugees, Sanctuary);
• Peace (including peacekeeping and peace enforcement);
• Gender and international peace and security;
• Memory and memorials.

Preference will be given to historical studies highlighting new perspectives or new fields of study.
Proposals in French or English should include a 200 or 300 words abstract accompanied by a one-page CV.

Proposals should be emailed to symposium2019@rmc-cmr.ca no later than 30 November 2018.

For more information, please contact Dr. Kevin Brushett (kevin.brushett@rmc.ca), Dr. Marie-Michèle Doucet (marie-michele.doucet@rmc.ca) or Dr. Emanuele Sica (Emanuele.sica@rmc.ca).

CfP: Imperial Legacies of 1919

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CFP Deadline for Papers and Panels: December 31, 2018
Contact: imperial1919unt@gmail.com
Conference Date: April 19-20, 2019

Roundtable participant proposal deadline: 31 January 2019
Undergraduate Student Poster competition proposal deadline: 15 February 2019

Journalist and author Shrabani Basu will provide a distinguished lecture on Indian soldiers related to her recent work: For King and Another Country (2015). Prior to the conference, she will also host a screening of Victoria and Abdul, a film based on her book of the same name. Historian of the British Empire Dr. Susan Kingsley Kent will provide the keynote address. Her esteemed works include Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918-1931 (2009); The Women’s War of 1929: Gender and Violence in Colonial Nigeria (2011) and The Global Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 (2012).

Conference Description
The year 2019 is the perfect opportunity to analyze the global consequences of war and peace. That year marks the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles, which set the terms for peace after the First World War. Unfortunately, the meaning of “peace” was dictated largely by European Empires with limited visions for avoiding future conflict, not only in Europe but around the world. This conference will commemorate the 1919 centenary by hosting an international 2-day conference that explores the on-going legacies of war and imperialism.

Shifting our lens to colonial spaces and debates, “Imperial Legacies of 1919” explores the multiple and contending meanings of 1919. In South Asia, for example, the year 1919 was not known for international peace treaties but rather the 1919 Amritsar Massacre during which a British officer commanded troops to open fire on an unarmed crowd. This gave leading figures such as Mohandas Gandhi the moral imperative to fight against colonialism. At the same time, the year 1919 connotes important moments in anti-colonial revolutions in places like Ireland and Egypt. Meanwhile, strikes and labor activism intensified around the world in response to the Bolshevik revolution (1917) and the return of soldiers to the home front. Soldiers, veterans, and civilians coped with wartime traumas, postwar disabilities and demobilization well beyond 1919.

The terms of peace and creation of the League of Nations mandates led to the dismantling of the German, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. This meant redrawing international borders, including in the Near East, in what became known as the “Middle East” in the United States. Aerial warfare in the League of Nations mandates and during the Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919) targeted civilians with ongoing violence across the imperial world. Pan-Asian, Pan-African, Pan-Islamic and anti-colonial activists attempted to find alternative sources of unity to challenge European imperialism.

While the year 1919 holds an important place in world history, issues such as economic inequality, unstable border relations, religious and linguistic identities, veteran and civilian relations, gender inequality, and the long-term traumas of war remain harsh realities for people around the world. This conference will be a timely reflection on pressing global issues that link past and present.

Paper and Panel CFP (Deadline December 31, 2018): The conference organizers welcome individual paper or full panel submissions from junior and senior scholars at any stage of their academic career. We welcome proposals for both conventional 3-4 person panels and those that offer an unconventional approach to panel organization. Papers and panels may be on any region, theme, and topic related to “imperial legacies of 1919” but we especially welcome reflections on the following themes:

Borderlands, Labor, and Migration
Gendering War and Peace
War Psychology, Health, and Trauma
The League of Nations Mandate System
Crypto-Colonialism
Environment and Empire
Capitalism and Imperialism
Language and Identity
Anti-colonial and peace movements
Food, war, and empire
War Reporting, Media, and Memory

Those interested in presenting an individual paper should send a 250-word abstract and current CV by December 31, 2018 to imperial1919unt@gmail.com.

Prospective panels should send a 200-word panel abstract, 150 word abstracts for each paper, CVs for each panelist, and, if available, names of prospective chairs and commentators. Deadline: December 31, 2018.

Graduate Student Roundtable CFP (Deadline January 31, 2019):
We will also accept proposals for graduate students who would prefer to be considered for inclusion on one or more graduate student roundtable(s) on any time period or theme related to empire (Deadline January 15). We especially recommend this for MA students, pre-ABD PhD students, or PhD students who are exploring a new part of their research. Priority will be given to roundtable participants who engage with the themes of “identity and empire” or “war and empire.”

Graduate students who wish to be considered for the graduate student roundtable session should send a 100-200 word abstract for a 5-10 minute presentation that gives a general outline of what the scholar would like to contribute to a roundtable on war and empire. According to the AHA “The roundtable format—which can be used for the presentation of original research, work-in-progress, or discussion of professional concerns—offers short presentations, a fluid organization (not limited to the chair/presenter/commentator structure), and ample time for discussion with the audience. Roundtables foster a congenial exchange between audience and discussants.”

Graduate Student Ambassador: Kevin Broucke, UNT History, Military History Center Fellow

Undergraduate Poster Prize (Proposal deadline February 15, 2019):
Undergraduate students from all universities are encouraged to apply for a place in the undergraduate poster prize competition on any topic related to war and empire. All accepted and completed posters will be displayed at the conference.

Undergraduate students who wish to be considered for the undergraduate poster prize should send a 100-200 word description of their poster, with 1 to 3 sample images, related to any theme or topic relevant to this conference. For further guidelines on poster sessions please see: https://www.historians.org/annual-meeting/resources-and-guides/poster-resources/effective-poster-presentations Deadline for consideration: February 15, 2019

Undergraduate Student Ambassador: Savannah Donnelly, UNT History

About UNT
The conference will be hosted in the new, state-of-the-art, Union facilities at the University of North Texas. UNT is a tier-1 research university of over 35,000 students in the Dallas-Forth Worth Metropolitan area. We are conveniently located in Denton, about 30-45 minutes from the DFW airport. Denton is center of arts and music with a growing independent restaurant scene in North Texas. The conference organizers welcome and encourage the participation of LGBTQIA+ presenters.

We will also host a screening of Victoria & Abdul and a Q&A with the original book’s author, Shrabani Basu, on the evening of April 18, 2019, for UNT and interested conference participants and members of the public.

Registration Fees
Thanks to the generous support of the Charn Uswachoke International Development Fund, the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences, UNT-International and the UNT departments of History, Linguistics, Anthropology, Political Science, English and Women’s and Gender Studies, we will be able to offer discounted registration to all presenters and participants. Travel assistance is not available.

UNT undergraduate and graduate students: Free registration for panels, film screening and keynote (registration required, meals not included)

UNT Faculty in History, Anthropology, Political Science, English, Linguistics, WGST: Free registration for panels, film screening, and keynote (registration required, meals not included)

Non-UNT undergraduate and graduate students: $25 (includes all panels, invited talks, and conference meals)

Under-employed researchers/post-doc/early career: $40 (includes all panels, invited talks, and conference meals)

Tenured associate professors or equivalent: $60 (includes all panels, invited talks, and conference meals)

Full professors: $75 (includes all panels, invited talks, and conference meals)

“Conference meals” include one lunch and one dinner and are included with paid registration.

Please send all questions, inquiries, and proposals to imperial1919unt@gmail.com

CfP: The end of the empires. Formation of the post-war order in Central and Eastern Europe in 1918-1923

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The Historical Institute of the University of Wrocław and the Institute of National Remembrance in Wrocław are honoured to invite you to participate in an international conference titled The end of the empires. Formation of post-war order in Central and Eastern Europe in 1918-1923, to be held in Wrocław on 22-23 November 2018. The starting point for the discussion will be the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I and the restoration of Poland’s independence. The organizers also intent to focus on the state-forming processes of nations forged from the ruins of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the context of shaping the eastern border of the Polish state.

World War I resulted in the final collapse of the “Viennese order”, which not only necessitated a search for other paths to consensus, but also created conditions for the new states that emerged on the foundations of the 19th-century processes involved in forming nations. The defeat of the occupying forces gave Poland the independence it longed for, but the “awakening” of nations that remained part of the First Republic led to a revision of existing relations and adoption of a full spectrum of attitudes ranging from cooperation and acceptance to conflict. Internal transformations in Russia and Germany, which became either enemy or an ally in the independence aspirations of the young republics, played a tremendous role. International conditions and the positions of Western states were also crucial.

During the sessions we propose focusing on the following issues:

1) in the face of a new order in Europe:
– Germany’s defeat, the collapse of the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire;
– “fighting for independence”; the process of building new state structures against the backdrop of the international situation;
– the impact of international law on transformations in Central and Eastern Europe: (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Riga, meetings of the Council of Ambassadors);

2) new states and their internal problems:
– political aspects (conflicts resulting from different concepts and modes of action, building a state apparatus);
– military aspects (fighting for state borders, supplying armies, military cooperation);
– economic aspects ((re)construction of the economic basis for the functioning of the state);
– social aspects (attitudes of the population, the issue of national identity, everyday life);

3) implementation of independence aspirations and relations between states:
– political aspirations and conceptions for shaping the borders of the state and relations with new neighbors;
– the attitudes of Russia and Germany towards the changes taking place on the map of the Eastern Europe;
– cooperation between nations in the struggle for their own state and regional security.

The issues listed above are intended to suggest the main directions of discussion and provide inspiration to attendees, but other proposals related to the central theme of the conference are also welcome.

Further information: https://endofempires19181923.wordpress.com/

There is no conference fee, and conference materials, meals (lunches, coffee breaks, official dinner), and accommodations will be provided. In addition, travel costs will be co-financed for lecturers from abroad.

Your proposal (in English, Ukrainian, Polish or Russian) should be submitted by 15 April 2018 via the registration form below: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeKutrxYvhBzGXFP9k-GyX3dTGtqCtOUM1DdqRttoCUyI-3QA/viewform?usp=sf_link

We reserve the right to reject an application.

Academic Advisory Board:
Prof. Piotr Cichoracki, University of Wrocław, Poland
Prof. Stanisław Ciesielski, University of Wrocław, Poland
Prof. Krzysztof Kawalec, Institute of National Remembrance, Poland
Prof. Leonid Zaszkilniak, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine

Please do not hesitate to contact us in case of any questions: rozpad.imperiow1918.1923@gmail.com

Organizing Committee:
Prof. Grzegorz Hryciuk
Prof. Robert Klementowski
Prof. Filip Wolański
Magdalena Gibiec
Dorota Wiśniewska

Lecture: Prof Chris Snyder – “Gatsby in Trinity Quad: Oxford and the American Army Education Commission, 1918-19”

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Danson Room, Trinity College, Tuesday 31 May, 4:00pm
Followed by a drinks reception

Under the command of General John G. Pershing, American soldiers began arriving in France in May 1918, at first in small numbers, but eventually the American Expeditionary Force included more than two million soldiers. Well before their success in the Argonne Forest, allied leaders foresaw the logistical problem of dealing with so many soldiers stranded in France during the period between the Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles. One solution was continuing education opportunities for army officers, and thousands were sent to universities in Britain, France, and Italy. This study focuses on a group of about 200 A.E.F. officers who came to Oxford for Trinity Term, 1919. Demographic analysis reveals much about the A.E.F. officer corps (which included several Rhodes Scholars) and about the expectations the U.S. had for this generation of military leaders. F. Scott Fitzgerald drew on all of this in his portrayal of Major Jay Gatsby as a participant in this Oxford project.

Chris Snyder, Professor of History and Dean, Shackouls Honors College, Mississippi State University has been affiliated to the Globalising and Localising the Great War project since Trinity term 2015. He returns to Oxford during Trinity term 2016 to conduct research for his next book.