Category Archives: CFP

CfP: The Paris Peace Conference and the Challenge of a New World Order, Paris, June 2019

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The Peace Conference held in Paris in the aftermath of the Great War remains among the most important yet also most controversial events in modern history. Although it is often considered to have made a second global war all but inevitable, it has also been praised for providing the basis for an enduring peace that was squandered recklessly by poor international leadership during the 1930s.

A major international conference will take place in Paris in June 2019 to commemorate the centenary of the 1919 Conference from a global perspective. The purpose of this event is to re-examine the history of the Peace Conference through a thematic focus on the different approaches to order in world politics in the aftermath of the First World War. A remarkably wide range of actors in Paris – from political leaders, soldiers and diplomats to colonial nationalist envoys and trade unionists, economists, women’s associations and ordinary citizens – produced a wide array of proposals for a future international and, indeed, global order. These proposals were often based on vastly different understandings of world politics. They went beyond the articulation of specific national security interests to make claims about the construction and maintenance of peace and the need for new norms and new institutions to achieve this aim. To what extent the treaties and their subsequent implementation represented a coherent world order remains a question of debate.

Full details here.

Paper proposals
The conference organisers aim to ensure the conference provides a global perspective on the Paris Peace Conference. We are therefore particularly keen to receive proposals from scholars working on topics pertaining to the non-western world.

The conference languages will be English and French
Regardless of language, all proposals will receive serious consideration.

The deadline for proposals is: 1 June 2018
Please send your proposal (abstract in English or French of no more than 500 words) and short CV to Axel Dröber: ADroeber@dhi-paris.fr.

CfP: Marianne in War and Peace, 1913-1923. The French Republic in the era of the Great War

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‘Marianne in War and Peace, 1913-1923. The French Republic in the era of the Great War’. A special issue of French History

The study of the First World War continues to thrive as the centennial commemorations of the conflict draw to a close. In large part, the current vitality of First World War studies stems from the cultural and comparative turns taken by the historiography since the 1980s. Anxious to dispense with national paradigms to interrogate the broader and transnational currency of the wartime systems of representations, historians of the Great War often elected to focus on the cultural dimensions of the conflict. Historians of France played and continue to play a critical role in the renewal of this field (Hanna & Horne, 2016; Smith, 2016).

In France itself, a long-lasting controversy over the existence and significance of a “culture de guerre” has framed the analysis of wartime mobilization as an alternative between consent and coercion. In 1998, this important debate about the respective importance of patriotic mobilization and state-enforced discipline degenerated into a full-blown academic dispute. Two decades on, it still simmers and occasionally boils over to the detriment of scholars and scholarship alike.

This controversy has reinforced the domestic outlook of the historiographical debate in France and accounts, partly at least, for its limited engagement with foreign historiographies. Likewise, French historians have relatively neglected the colonial and imperial dimensions of the conflict. Most significantly, the debate is often artificially framed as an opposition between cultural and social historians. As a result, our understanding of the politics of wartime mobilization and demobilization remains fragmented, despite the rejuvenation and dynamism of French political history as a whole.

This guest-edited special issue of French History sets out to address this problem. It aims to showcase innovative perspectives on the French experience of the First World War. It will focus on the political dimensions of military operations and on the contested process of social and cultural mobilization. It will also consider how France and the French came to terms with the fraught process of demobilization, and dealt with the multifaceted legacies of the conflict across the country and its empire.

Proposals should be submitted in the first instance to Pierre Purseigle (p.purseigle@warwick.ac.uk). They should include the proposed title of the article, its summary (500 words max.), and a one-page C.V. The deadline for submission of the proposals is 15 November 2017. Full manuscripts of selected articles (8-10,000 words max.) will be due by 1 February 2018.

Please note that each selected article will be peer-reviewed in accordance with the journal’s editorial procedure. The decision to publish will rest with French History’s editorial team.

References:
M. Hanna and J. Horne, ‘France and the Great War on Its Centenary’, French Historical Studies, 39: 2, April 2016, pp. 233–259
L. V. Smith, ‘France, the Great War, and the “Return to Experience”’, The Journal of Modern History, 88: 2, June 2016, pp.380–415.

CfP: Care After the First World War, University of Leeds

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9-11 April 2018, University of Leeds

The end of the First World War saw the demobilisation and return to civilian life of millions of service personnel around the world. Governments, charities, families and individuals attempted to support, rehabilitate and reintegrate those who had served through financial provision, medical treatment and social care. In the final year of the centenary commemorations, this conference looks beyond the war to the lifelong impact of war service.

This conference examines that provision of care to veterans of the First World War and their families. It asks how, where and when care, in its various forms, was provided to and withheld from veterans around the world. It seeks to understand the motivations of those individuals and groups who provided care and to analyse the development of formal and informal networks of care.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Michael Roper and Dr Fiona Reid will be keynote speakers.

Papers discussing care for veterans of any nation after the First World War are welcome and comparative, transnational and entangled histories of care are particularly encouraged. Panel proposals are also welcome and researchers at all career stages are invited to submit a proposal.

Potential subjects for papers and panels include:

Systems of soldier preference (in employment, soldier settlement schemes etc.)
Disability pensions and financial provisions
The development and work of veterans’ organisations and charities
Competition and cooperation between care providers
Caring for the carers: post-war provisions for medical-military personnel
Family reintegration and care within the home
Effects of insufficient care
Care for prisoners of war, the families of veterans and the bereaved
Rehabilitation of disabled veterans
Institutional and in-patient care
Ongoing treatment of disease and physical and psychological wounds
Care as a disciplinary tool
Gender in the giving and receiving of care
The accessibility of care: issues of race, class, gender, empire and distance
Commemoration as an act of care: remembering the disabled soldier
Representations of care and carers in literature and the arts

The conference will include a mentoring scheme within the programme. This will involve postgraduate and early career researchers submitting an expanded draft of their paper (6000 words max.) by 15 March 2018 that will then be pre-circulated to their designated mentor. The mentor will commit to attending the mentee’s paper and then meet with the mentee to provide feedback on developing the paper for publication. Postgraduate and early career researchers will automatically be considered for the scheme. Those returning to academia from a career break and those without institutional support but who no longer qualify as early career researchers are invited to submit an expression of interest should they wish to participate. We also invite established researchers who are willing to act as mentors to contact the organisers.

Following the conference, participants will be invited to submit articles for an edited collection.

Presenters will deliver twenty-minute papers followed by time for questions. Abstracts of up to 300 words, accompanied by a short biography, and expressions of interest in the mentoring scheme should be sent to Alexia Moncrieff (University of Leeds) and Michael Robinson (University of Liverpool) at CareConference@leeds.ac.uk by 15 November 2017.

General enquiries can be sent to CareConference@leeds.ac.uk
Conference website here.

CfP: 1918 – 2018: The End of the War & The Reshaping of a Century

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This conference, hosted by the Centre for Historical Research at the University of Wolverhampton in association with the WFA and the FWW Network for Early Career & Postgraduate Researchers, seeks to spotlight the latest research on the events of 1918 as well as the global significances, consequences, and legacy of this watershed year.

It will be held at the University of Wolverhampton on 6-8 September 2018

Keynotes to include: Professor Alison Fell (Leeds), Professor Peter Frankopan (Oxford), Professor John Horne (TCD), Professor Gary Sheffield (Wolverhampton), Professor Sir Hew Strachan (St Andrews), Professor Laura Ugolini (Wolverhampton) & Professor Jay Winter (Yale).

We invite abstracts for 20-minute presentations fitting within the conference topic. Therein we encourage international perspectives and seek a range of historical approaches together with cross-disciplinary insights. Suggested themes may include but are not limited to:

Warfare in 1918
The War in 1918
Women in 1918
Strategy, Tactics & Technology
Victory & Defeat
Winners & Losers
Peace & (Ongoing) Conflict
Revolution(s)
Aftermaths, Legacies & Impacts
Veterans (Male & Female)
Civilians & Consequences
Gender, Class, Race & Ethnicity
Ends & Beginnings
Learning/Understanding the War
Commemoration & Memory
The Centenary

Abstracts of 250 words should be accompanied by your name, affiliation (if applicable) and a brief biographical statement (c. 100 words). Panel submissions will also be considered.

We welcome submissions from scholars, including ECRs & PGRs, as well as independent researchers, organisations, and community projects. We hope (subject to funding) to offer a limited number of bursaries to assist ECRs/PGRs & community groups to participate.

Submissions should be sent to Dr Oliver Wilkinson (O.Wilkinson@wlv.ac.uk) by 3rd January 2018

Conference registration is expected to open in spring 2018

Keep up to date at our website (www.wlv.ac.uk/1918to2018) and follow us on Twitter (@1918to2018)

CfP: Reflections on the commemoration of World War One

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22-23 November 2018, Christchurch, New Zealand

Brought to you by Canterbury100

As we approach the end of the centenary of World War One, it is timely to consider the ways in which this conflict has been commemorated. Galleries, libraries, archives and museums around New Zealand and the world have explored old and new narratives of the war and presented these in exhibitions, public programmes and research. Many of these interpretations have been the result of collaborations that have joined repositories with academia, other institutions and the community. This conference invites museum professionals, historians, librarians, academics, students, film makers, artists, writers, researchers, government sector contributors and others to reflect on the commemoration of the war. Papers that address the following themes are invited:

Local and transnational perspectives on commemoration
Reassessments, new narratives and new perspectives
The effect of commemoration on identity
The commemoration of identity
Pacifism, objection and dissent
Lessons learnt from the centenary
Tensions between celebration and commemoration
Assessment of public commemoration activities (e.g. exhibitions, public programmes, documentaries, books etc)
Diverse communities at war and at home
Gaps and omissions
Difficult stories and the trauma of a generation
Lessons for contemporary collecting

Conference presentations may take one of the following forms:
20 minute presentation
Panel session

Please email an abstract of 250 words with your name, institutional affiliation and 100 word biography to ReflectionsWWi2018@gmail.com by 1 November 2017.

A publication featuring a selection of papers from the conference will be produced following the conference.

For more information please see here, or contact the conference oragnizers at ReflectionsWWi2018@gmail.com

CfP: Living the German Revolution 1918-19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses

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The German Revolution of 1918-19 marks a historical turning point at which, following the catastrophe of the Great War, soldiers and civilians rose up to overthrow the German Empire’s political and military leadership. The approaching centenary offers a timely occasion to re-evaluate its contested history and memory by focussing on the socio-cultural realm of expectations, experiences and responses. The German Revolution was a key event in the era of seismic transnational upheaval which shook Europe between 1916 and 1923. An advanced industrial economy with the most powerful organised labour movement in the world, Germany was practically, strategically and symbolically critical to competing visions of the future in this new age of revolution. ‘The absolute truth’, wrote Lenin, ‘is that without revolution in Germany we shall perish’.

The conference proposes to re-evaluate the history of the German Revolution by shifting attention to the practices and agency of protagonists and stakeholders beyond the political elites. It seeks to explore the subjective dimension of the events and to investigate the diverse expectations, experiences and responses of Germans old and young, female and male, rural and urban, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish. For despite its evident significance as a historical watershed, the German Revolution remains poorly understood. Scholarship has made faltering progress since the historiography of the 1960s and 1970s, which concentrated on the constitutional and high political course of the revolution. While the notion that historians have ‘forgotten’ the German Revolution is no longer entirely accurate, it remains one of the least-studied transitions in European history.

The conference’s new perspective will register, among other topics, the revolution’s popular mobilisation and societal penetration, its impact on everyday life, its destruction of inherited patterns of authority, its generation of new affiliations, boundaries and cultural expressions, and its complex and contested legacy for the Weimar Republican project. It will establish an intellectual toolkit to analyse the creation, performance and experience of revolution and democratic citizenship, focusing on the dynamics of language, symbolism, practices, gender, emotions and mentalities.

While the focus of the conference rests on events between November 1918 and May 1919, we welcome contributions that critique this timeframe and situate the German Revolution within longer-term developments. By the same token, a comparative approach that combines different regional case studies, investigates the dynamics between centres and peripheries, and explores the impact of events in other countries, such as Russia, Hungary and Italy, on the German Revolution (and vice versa) will help to situate the events of 1918-19 within a broader European culture of protest, political upheaval and social change. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches.

Themes might include:

• The creation and performance of revolutionary politics
• Patterns of political and cultural demobilization and remobilization in wake of the Great War
• Individual expectations and experiences in cultural settings such as the metropolis, small towns or countryside as well as in the virtual realm of media and the arts
• Revolutionary economics
• Gender and the German Revolution
• Paramilitarism and violence
• Protestants, Catholics, Jews and the German Revolution
• Different ideas of politics and social participation developed during these months in different contexts and by different groups of actors (including an analysis of their particular semantics)
• The impact of these ideas of politics and social participation on the longue durée history of democracy in Germany from the Weimar Republic to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Benjamin Ziemann (Sheffield) will deliver the conference’s keynote lecture.

The organisers aim to secure funding to defray the travel and accommodation expenses of participants. Conversations are underway for the publication of contributors’ papers within an edited volume to be published as close as possible to the centenary.

The language of the conference is English.
Contact Info: GR2018mail@gmail.com
Please send proposals of up to 350 words and a brief biographical note by 1st November 2017

CfP: Third Issue of the Journal of Studies in History & Culture

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Events to commemorate the centenary of the First World War have been organized since 2014 and would continue through 2018. It has already sparked of various retellings on the war in fiction and celluloid. The third issue of JSHC attempts to offer renewed perspectives on the First World War. While war and society is the general theme for this issue, all the content in our issues have never been restricted to the pre-decided theme alone. Therefore, we welcome contributors for wide ranging perspectives and discussions on general issues beyond the present theme.

To understand war in the longue durée one needs a comprehensive understanding. We encourage papers which examine comprehensive studies of war using panoptican views, by means of theoretical, political or philosophical scalpels; and papers from diplomacy, strategy and international relations perspectives, as well as papers on individual lives. Besides, papers from a military history vantage point are equally welcome. Papers from a memory studies perspective looking at collective memorialisation around or with relation to a particular war would be particularly interesting for us to consider for publication.

We are also looking for papers from comparative literary perspectives which study literature produced during war or with war as a thematic reference. Analyses of diverse hagiographies and/or their influence on formal histories could also be an important aspect to this. Papers from an environmental perspective are equally welcome.

For historians war has been both a historical schema, within which one could study societal changes as well as a chassis, to locate micro histories of soldiers, technology, techniques, formations, strategies, etc. The moral supremacy attached to professional warriors, wrote Marc Bloch, continuing till present times is symbolic of the divergence between the peasant and the knight right from the emergence of the feudal age. Bloch fought in both World Wars. He was a part of the French Army in the First World War. The experiences affected his personality and his historical output. His experiences during the war produced Memoirs of the War, 1914 – 1915 and is also said to have influenced Réflexions d’un historien sur les fausses nouvelles de la guerre (1922). The Second World War was more defining though. From the campaign of June 1940 to a part of the resistance press, the Second World War affected him personally as a Jew in Germany. This time there was to be no memoir, no Réflexions. He was tortured by the Germans in 1944, inside the fortress of Montluc and finally assassinated on June 16 at St. Didier, near Lyons. In line with Bloch’s work we encourage authors to submit papers looking at variety of topics right from propaganda to underlying conditions of society, in a comparative historical framework.

That said, papers not related to the theme are also welcome.

Increasing budget cuts in the humanities have been seen by many as part of a larger plan to dissolve the humanities. Therefore, papers situating war within the context of epistemological invasions are also welcome.

However, such attempts at dissolution are not merely a warning sign for the humanities but higher education in general, and anything certified as unprofitable by the market. With market forces gnawing into whatever little space for decision making was left within the academia, JSHC sees this as a moment of opportunity – opportunity to seek greater collaboration among disciplines, wherein they can come together in evolving mutually beneficial frameworks for academic exchanges, as well as myriad forms of resistance on scholarly fora to stand united in solidarity against the onslaught.

The last date for submission is 30th of November, 2017. Check out the previous issues on www.jshc.org. Papers can be sent in to editors.jshc@gmail.com. For any specific inquiries write to info@jshc.org.