Category Archives: CFP

CfP: Australasian Association for European History Conference 2017

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Europe’s Entanglements

Location: Monash University (Melbourne), 11 – 14 July 2017
Contact: arts-AAEH2017@monash.edu
Further information here
Conference flyer here

First deadline for paper and panel proposals: 30 September 2016

Monash would like to invite you to the XXVth Conference of the Australasian Association for European History, to be held at Monash University’s Caulfield Campus in Melbourne.

As Europe commemorates the centenary of the Great War, current conflicts nearby spark the largest influx of refugees since the Second World War. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom considers (once again) leaving the European Union, and economic downturn and the re-emergence of far right politics throughout the EU threatens its unravelling at the seams. What intervention can historians make to understand these developments? This conference invites a reconsideration of Europe’s entanglements – with the past, with its neighbours in the world, and within itself ­­­– and how these have been forged as well as unmade through the commemoration and forgetting of its history, the movement of people across its borders, the clash of political and economic interests, the encounters between different ideologies and worldviews.

We invite established scholars as well as postgraduates to discuss Europe’s entanglements (and disentanglements), their historical roots, contours and contemporary resonance, from the eighteenth century to the present, on the topics below. Individual papers are welcome, and we also encourage panel proposals.

The formation and dissolution of borders, blocs and empires in Europe;
The foundation, expansion and maintenance of overseas colonies and empires, their dissolution and legacies;
Efforts at national and regional unification, as well as the resistance of ethnic and religious groups against integration within nation-states and across the continent;
The movement of people as migrants, refugees, expatriates;
Social and cultural networks and movements – monarchies and aristocracies, entrepreneurs and business people, journalists, scholars, public intellectuals, artists, entertainers and writers;
Europe’s efforts, attempts and failures at integrating within a global community, through legal, economic and political institutions;
Entanglements with the past through commemorative practices and communities, representational practices, custodial institutions and museums, and through traces and monuments in the landscape (natural as well as urban);
The historical trajectory of environmental entanglements, between humans, animals and their habitats, urban and rural

Confirmed keynote speakers
Glenda Sluga, University of Sydney, Professor of International History, ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow, Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
Jennifer Sessions, University of Iowa, Associate Professor of History
Tony Ballantyne, University of Otago, Professor of History, Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand

CFP: Military and Civilian Internment in World War I

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Military and Civilian Internment in World War I
Differential Treatment, Its Motives and Long-Term Implications

The University of Haifa and the Tel Aviv University
October 16-19, 2017

We invite proposals for original and integrative papers on one of the following themes:

• Patterns of military and civilian internment during WWI and their relevance to contemporary norms.
• Motives and determinants of differential treatment of POWs and interned civilians during WWI (specific case studies or comparisons).
• Gendered, sexual and emotional aspects of long-term internment.
• The impact of WWI on subsequent wartime treatment of POWs.
• Is WWI a turning point in the treatment of POWs and interned civilians in modern times?

Proposals should include:

(1) Name and affiliation
(2) The applicable theme of the paper
(3) Title and a short abstract (150-200 words)
(4) Brief CV (1-3 pages)

Proposals, as well as further inquiries, should be sent by email to the workshop secretariat (POWworkshop@gmail.com):

The deadline for submitting proposals is 1 October 2016.
Accepted proposals will be notified by 1 November 2016.
Full papers (up to 7,000 words) are due by 1 September 2017.

The organizers will cover airfare cost (economy class) and four-night accommodation in Israel. The workshop will be conducted in English. It is open to the public and participation is free of charge. We would be grateful if you could distribute this call for papers among your colleagues.

Prof. Rotem Kowner (Kowner@research.haifa.ac.il) and Prof. Iris Rachamimov (irisrchmmv@gmail.com)
Poster of the CFP: https://www.academia.edu/26763543

CfP: The Church and Empire

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Church and Empire: Ecclesiastical History Society, Winter Meeting
14 January 2017
Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK

From its beginnings, the Christian Church has had close, often symbiotic relationships with empires and imperial power. Christianity emerged within the Roman Empire; it was shaped amid persecution and martyrdom by imperial power. Then, in 313 AD Constantine granted Christianity toleration, and soon it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, influenced by Roman imperial institutions. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Christianity remained the religion of the Eastern, or Byzantine Empire until its fall in 1453. In the West, the connection of Christianity and imperial power was revived in the ninth century with the Carolingian Empire – which was itself again revived in the tenth century – and with the Anglo-Norman, Genoese and Venetian Empires.

The medieval and early modern periods saw re-conceptualisations of empire as both a theoretical structure of rulership and a political-theological order. This included conceptions of papal dominium through the idea of universal empire and Christ/the pope as dominus mundi – as well as emerging notions of ‘regnal imperialism’, with ‘the king as emperor in his own kingdom’. Henry VIII famously based his claim to supremacy over the Church on the idea that ‘this realm of England is an empire’. The Russian Tsarist Empire was from its beginnings associated with Orthodoxy and conceptions of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’.

From the sixteenth century, the Churches were connected with European empires in the Americas, Africa and Asia – the Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French Empire and the British Empire. These empires were driven primarily by the pursuit of wealth and power, but they developed Christian and humanitarian missions – women playing prominent roles – including efforts to suppress slavery. The connections between the Bible and the flag were ambivalent; while men and women missionaries sometimes supported empire, they were frequently its greatest critics. Another aspect of empire and its after-echoes was (and still is) the extraordinary mass migration first of European peoples, and then of those they colonized, too, and the resultant growth and diversification of Churches.

The conference will explore the relations of Churches and empires, and Christian conceptions of empire, in the ancient, medieval, early modern and modern periods, as well as the role of empire in the global expansion of Christianity.

Keynote Speakers
Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge)
Tom Devine (Edinburgh)

Proposals of around 200 words should be submitted to ehseditorial@gmail.com by 15 September 2016.

CFP: Colonial/Postcolonial New Researchers’ Workshop

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The Colonial/Postcolonial New Researchers’ Workshop is currently inviting abstract submissions for the 2016/7 academic year. The workshop was established in 2008, to provide a forum for postgraduates and new researchers to meet and present their work in an informal environment. Seminars run on a bi-weekly basis at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), intercalated with Imperial and World History (www.history.ac.uk/events/seminars/124).

We invite proposals for papers or panels on any aspect of colonial or postcolonial history. We particularly welcome proposals that address specific methodological, interdisciplinary or theoretical concerns.

Anyone interested in presenting their work, whether finished pieces or works in progress, is encouraged to submit an abstract of between 250-350 words to cpnewresearchers@gmail.com. Abstracts should be submitted by no later than 15 August 2016. Decisions will be made in late August.

Contact Info:
Lara Atkin, Hannah Young, Mads Nielsen and Jacob Smith, Co-convenors Colonial/Postcolonial New Researchers’ Workshop
Contact Email: cpnewresearchers@gmail.com

CfP: Missing Memorials and Absent Bodies: Negotiating Post-conflict Trauma and Memorialisation

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Proposal submissions are welcomed towards this symposium, which will take place on September 20, 2016 at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The event will focus on the impact of absence on mourning work, memorialisation and commemoration, and the implications this bears for effective reconciliation. Drawing on memory, conflict and cultural studies, the area foci will include, but will not be limited to, the Balkans, Central and West Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and South America. In turn, the symposium will consider the following questions:

How is mourning work enacted in the absence of a (complete) body?
How is memorialisation practised in the absence of a memorial site?
How is trauma and postmemory addressed in the absence of mutual acknowledgement?
How is absence represented in the cultural archive?

In addition, proposals should respond to the following themes:

Missing bodies;
Absent sites and ruins;
Acknowledgement and reparations;
Space, place and mapping;
Postmemory and multidirectional memory;
Trauma and post-war recovery.

Submissions from scholars, researchers, art practitioners and activists with a focus on memory, trauma, heritage, and/or transitional justice, will be welcomed equally.

Lastly, funds are available to cover the cost of a return travel ticket and an overnight stay for presenters travelling to and from Amsterdam.

Please submit a title, an abstract of 500 words, and a brief bio, by August 1, 2016 to Luisa Gandolfo (k.luisa.gandolfo@abdn.ac.uk).

CfA: Issues & Controversies in History

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Facts On File is hiring historians and writers on a freelance basis to contribute articles to Issues & Controversies in History, a database in world history targeted to high school and college students. Each article will focus on a specific question encapsulating a debate or conflict in global history. MANY TOPICS ARE STILL AVAILABLE, including Revolution, Slavery, Colonialism, Empires, War, and Technology.

Overview
Issues & Controversies in History places students at the center of the great debates and conflicts in global history. It brings history to life not as a mere recitation of names and dates but as a set of turning points where the future hung in the balance and opinions raged on all sides. By exploring the issues as the key players saw them, or, in some cases, as historians have interpreted them, the database will build a deeper understanding of how historical events and conflicts have shaped world history.

Goal
The goal of Issues & Controversies in History is to present history as a dynamic process of controversies, conflicts, and issues that people debated and experienced and ultimately made choices about. The “issues and controversies” approach will help personalize the engagement with global perspectives, reminding students and teachers that world history doesn’t have to take a distanced point of view, but rather can also be about linking local individual actions and events to the larger global experience. Students will learn that in spite of the vastness of the past, the daily lives of individuals also comprise the building blocks of world history and that the choices made by individuals—be they merchants, rulers, farmers, or slaves—have shaped world history for thousands of years.

Format
Each article poses a single historical question and is presented in pro/con format. Some of these focus on specific controversies and events (e.g., Did Constantine’s conversion to Christianity transform the Roman Empire? Should Tsar Alexander emancipate the serfs? Should La Malinche have helped Cortés in the Spanish conquest of Mexico? Should West African states have rejected the importation of European guns? Should Britain and France intervene during the U.S. Civil War?). Other articles focus on broader historical issues and comparative questions (e.g., Did the spread of world religions benefit women in ancient societies? Did resistance to slavery shape ideas of freedom? Were merchants or missionaries more important in the spread of early religions? Did the Mayan Empire decline because of internal dissent or environmental change?).

Each article provides all the essential information to enable a student to both understand the issue and its significance and answer the question in specific world history contexts. Every article contains an introductory highlight box summarizing the issue and the two competing positions; a narrative essay providing historical background of the issue/event; an argument section presenting both sides of the controversy, with quotations from primary sources used as evidence to support each position; a selection of primary sources (on which the arguments are based and which are referenced and quoted in the article); a chronology; a sidebar; discussion questions; bibliography; and a “what if” section contemplating what could or might have happened had the alternative side prevailed.

Scope
As a whole, articles are designed with an aim toward achieving a narrative balance among historical eras and the broadest possible coverage of global geographical regions and peoples.

Contact
Facts On File is currently seeking authors for this exciting new database, and many articles are still available. If you are interested in being an author or would like more information, please contact Andrew Gyory, Ph.D. at agyory@infobaselearning.com; or Facts On File, 132 West 31st Street, New York, N.Y. 10001.

CfP: “Ukutshona kukaMendi”: The Mendi Centenary Conference

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Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, 28-30th March 2017

This conference commemorates the sinking of the SS Mendi that occurred during the First World War, on 21 February 1917. It pays tribute to the South African Native Labour Contingent, and the men on the Mendi who died en route to fight for their dignity and human rights through service to the war effort.

The conference seeks to explore the struggle against oppression and dispossession, and particularly against the Natives Land Act of 1913, as a reason why these men left their homes in rural South Africa to contribute to the war effort. It also aims to examine the roles played by black intellectuals such as Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi, Solomon T. Plaatje, and John Dube in the recruitment of men to the South African Native Labour Contingent, and in dealing with the aftermath of the Mendi tragedy.

One of the themes we are very keen to traverse is black southern African perspectives on the sea. While a great deal has been theorized about ocean voyages and the littoral zone in the fields of Indian Ocean Studies and Black Atlantic Studies, there is very little existing research on black southern African perspectives on the sea.

From a literary and cultural studies perspective we would also like to consider the extent to which poetry related to the Mendi could fit within or perhaps disrupt a canon of World War 1 poetry, which has thus far focused mainly on English/ European writings.

We welcome contributions from established academics and researchers, but we are also extremely interested in how a new generation of South African writers, scholars, performance poets, artists, activists and intellectuals are reimagining and making sense of the Mendi story. To this latter end we will have panels for performance poetry, and wish to encourage participation and interaction from students. Artists and poets are invited to address the gathering through poetry, artistic work or discussion of artistic work, on any of the topics related to the conference theme.

What role does the rich history of our country play in understanding where we are today, and where does the story of the Mendi fit within that history?

We welcome abstracts (300 words max) for 20 minute papers/ presentations/ performances on any of the following topics related to the conference theme:

the story of the Mendi and its relevance to the present;
the history of the South African Native Labour Contingent;
the Mendi story and its relation to black military history in the 20th century;
“putting on the uniform”: black military history and first and second world wars;
black perspectives on the sea, the oceanic, and the littoral zone in southern Africa – we wish to explore this neglected topic through examining literature, orature, the visual arts, performance art, and history;
the Mendi and black intellectual and poetic traditions;
the place of poetry related to the Mendi in the canon of WW1 poetry;
Lost in translation: translating and retranslating poetry such as Mqhayi’s from indigenous languages into English;
“did they dance?”: historical “truth”, historiography, and the work of imagination;
the Mendi and the politics of commemoration in South Africa;
creative responses: the role of the arts in commemorating the Mendi;
the Mendi and issues of compensation.

Please submit your abstracts or proposals by 30 September 2016 to: mendi2017@gmail.com

Conference website here.