CfA: Issues & Controversies in History

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.

Two Postdoc fellowships for “Global History”

Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen
Start date: 1 January 2017

The transnational research group “A Global Network for Global History” directed by the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), University of Göttingen in cooperation with the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, and the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, advertises two Postdoc fellowships for the funding period from 16 January – 30 September 2017.

The “Global Network for Global History” is funded by the VW foundation and seeks to organize a community of scholars interested in the systematic scrutiny of developments that have unfolded across national, regional, and continental boundaries and who propose to analyze the interconnections – cultural, economic, ecological, political and demographic – among world societies.

Fellows at CeMIS are appointed for 8.5 months and are provided time, guidance, office space, and access to the facilities of Göttingen University. They should be prepared to devote their entire time to productive scholarship and may undertake sustained projects of research or other original work. They will join a vibrant interdisciplinary community of scholars at CeMIS and the newly founded Forum for Global and Transregional Studies at the University of Göttingen.

The scholarship is granted for 8.5 months and amounts to EUR 2.650 per month (incl. compulsory health insurance and travel allowances). The work location is Göttingen.

Requirements for candidates are:
+ a PhD in History or Social Sciences;
+ independence, individual initiative and commitment;
+ excellent knowledge of English and the languages relevant to the research location;
+ sound knowledge of the relevant scholarly debates

Applications should contain a full CV, copies of relevant examinations, a research proposal (max. 5000 words), a writing sample (a chapter or essay), and the names and addresses of two referees. They should be sent electronically by 31 July 2016 to Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja.

Contact Info:
Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja
CeMIS
University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany

Contact Email: ravi.ahuja@sowi.uni-goettingen.de
URL: http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/540740.html

CFP: Second Annual Global History Student Conference – Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Berlin

Global History Student Conference, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institüt in Berlin
21-22 May 2016

In recent years, global history has become one of the most ambitious and most promising strands of historical research. The approach specifically targets relations, flows, and actors which transcend borders that for a long time had been assumed to be stable and impenetrable. It calls attention to the importance of trans-regional, transnational or trans-local connections and highlights the relevance of postcolonial theory to historiography.

But how can we actually “do global history” in practical terms? What are useful methods and techniques for researching and writing from a global perspective? How can global history complement but also challenge other disciplines; conversely, what critiques and new ideas can other disciplines bring to global history?

Keynote speaker: Professor Sebastian Conrad

For more information, see here, and here: CallforPapersGHSC2016

Deadline: 14 February 2016