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

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)

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.

CfP: The Cadorna’s War 1915-1917

Trieste, Italy, October 2016

The General Staff of the Italian Army, the Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism – Directorate General Fine Arts and Landscape, the University of Trieste, the Institute of Political Studies “San Pio V” in Rome and the Institute for the History of Liberal Thought are organizing an international study meeting on “The Cadorna’s War 1915-1917” that will take place in Trieste in October 2016. The meeting will be divided into three panels: political, military and international relations. The aim of the meeting is a critical review of the period from 1915 to 1917, where Italy was involved in his offensive war, led by General Cadorna, against the Central Powers. The main themes on which to focus in proposing papers are:

The political panel will cover the analysis of sequences of governments to the crisis Cabinet Boselli, the leading political forces and factions, the issues of economic and financial, the industrial mobilization and patriotic mobilization and civil.

The military panel will address the following points: management of the war and its aims; the main battles and offensive; the specialties of the army and used in line with the evolution of the technological needs of war; the role of the navy and air force; military justice; discipline and personnel management; war Italian outside of Italy.

The panel will focus on diplomatic international relations with a focus on the following themes: political relations and military allies; the entry in war of the United States and countries of the Danubian and Balkan; the February Revolution in Russia; the inter-Allied command; Italian diplomacy and the purpose of the war; Gjirokastra; the Conference of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne; the declaration of war on Germany; the Masonic Congress in Paris.

These theme topics should be treated in all their complexity, avoiding excessive specialization in the papers.

Those interested in attending the meeting, please send paper proposals of no more than 300 words, with a short biography, to the following e-mail addresses by 30 June 2016: italianeutrale1914@gmail.com

Italian, English and French are the languages of the meeting.

Contact: Andrea Ungari (aungari@luiss.it; a.ungari@unimarconi.it)