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.

European Film Gateway: WW1 Topics

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European Film Gateway: Improving search results on WW1 topics by streamlining metadata amongst content providers.

A guest blog on Europeana Pro discusses how using a thematic entry point into the WWI collections allows educators to explore different aspects of the war across different countries, for example the lives of civilians, or how animals were used in the war.

See here for the blog.

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

Call for Applications: Visiting Fellowships 2017, University of Basel

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The Europainstitut (Institute for European Global Studies) of the University of Basel, Switzerland, welcomes applications for three Visiting Fellowships (three months in the academic year 2017, starting in spring or in autumn) in the field of European Global Studies, with special focus on the topic area “Contesting Sovereignty: Statehood, Governmentality, Assemblages”.

The Institute for European Global Studies is an interdisciplinary research institute at Switzerland’s oldest university, the University of Basel. It develops new interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies designed to critically examine European integration as well as the relations that have shaped Europe in connection with other continents. We welcome applications from researchers who are interested in investigating actors and agencies in global contexts and who enjoy adopting a conceptual approach beyond the nation-state.

Applicants can learn more about the Institute at www.europa.unibas.ch. For your application, please use the standard proposal form for your project proposal and your CV. Incoming applications without the standard form cannot be considered. Please submit all of your application documents in one email to: fellowship-eib@unibas.ch. The deadline for applications is August 14, 2016.

For questions please contact: fellowship-eib@unibas.ch.
Further information here.

LexiQamus; An Online Tool for Deciphering Illegible Words in Manuscripts in Arabic Letters

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A new resource has been created, which aims to solve illegible words in Ottoman Turkish manuscripts. It currently only explores words in Ottoman Turkish, but Arabic and Persian words will be included in the database soon. However, it can already find words in these language due to the large size of the database.

In order to find the illegible words, it is necessary to add the legible letters to the boxes and then put a * for illegible ones. It then provides a list of possible words that match the criteria, going through a list of approximately 170 thousands words. The words and phrases come from more than 15 prominent dictionaries.

Further information can be found here.
The resource can be found here.