Category Archives: Europe from the Margins

Oxford — Mainz PhD Workshop 2023

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CALL FOR PAPERS: Joint Mainz Oxford Graduate Workshop

European History Across Boundaries from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century

Alte Universität, Leibniz Institute of European History

Academy Conveners: Noëmie Duhaut (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz), Johannes Paulmann (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz) and Lyndal Roper (University of Oxford)

Venue: Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz

Date: May 31–June 2, 2023

Deadline for Applications: February 15, 2023

We invite applications for an international doctoral workshop on European history across boundaries from the 16th to the 20th century, including Europe’s relations with the world. We encourage PhD candidates working in this field to present their research projects and discuss the transcultural and transnational scopes of their work. Topics that aim to cross and reflect on boundaries and borders are of particular interest. Projects can employ a variety of methodological approaches such as comparative studies, the study of transfer processes and entanglements, or the histoire croisée. The location of the joint workshop alternates annually between Mainz and Oxford. The 2023 workshop will take place at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz.

We will discuss pre-circulated papers based on archival research (max. 8,000 words, written in English, to be submitted by May 1, 2023). We will provide accommodation for the duration of the workshop and contribute towards travel expenses within Europe.

Proposals should include an abstract of the overall project and its archival sources (500 words), a brief biographical note, and a completed application form, which you can download here: https://bit.ly/3GDTV6y. Please combine all your application documents into a single PDF except for the application form.

Applications should be sent to gw@ieg-mainz.de by February 15, 2023. For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the organisers.

Contact:

Dr Noëmie Duhaut

duhaut@ieg-mainz.de

download: CfP PhD Workshop pdf

Conquerors and Conquered

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Narrating the Fall of Constantinope (1453) and Tenochtitlán (1521)

Workshop, 7 – 8 April 2022, at Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) Mainz

Siege of Constantinople

Siege of Constantinople (Enluminure ornant La Cronicque du temps de tres chrestien roy Charles, septisme de ce nom, roy de France par Jean Chartier, c. 1470-79, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. Français 2691, folio 254 verso; Source)

This workshop is the first of three conferences that ex- plore similarities and connections between Ottoman and Spanish histories of expansion in the early modern period as well as lasting memories thereof. It focuses on two key events in world history: the fall of Constantinople and the fall of Tenochtitlán. Although these events have much in common and were interrelated, they have rarely been looked at together.

Conquista del señorio caxcán de Apulco por los españoles y Tlaxcaltecas, 1585, Artist: Diego Muñoz Camargo (Source)

The workshop brings together historians of different regions to discuss how contemporaries saw the end of an old and the beginning of a new era, how they con- nected these events to ancient prophecies, how they wrote their histories of loss and victory, and how these early narratives have since shaped respective memory cultures. Did the conquerors, the conquered, and the various intermediaries in the Old and New World draw connections between their histories? Did they see, for instance, that the Ottoman expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean pushed the Spanish and Portuguese to seek new trading routes to Asia, which eventually led to the conquest of the Americas?

Organizers: Denise Klein (IEG), Thomas Weller (IEG), Barbara Henning (University of Mainz), Richard Herzog (University of Marburg)

Download Workshop Programm

The workshop is organised by IEG for the Leibniz Research Alliance “Wert der Vergangenheit” (Value of the Past)

Oxford – Mainz PhD Workshop 2022

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Call for Papers: Joint Mainz-Oxford-Graduate Workshop: “European History across Boundaries from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century”

Participants of the 2019 Workshop in the Oriel College Library

Academy Conveners: Noëmie Duhaut (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz), Johannes Paulmann (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz) and Lyndal Roper (University of Oxford)

Venue: Oriel College, Oxford University

Date: 30 March – 1 April 2022

Deadline for Applications: 15 December 2021

We invite applications for an international doctoral workshop on European history across boundaries from the 16th to the 20th century, including Europe’s relations with the world. We encourage PhD candidates working in this field to present their research projects and discuss the transcultural and transnational scopes of their work. Topics that aim to cross and reflect on boundaries and borders are of particular interest. Projects can employ a variety of methodological approaches such as comparative studies, the study of transfer processes and entanglements, or the histoire croisée. The location of the joint workshop alternates annually between Mainz and Oxford. The 2022 workshop will be at Oriel College in Oxford and include a discussion of disputed historical monuments – such as the Cecil Rhodes statue in this college – and their future.

We will discuss pre-circulated papers based on archival research (max. 8,000 words, written in English, to be submitted by 1 March 2022). We will provide accommodation for the duration of the workshop and contribute towards travel expenses within Europe.

Proposals should include an abstract of the overall project and its archival sources (500 words), a brief biographical note, and a completed application form, which you can download here: https://bit.ly/3mzdHrh. Please combine all your application documents into a single PDF except for the application form.

Applications should be sent to gw@ieg-mainz.de by 15 December 2021. For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the organisers.

Contact: Dr Noëmie Duhaut, Leibniz Institute of European History, Alte Universitätsstr. 19, 55116 Mainz, Germany, +49 6131-39 39428, gw@ieg-mainz.de

Governing Humanitarianism – Past, Present, And Future

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Two Digital Panels on 27 and 28 September 2021 in Preparation of the 2022 Herrenhausen Conference

Organized by Stacey Hynd, Fabian Klose, Johannes Paulmann, and Andrew Thompson in cooperation with the Volkswagen Foundation

North Coast at Lesbos, September 2015, by Rosa-Maria Rinkl via Wikimedia Commons, source.

“Human Rights and Humanitarianism – a Complicated Relationship?” – September 27, 2021, 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (CET): panel discussion with Michael Barnett (George Washington University), Julia Irwin (University of South Florida, Tampa), and Angelika Nußberger (University of Cologne), chair: Fabian Klose (University of Cologne).

UNSG’s Special Advisor on the prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng speaking to the press in Tshikapa (by MONUSCO/Biliaminou Alao, 2017, source)

“Forced displacement, unlawful internment, and humanitarian neutrality” – September 28, 2021, 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (CET): keynote by Adama Dieng (former Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, and Honorary Chair of the World Justice Project; chair: Andrew Thompson (Nuffield College, Oxford).

The digital panels are both part of next year’s Herrenhausen Conference “Governing Humanitarianism – Past, Present and Future” (2022), funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Link to join events https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/veranstaltungen/livestream.

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Europe, 1850 – 1914: Global Dominance and the Belief in Progress

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Globale Vorherrschaft und Fortschrittsglaube. Europa 1850 – 1914 (C.H. Beck Geschichte Europas)

In his newly published history of Europe, Johannes Paulmann describes the major changes Europeans experienced and brought about during the second half of the nineteenth century. They laid the material and intellectual foundations some of which affect the continent and the world until today.

Europe saw an encompassing transformation between 1850 and 1914. The use of fossil energy enabled enormous gains in productivity. People, goods, and ideas were mobilised across Europe and the globe with the speed of communication increasing rapidly. The future seemed dynamic and open. Yet, the far-reaching changes also generated doubts. The belief in progress went hand in hand with criticism of materialism, the pollution and destruction of the environment, political and social repression, and violent colonialism.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Europe had reached the peak of its imperial dominance of the world. Competition and nationalistic rivalry as well as manifold cooperation across boundaries were characteristic of the time. The outbreak of a general European war was therefore more likely than in previous decades but the various diplomatic crises had been manageable – and 1914 would have been avoidable if governments had not chosen to take great risks.

The book has received warm reviews in the press for its masterly survey of the period and its clear arguments. See for example Ernst Pipers review in Der Tagesspiegel.

For more information, see C.H. Beck with an extract on locating Europe in the nineteenth century (“Grenzen und Entgrenzen: Wie weit reicht Europa im 19. Jahrhundert”). 

Inhaltsverzeichnis-Globale-VorherrschaftDownload

CfP: The Aftermath of the First World War – Humanitarianism in the Mediterranean

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Convenors: Silvia Salvatici (University of Milan) and Johannes Paulmann (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz) in  co-operation with the German Historical Institute Rome and the Villa Vigoni – German Italian Centre for European Excellence

Date: 3 – 4 December 2019

Venue: University of Milan, Italy

Download CFP Humanitarianism_postwar_mediterranean_def

In the memory of 1919, the signing of the peace treaties and the foundation of the League of Nations figure prominently. The year also saw the birth of the Third International and ushered in a turbulent post-war period of revolutions and counter-revolutions, which drastically changed the international balance of power and incubated the fascist movements that in 1922 subverted the fragile democracy in Italy. As a result, the attention of scholarly and public debate focus on post-war political, diplomatic and institutional history and on Central and Eastern Europe. The conference proposes a dual shift of perspective: thematic and geographical.

On the one hand, it focuses on international relief and rehabilitation programs during and in the aftermath of war. This will direct attention to international projects for political and social stabilization and the transformation processes that took place in post-war societies. It will allow us to examine the effects the war had on international relations in peacetime from a different perspective than the better-known diplomatic history. On the other hand, the conference specifically concerns the Mediterranean area thereby shifting our attention away from the well-studied Northern European and Transatlantic region. It investigates the post-war rise of humanitarianism in the countries of Southern Europe, in the colonial territories of North Africa, in the Balkans and in the Middle East. The Mediterranean saw the redrawing of the geopolitical map after the disintegration of the old empires, while at the same time a challenge to European colonialism began to rise in several places. Humanitarian projects took different forms and meanings in these contexts, but they were usually conceived as instruments that would have an impact on the long term, not simply as an immediate response to temporary crises.

Research has begun to show the relevance that humanitarian affairs had for the League of Nations, which also operated in the Balkans and the Middle East. However, the League programs are only one chapter in the history of post-war relief, which saw the mobilization of national states, large and small private agencies, religious groups, societies founded on a common political ideology, experts in sectors such as medicine, public health, or education. The purpose of the conference is to study the way in which these different actors cooperated, interacted, and came into conflict, both in designing aid programs at the headquarters and in implementing them on the spot and within local communities. Specific case studies have shown that the historical development of humanitarianism came about through extensive transnational networks based on religious affiliation, on institutional relations among states, and on professional skills. With reference to the specific post-war context, the conference intends above all to highlight the way in which these networks, usually studied separately, came intersected and how the configuration in the Mediterranean area, including responses from within the societies concerned, shaped the development of humanitarianism at large.

We invite proposals for papers on any of the themes, topics and areas mentioned above. The time period covered may reach from the First World War into the 1930s discussing the aftermath and effects of continued or renewed war in the regions studied. The proposal should highlight the colonial and national contexts, the contemporary ideas on political and social stabilisation and the effects of the measures taken.

Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short CV by April 8, 2019 to

Silvia Salvatici (silvia.salvatici@unimi.it) & Johannes Paulmann (paulmann@ieg-mainz.de)

The conference will take place from 3 – 4 December 2019, at the University of Milan, Italy. Travel and accommodation will be covered.

Download CFP Humanitarianism_postwar_mediterranean_def

The Other Side of Terrorism

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Out Now – Open Access

New issue of the European History Yearbook published on “Victimhood and Acknowledgment: The Other Side of Terrorism”

 

ed. by Petra Terhoeven, with contributions by:

The history of terrorism has been largely a history of perpetrators, their motives and actions. The open access volume anaylses the other side of terrorism, which has always seemed to be of secondary importance. But terrorism is communication by violence, and its efficiency depends significantly on the selection and the treatment of the victims by the perpetrators, on the one hand, and the perception and acknowledgement of victimhood by the public, on the other. How does it affect our picture of the history of terrorism then, if the victims are moved centre stage? If the focus is put on their suffering, their agency, their helplessness, or on how they are acknowledged or exploited by society, politics and media? If the central role is taken into account which they play in terrorist propaganda as well as in the emotional response of the public? The contributions to this edition of the European History Yearbook will examine such questions in a broad range of historical case studies and methods, including visual history. Not least, they aim at historicizing the roles of survivors and relatives in the social process of coming to terms with terrorist violence, a question highly relevant up to the present day.

Table of Contents EHY 19, 2018 pdfDownload


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Violence and Leisure in Camps: Sport in 20th Century Camps

			
						

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Open Access Publication in the Series of the Leibniz Institute of European History 


Gregor Feindt, Anke Hilbrenner and Dittmar Dahlmann (eds.), Sport under Unexpected Circumstances. Violence, Discipline, and Leisure in Penal and Internment Camps (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) 2018.


Sport was an integral part of life in camps during the twentieth century, even in Nazi concentrations camps or in the Soviet Gulag. Traditionally perceived as a symbol of equality, play, and peacefulness, sport under such unexpected circumstances irritates most observers, back then and today.


Thomas Geve, Sport (Auschwitz I), 1945. Thomas Geve was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 as a 13-year-old. He survived. See his memoirs “Geraubte Kindheit: Ein Junge überlebt den Holocaust” (Bremen 2013; first pb. as “Youth in chains”. Jerusalem 1958).


This volume studies the irritating fact of sport in penal and internment camps as an important insight into the history of camps. The authors enquire into case studies of sport being played in different forms of camps around the globe and throughout the twentieth century. They challenge our understanding of camps, question the dichotomy of insiders and outsiders, inner-camp hierarchies, and the everyday experience of violence. This fresh perspective complements the existing camp studies and gives way for the subjectivity of camp inmates and their action. Read or download the introduction “Why the History of Sport in Penal and Internment Camps Matters” here.


TOC Sports in Camps


with contributions by Alan Kramer (Dublin), Floris van der Merwe (Stellenbosch), Panikos Panayi (Leicester), Christoph Jahr (Berlin), Doriane Gomet (Rennes), Felicitas Fischer von Weikersthal (Heidelberg), Kim Wünschmann (München), Veronika Springmann (Berlin), Mathias Beer (Tübingen), Marcus Velke (Bonn), Dieter Reinisch (Florenz), and Manfred Zeller (Bremen).


 

					

		
		
	


				
						

		

			

				
“I want to make Denmark unattractive for asylum seekers”: On Policies of Migration and Asylum in Denmark

				
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Radio Feature on Danish Asylum Policy by Jana Sinram


Cross-post with our partner blog Humanitarianism & Human Rights


Since 2015, Denmark’s conservative-liberal government has tightened immigration laws 89 times. Denmark has minimised the financial allowance for asylum seekers, made family reunifications almost impossible for refugees under temporary protection and suspended the admittance of UN quota refugees. “I want to make Denmark unattractive for asylum seekers”, says minister of Integration Inger Støjberg. Now, prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has introduced a plan to deport rejected asylum seekers to centers outside the EU. Continue reading →

					


		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Humanitarianism: New Research Field in European History

			
						

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Atelier de recherche à Sorbonne Université


The international workshop discusses recent historiography on humanitarianism, concepts and issues. It is organised by LabEx Ecrire une histoire nouvelle de l’Europe (EHNE), the Laboratoire Temps, Mondes, Sociétés (TEMOS), the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), and the international network “Engaging Europe in the Arab World” (Leiden University, NWO).




Programme: Affiche_Atelier_Humanitaire 2018-06-09


Inscription: labex.ehne2@gmail.com


Wednesday, 13 June, 14-18.30


Venue: Maison de la Recherche de Sorbonne Université, 28 rue Serpente, 75006 Paris

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Europe and the World: Between Colonialism and Globalisation

			
						

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Second Gerda Henkel Acadamy at Villa Vigoni in June 2018




CALL FOR APPLICATIONS – Workshop on “Europe and the World: Between Colonialism and Globalisation”. PhD candidates in the Humanities and Cultural Studies as well as in the Social Sciences and Law will present their dissertation projects and to discuss their ideas in a stimulating, interdisciplinary environment overlooking Lake Como.


Venue: Villa Vigoni, Menaggio, Como, Italy; Date: 18-22 June 2018


Deadline for applications: 15 December 2017


Villa Vigoni – German-Italian Centre for European Excellence on Lake Como


In cooperation with the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the German-Italian Center for European Excellence Villa Vigoni has established the Gerda Henkel Academy at Villa Vigoni to discuss past and present challenges of Europe in the political, social and cultural realm. The Academy’s work is dedicated to the theme “From the Ideas on Europe to the European Citizen”. The second graduate workshop of the Gerda Henkel Academy will take place in June 2018 at Villa Vigoni.


The workshop’s theme is “Europe and the World: Between Colonialism and Globalisation”. The aim is to bring together young scholars for an interdisciplinary exchange on the notions of Europe’s relationships with other societies and other parts of the world, both from a historical and from a contemporary perspective. Among the questions the workshop will address are the following: What was and what is the relationship between “Europe and the World”, and which tensions and which potentials can we identify? What are (or have been) the underlying constructions and narratives of “Europeanness” vis-à-vis other cultures, and in which ways have they informed European colonial and imperial practices abroad? What role did economic, scientific, national, religious, and ethnic categories play in shaping practices of formal and informal colonialism outside Europe, and to which degree do we find remnants of such structures in contemporary global relations? How does, vice versa, globalisation influence the ideas and the politics that define the European “Self” (or “Selves”)?


For further information see Call for Applications at www.academia.edu.


Academic Board:



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Re-Inscribing Islam into European History

			
						

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European History Yearbook 2018: Forum Essay by Manfred Sing


Against All Odds: How to Re-Inscribe Islam into European History 


The central place that Muslims and Islam are accorded in the European media and public debates today contrasts with their near-complete absence in parts of European historiography until recently, Manfred Sing argues in his recent essay on Islam and European History.


Participants of the first congress of European Muslims, Geneva 1935. Picture: Van Beetem’s Family Archive (The Netherlands) – ERC Starting Grant “Muslims in Interwar Europe”, University of Leuven – n° 336608.


 


While right-wing demagogues campaign against refugees, Muslims and the supposed Islamization of Europe, their argument that Islam does not belong to Europe is, at least partially, supported by the rather patchy awareness of a continuous and multi-facetted Islamic history in European societies and, horrible dictu, even in some history departments. Recent research challenges this neglect, tries to overcome the “Othering” of Islam, and demands a new conceptualization of European history that leaves behind the Europe/Islam binary. As the construction of a European identity and a European space is based on “Othering” – a definition of what is not European -, the conscious and visible integration of Muslims into European history poses a systematic challenge to narratives of Europeanization. The article draws attention to the difficulties that spring from this challenge and discusses new approaches in scholarship that try to overcome them.


Manfred Sing’s essay is published open access in




 


 


 


 


 

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
The Spanish Atlantic and Global Europe

			
						

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Workshop at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in cooperation with Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG)




On 6-7 October, the workshop analyses global Europe in the long ninenteenth century by focusing on the Spanish Atlantic. Participants from UPF and IEG as well as Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Sevilla) and EHESS (Paris) discuss how the history of this period can be written from a global perspective.


Cádiz: Plaques at Oratorio de San Felipe Neri commemorating the first Spanish constitution of 1812, presented in 1912 amongst others “By the Spanish of the Americas in Honour of the American Deputes at the Cortez of Cadiz”; similiar ones from Montevideo and Puerto Rico.


In writing the history of the long nineteenth century, historians have traditionally concentrated on given macro-spaces reproducing present-day loci of power: China, India, the United States, and Europe. However, such a perspective neglects important regions and their significance for global history. In this regard, the absence of the Spanish Atlantic is most striking, especially since Spain and her Empire were both crucial for the first wave of globalization and embodied imperial decline in the course of the nineteenth century. Reflecting on Spain in her connections, encounters, and entanglements offers new insights into a global Europe in the long nineteenth century. This will bring together two strands of research in global history – i.e. Spanish Imperial history and European history in its global contexts – represented by researchers from the UPF and the IEG.


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Call for Papers on Revolutions of 1848: European Protagonists in the People’s Spring

			
						

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An international conference will take place in Paris in May 2018 to take a fresh look at the 1848 revolutions. The focus will be on the protagonists of the People’s Spring (printemps des peuples/ Völkerfrühling).


Frédéric Sorrieu, La République universelle démocratique et sociale, 1848. Source: http://grial4.usal.es/MIH/struggleForFreedom/en/index.html


Papers are invited on the following themes:


    

  • The new rulers and their entourage
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  • The parliamentarians
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  • Protagonists at the interface of the national and the local
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  • International travellers
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  • Insurgents and the forces of law and order
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  • Social protagonistes and groups
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  • Cultural and spiritual mediators
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  • The 1848 protagonists after 1848
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For further details see CfP 1848 International colloquium/ English or Appel à communication/ francais.


The conference is a jointly organised by Le Centre d’histoire du XIXe s., le LabEx EHNE (Écrire une histoire nouvelle de l’Europe), la Société de 1848 et des révolutions du XIXe s., le Comité d’histoire parlementaire et politique et le Centre interuniversitaire d’histoire de Padou.


Please submit proposals to crhxixe@univ-paris1.fr


Deadline: 15 September 2017

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Cosmopolitanism: Provincializing a Eurocentric Concept & Bringing Norms Back

			
						

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‘But today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass in the street. But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word “citizenship” means.’


Theresa May’s anti-cosmopolitan statement in defence of Brexit in October 2016 stands in stark contrast to one of her great predecessor’s declaration, Winston Churchill, who in May 1948 pronounced in Amsterdam: ‘We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being a European as belonging to their native land, and that without losing any part of their love and loyalty to their birthplace. We hope wherever they go in this wide domain, to which we set no limits in the European continent, they will truly feel “Here I am at home. I am a citizen of this country too”.’




May’s attack on world citizenship rejects Enlightenment values going back to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant who propagated the ideal as a means to achieve peace and famously propagated hospitality as a right of world citizenship. As Jeremy Adler pointed out in the Guardian the pejorative sense of cosmopolitanism adopted by the Prime Minister echoes the stigmatizing accusation of rootlessness that marked German, and later Soviet, anti-semitic discourse. In the 19th century the ‘rootless Jew’ was seen as a ‘cosmopolitan’ citizen from ‘nowhere’. Continue reading →