Category Archives: Writing European History

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)

Digital History: Fellowship @IEG_Mainz

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Fellowship in Digital Humanities

The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz awards a fellowship for international doctoral students in the field of Digital Humanities

Deadline: April 18, 2022.

Download IEG_DH Fellowship (english) or 2022_DH Fellowship (German)

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

Two Postdoctoral Positions in Early Modern and Late Modern European History

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The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz invites applications for two full-time postdoctoral position in Early Modern and Late Modern European History.

The Leibniz Institute of European History is a research institute within the Leibniz Association. It conducts research on the foundations of Europe in the modern period .

Job profile
You pursue an individual research project within the frame of the IEG ongoing research programme on »Negotiating differences in Modern Europe« and will contribute to its future development. With your research and publication activities, you will engage in the overarching working and discussion contexts of the institute and participate in elaborating its research profile. In addition, you will advise international (doctoral) research fellows, organise academic events and work towards consolidating the IEG’s international network.

Requirements

  • completed university degree in history
  • outstanding PhD
  • relevant academic publications on the history of the early modern or late modern period
  • internationally oriented academic track
  • excellent command of both German and English

For full details see here:

The IEG promotes professional equality between women and men and is committed to reconciling work and family life. Women are particularly encouraged to apply. Severely challenged persons with equal qualifications will be given preferential consideration. For any questions, please contact the research coordinator of the IEG, Dr Joachim Berger (berger@ieg-mainz.de).

Applications
Please send your application via email to the Leibniz Institute of European History by 03 October 2021 (bewerbung@ieg-mainz.de); all documents should be submitted in a single file (PDF).

Sovereignty Beyond the Modern State

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Out Now – Open Access

New issue of the European History Yearbook on “Cultural Sovereignty Beyond the Modern State: Space, Objects, and Media”

In the past 25 years or more, political observers have diagnosed a crisis of the sovereign nation state and the erosion of state sovereignty through supranational institutions and the global mobility of capital, goods, information and labour. This edition of the European History Yearbook seeks to use “cultural sovereignty” as a heuristic concept to provide new views on these developments since the beginning of the 20th century.

 

ed. by Gregor Feindt, Bernhard Gissibl, Johannes Paulmann (Introduction), with contributions by:

FORUM

Data Meets History: A Research Data Management Strategy for the Historically Oriented Humanities by Fabian Cremer, Silvia Daniel, Marina Lemaire, Katrin Moeller, Matthias Razum, and Arnošt Štanzel

 

 

Following the Fugitive: Reflections on the Concept of Memorial Routes and the Possibilities of Representing Escape

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Anne Friedrichs & Bettina Severin-Barboutie

Multilingual remembrance of the escape situation in Portbou, Spain (photo: Anne Friedrichs)

As recently as 2015, travellers to Turin and eight other south and west European cities (Milan, Genoa, Florence and Rome, Paris and Marseille, Valencia as well as Lisbon) could take advantage of a special offer: a city tour provided by migrant residents. This initiative, co-funded by the European Union, aimed to allow visitors to experience the city “through different eyes.” The tourists took on the role of migrants whereas the latter functioned as locals. Thus, different forms of mobility – such as migration and travel – and their appendant overlaps and effects could be explored conjointly.

But the question arises: Can we indeed trace the historical experiences of heterogeneous migrants through such participatory tourist practices? Can we apply the public enactments and shared personal experiences of guided tours likewise to forms of mobility such as escape, which are associated with existential threat and which have been controversially discussed and managed, for instance since 2015? What can historians contribute in view of recent disputes in Europe and elsewhere, particularly given the necessity of balancing different historical experiences, interpretations and memories?

Following a frequently used refugee route

In some regions, refugee movements form part of public commemorative culture. Among numerous other memories, histories of flight and escape are thus immediately visible there. As part of a curricular excursion, we travelled to such a region, namely the French-Spanish Pyrenees, along with students of the Justus Liebig University Giessen in the summer term of 2019. Our focus was a 15 km trail that cuts through the mountains. This trail follows the refugee route taken by Walter Benjamin in his attempted escape from French Banyuls-sur-Mer to Portbou in Spain. Continue reading →

Bomber’s Baedeker

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Rare edition of the 1944 edition of “Bomber’s Baedeker” has been digitalised. The volumes from the Leibniz Institute of European History are now available through Gutenberg Capture, the online portal of the University Library at Mainz.

“Bombers Baedeker” (1944) – copy held at the Leibniz Institute of European History

In 1943 the British Ministry of Economic Warfare published a “Guide to the Economic Importance of German Towns and Cities” listing bombing targets in Germany. An enlarged second edition came out in 1944. One of the very few copies is held by the library of the Leibniz Institute of European History. It has now been made available online as the original can no longer be used for reasons of preservation.

 

Open acess to digital edition https://visualcollections.ub.uni-mainz.de/urn/urn:nbn:de:hebis:77-vcol-20056

Bomber’s Baedeker lists German cities with an evaluation of their importance for the German war economy, the available infrastructure und transport facilities. The first edition focused on cities witth 15,000 or more inhabitants; the second edition included locations with less than 1,000 inhabitants if they appeared important for the war economy. Targets were asigned “priorities”.

A seminar on the digital copy and its potential for digital history will be held at the Leibniz Institute of European History on 15 October 2019 at 4 p.m.

Continue reading →

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

Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship 2020-21, St Antony’s College, Oxford

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The European Studies Centre of St Antony’s College, Oxford invites applications for the Richard von Weizsäcker Visiting Fellowship, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. The fellowship is tenable for nine months (1 October-30 June).  Applicants should be scholars in the field of post-1850 history or the historical social sciences, and with an outstanding record of publication. They must be employed at a German university at the time of application.

The deadline for all applications is 15 June 2019.

Fellows will be expected to be resident at St Antony’s College for the nine months of the Oxford academic year (October-June); to conduct their research; to give the annual Richard von Weizsäcker lecture; to organize a conference or seminar series on a topic of their choice, bringing recent German scholarship to an English-speaking audience; and to edit an English-language volume of essays based on this.

WeizsäckerFullParticulars20-21

European History Across Boundaries: PhD Workshop Oxford – Mainz

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From 13 – 15 March 2019, the graduate workshop “European History Across Boundaries” took place for the first time in Oxford. The event was jointly organised by the Faculty of History at Oxford University and the Leibniz Institute of European HistoryLeibniz Institute of European History at Mainz.

Outstanding young researchers from universities all over Europe, the USA and Israel discussed their research projects. Topics ranged from Early Modern to Contemporary History. Participants analysed a variety of European boundary crossings, including imperial and colonial, gender, disciplinary and religious borders. Geographically, the projects dealt with connections, for example, in Brazil during the Hispanic monarchy, port cities like Hamburg, Switzerland and the Dutch colonial empire, St. Peterburg and Paris, the Soviet Union and Congo, Germany and Afghanistan as well as Tirol and Tuscany. The projects illustrated the challenges as well as the benefits of researching history across boundaries. It was fascinating to learn that this kind of scholarship attracts and creates early career scholars who are in practical terms as cosmopolitan as the historical subjects they are studying. For full programm click here.

Visit to Oriel College library by partiticpants of PhD workshop European History Across Boundaries

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


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Present Threats to Democracy – Resolution by the German Historical Association (VHD)

			
						

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The German Historical Association (Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands) passed a resolution on present threats to democracy at its bi-annual meeting in Münster





The German Historical Association (VHD) held its bi-annual meeting, the Historikertag, from 25-28 September in Münster, Westphalia. The 3.700 visitors debated the theme “Divided Societies” (“Gespaltene Gesellschaften”) in almost 100 sessions and panels ranging from ancient to contemporary history. The topic was also intensively discussed with regard to historians’ role in the present. Initiated by Dirk Schumann and Petra Terhoeven from Göttingen and supported by a group of a dozen historians, the General Meeting on 27 September passed a resolution on the present threats to democracy (“Resolution des Verbandes der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands zu gegenwärtigen Gefährdungen der Demokratie”). An overwhelming majority of the several hundred members present voted in favour of the Münster declaration (pdf german) (pdf english)


The resolution defends key principles against present-day threats posed by populists’ voices and activities. It argues amongst others for a historically sensitive language against discriminatory cries like “Volksverräter” or “Lügenpresse” reminiscent of the anti-democratic rhetoric in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century. It further appeals to hold up humanitarian principles and international law with regard to asylum seekers and refugees calling to mind past German deeds and experiences. The declaration also mentions the search for European cooperation that emerged from the bitter strife and conflicts during period of two world wars as well as the principles of debating in pluralist democracies. The resolution concludes with an appeal to study the past critically so that political abuse in the form of fake history can be rejected based on scholarship.











The resolutions has already attracted comments in the press. See for example





https://www.welt.de/kultur/article181717830/Vergangenheitsforscher-vs-AfD-Wie-politisch-darf-ein-Historikerverband-sein.html


https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article181702310/Deutscher-Historikertag-Als-Japan-den-Islam-einfuehren-wollte.html





http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/historikertag-stellt-sich-gegen-die-afd-15812149.html





https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/52-historikertag-ist-unsere-gesellschaft-wieder-so-gespalten-57539680.bild.html





https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/deutscher-historikertag-in-muenster-raus-aus-der-komfortzone/23123400.html





During the General Assembly and in a panel discussion on the previous evening, members of the German Historical Association discussed not so much the detailed points in the draft resolution, nor did they question the exact wording. A large majority appeared to support the key principles. The foremost question was whether and how historians should intervene in political debates. Some argued against a resolution on particular political issues although they generally supported the ideas and values of the text. They preferred to focus on threats to freedom of research and the democratic conditions necessary to maintain that freedom. Few saw the resolution as a party political statement or pointed out that a rhetoric of crisis might fuel the danger. That the declaration was also directed against the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was plain without that party being explicitly mentioned. Nevertheless, most recognized that the text was on the defence of principles rather than policies and does not support positions of any single political party.





Those in favour agreed that historians should give guidance based on their scholarly expertise. Historical guidance for the public usually takes the form of analysis and historical explanations. However, it seemed to the majority that present threats called also for normative statements. One speaker reminded the assembled historians of Theodor Mommsen’s intervention in the anti-Semitism debate in 1880 and declared that Mommsen’s principled stance may serve as a positive reference for today’s German Historical Association. Distinguishing between the historian as scholar and expert on the one side and the historian as citizens on the other was described as a moot and artificial point under present circumstances. It was felt that historians should explicitly defend those principles of pluralist society under attack from populism at present. One speaker from Chemnitz and another one from a memorial site (Gedenkstätte) in Lower Saxony strongly urged those present to pass the resolution because they needed this kind of support by the professional organisation against the current, sometimes daily threats to their freedom of research. The final vote by showing of hand demonstrated that German historians as an organised profession overwhelmingly recognized the present threats and saw the need to defend key principles of pluralist and democratic society.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Graduate Workshop: Oxford University and Leibniz Institute of European History

			
						

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European History across Boundaries from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century




Conveners: Sarah Panter, Johannes Paulmann (Mainz) and Lyndal Roper (Oxford)

Venue: University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Date: 13 – 15 March 2019

Deadline for Applications: 15 October 2018


CFP_Doktorandenworkshop_2019


The Leibniz Institute of European History at Mainz and the University of Oxford Faculty of History invite international PhD students to a workshop on European history across boundaries from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, including Europe’s relations with the world. We encourage researchers working in this field to present their dissertation projects and to discuss the transcultural and transnational scope of their findings in a stimulating environment. Topics that aim to cross and reflect boundaries and borders are of particular interest. Projects can employ a variety of methodical approaches such as comparative studies, the study of transfer processes and entanglements, or the histoire croisée.


The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), an independent research institution in Mainz (Germany), fosters research on the social, religous and political dynamics in Europe from the early modern period into the twentieth century. The Faculty of History at Oxford is one of the key research centres for history in the UK. Its acadamics have a wide range of interests and specialisms which smirror its excellence in teaching history,  with centres working on the history of the Europe, Asia, the United States as well as global history more generally.


At the workshop, we will discuss pre-circulated papers based on archival research (max. 8,000 words, written in English, to be submitted by 15 February 2019). Accommodation for the duration of the workshop and a contribution to travel expenses within Europe will be provided.


Proposals should include an abstract of the overall project and its archival sources (500 words) plus a brief biographical note (including institutional affiliation, thesis supervisors, and contact details). These documents should be sent in one pdf-file to Sarah Panter – panter@ieg-mainz.de – by no later than 15 October 2018. For any questions, please contact the organisers.


CFP_Doktorandenworkshop_2019

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Les acteurs européens du “printemps du peuples” en 1848

			
						

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Colloque international du cent soixante-dixième anniversaire

 Organisé par le Centre d’histoire du XIXe siècle et l’axe politique du LabEx EHNE




ProgrammeColloque1848


International Conference organised by the Centre d’histoire du XIXe siècle et l’axe politique du LabEx EHNE “Ecrire une histoire nouvelle de l’Europe”


31 MAI – 2 JUIN 2018 | 9H – 17H30


SORBONNE | AMPHI GUIZOT | 17 RUE DE LA SORBONNE 75005 PARIS


Inscription obligatoire jusqu’au 28 mai 2018 sur http://printempsdespeuples.evenium.net


Partenaires:


Institut historique allemand de Paris, Institut Leibniz d’Histoire européenne à Mayence (Allemagne), Centre interuniversitaire d’histoire culturelle de l’Université de Padoue (Italie), ANR AsilEuropeXIX, École doctorale « Histoire moderne et contemporaine » de Sorbonne Université (ED 188), Société d’histoire de la révolution de 1848 et des révolutions du XIXe siècle, Comité d’histoire parlementaire et politique.