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

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

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

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”). 

Re-Inscribing Islam into European History

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

 

 

 

 

 

Graduate Workshop 2017/18 at Leibniz Institute of European History

European History across Boundaries from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century

Conveners: Gregor Feindt, Johannes Paulmann (Mainz) and Lyndal Roper (Oxford)
Venue: Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany
Date: 24 – 26 January 2018
Deadline for Applications: 16 July 2017

CfP Graduate Workshop 2017_2018 pdf

The Leibniz Institute of European History invites 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), contributes to this new approach from an interdisciplinary perspective. It fosters research on the religious, social, and political dynamics in Europe from the early modern period into the twentieth century and focusses on processes of establishing, coping with and enabling difference. The Graduate Workshop 2017/18 takes place in cooperation with Lyndal Roper, Regius Chair of History at the University of Oxford.

At the workshop, we will discuss pre-circulated papers based on archival research (max. 8,000 words, written in English, submitted by 7 January 2018). The institute will provide accommodation for the duration of the workshop and contribute to travel expenses within Europe.

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 Gregor Feindt – feindt@ieg-mainz.de – by no later than 16 July 2017. For any questions, please contact the organisers.

CfP Graduate Workshop 2017_2018 pdf

Citizenship and Belonging in Europe – Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS – PhD candidates in the Humanities and Cultural Studies as well as in the Social Sciences and Law to present their dissertation projects and to discuss their ideas in a stimulating, interdisciplinary environment overlooking Lake Como. Venue: Villa Vigoni, Menaggio, Como, Italy, Date: 20-24 November 2017
Deadline: 28 February 2017

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Villa Vigoni – the Villa Garvaglio Ricci

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 first graduate workshop of the Gerda Henkel Academy will take place in November 2017 at Villa Vigoni. Continue reading