Social and Labour History News

Vienna, 24 and 25 November, 2025

The annual conference 2025 of the Austrian Society for Exile Studies (öge) is dedicated to the experiences of refugees under the title Love, Sexuality and Intimacy in Exile. It looks at these topics from a historical, current and interdisciplinary perspective and explores emotional, romantic and physical experiences. According to historian Ute Frevert, feelings ultimately motivate action and should therefore be considered as a central category of analysis when we investigate agency in exile.

Love, sexuality and intimacy in exile - historical and current perspectives

“There is, my love, only one place in the world where I feel like I am in my country, and that is in your arms. There I can rest. There I can breathe freely. There I am not afraid to be myself. With you, my love, no matter in which country, I would be in my country.”

With these words, the Viennese actress Hedwig Schlichter, who arrived in Argentina in 1940 after surviving her flight from Austria and later from France, reflected on her “fate as an emigrant”. For many years, Schlichter wrote letters to the man she had met and fallen in love with on the crossing from Bordeaux to Buenos Aires - without ever sending them. The reason for this is not known, nor is the identity of the addressee, and yet this brief outline provides a variety of starting points for research into love, sexuality and intimacy in exile. It raises the question of how intimate relationships could be practiced in the transnational contexts of exile when, according to cultural theorist Lauren Berlant, closeness was a defining element; how sexual desire developed in times of political extremes; how loved ones could offer security alongside all the uncertainties of emigration, build a bridge to the country of origin or contribute to despair and a sense of loss.

The annual conference 2025 of the Austrian Society for Exile Studies (öge) is dedicated to the experiences of refugees under the title Love, Sexuality and Intimacy in Exile. It looks at these topics from a historical, current and interdisciplinary perspective and explores emotional, romantic and physical experiences. According to historian Ute Frevert, feelings ultimately motivate action and should therefore be considered as a central category of analysis when we investigate agency in exile. This was also made clear by Marion Kaplan in her study on Portugal as a transit country, published in 2022. In the flight situation associated with feelings of fear, grief and anger, emotional communities (Barbara Rosenwein) could provide stability and a sense of belonging and form the basis for intimate relationships. Family, (sham) marriages or queer networks were also able to make everyday life in exile easier and open up alternative and empowering options for action. In addition, traditional gender roles often began to falter, as women now often took on the role of the family breadwinner - at least temporarily. At the same time, however, some violent forms of relationships were radicalized in the social isolation of exile, gender hierarchical structures were exacerbated and images of masculinity and femininity as well as emancipative achievements suffered a backlash.

Both historically and in current regimes, sexuality is/was often politically instrumentalized. Lesbian, gay, queer and intersex or transgender people experience/experienced marginalization and are/were persecuted - under National Socialism, in Putin's Russia or in Syria in recent years. But even in supposedly democratic systems, in Poland or the USA, the demand for abortion rights or for legal and social equality for LGBTQIA+ people has repeatedly led to outraged reactions and even violent riots.

Young women were often diagnosed with libidinous sexuality, which allowed Nazi authorities to stigmatize those affected as “asocial” and force them to undergo abortions or forced sterilizations; women in sex work also suffered this fate. In some cases, the sexual violence often experienced in this context ultimately prompted them to go into exile. Sexual, queer-hostile, misogynistic experiences of violence were often linked to anti-Semitic or racist ones, which is why historian Anna Hájková advocates focusing on overlapping and multiple affiliations under the heading “Queering the Holocaust”.

Speaking about love, sexuality and intimacy was not easy, especially in structures of coercion and oppression. The conference therefore examines forms of medialization and representations of these TOPICS as well as methodological approaches to understanding their historical and current significance. What function did letters or diaries have in articulating desire, what codes were used to express “forbidden” sexuality, what gender-specific forms of communication can be identified? How did artistic forms of expression (painting, literature, film, music) serve to talk about love, sexuality and intimacy in exile; which formal, linguistic, motivic and aesthetic references were made?

At its annual conference in 2025, the Austrian Society for Exile Studies (öge) will take an in-depth look at the history and present of love, sexuality and intimacy in exile. It particularly welcomes interdisciplinary contributions that combine approaches from exile studies, women's and gender history, contemporary and cultural history, queer studies, sociology and political science. Political and artistic organizations are also invited to present projects. In addition to contributions on the history of exile under National Socialism and other historical contexts, current perspectives are explicitly encouraged. The call for papers is open geographically and should also provide the opportunity for comparative contributions.

Possible topics
- Experiences of LGBTQIA+ people on the run and their networks in exile
- Queering the Holocaust as a task for exile studies
- The stigma of prostitution: sexual work as economic security in exile or as a survival strategy in the internment camps of refugee countries
- Sexuality and the body in totalitarian systems and in the political discourses of the host countries
- emotional communities - emotional history of exile
- Transnational, familial, romantic or sexual relationships - practices, challenges and opportunities
- Love and intimacy in exile
- Intersectional experiences: Overlaps of discrimination based on gender, sexuality, religion, physical disability, etc.
- Marriages of convenience - coercion or emancipative alternatives to the heterosexual marriage norm?
- New/old gender images and relationship models in the confrontation with the host society
- Forms of medialization and representation: letters, diaries, paintings, films, literature, music

Cooperation partners: Österreichische Exilbibliothek im Literaturhaus Wien, QWien

General information
When: November 24 and 25, 2025
Where: University of Vienna, Sky Lounge
Languages: German and English

Deadlines
Until April 27: Please send abstracts of 200 to 300 words and bio blurbs to office@exilforschung.ac.at
By May 15: Selection of contributions

There is no conference fee. We will try to cover the costs of travel and accommodation.

A publication of selected contributions is planned.

Kontakt

office@exilforschung.ac.at

International conference at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin

November 13-14, 2025

Conveners: Steven Serels & Magdalena Moorthy Kloss

The Red Sea is one of the world’s most enduring arteries of human trafficking. Over the past two decades, scholars have shown that the forced migration of enslaved people played a crucial role in linking the African and Arabian littorals into a complex, multifaceted region. This research has helped reshape the academic study of global slavery, which originally focused narrowly on the transatlantic slave trade and the American plantation system. Scholars working on the Red Sea region, as well as on the broader Indian Ocean world, have challenged the study of global slavery to consider the full range of forms of human bondage that developed under other social, political, and economic conditions. This scholarship has convincingly demonstrated that the binary of slavery-freedom elaborated within the trans-Atlantic context fails to describe dynamics in other parts of the world. Some scholars have even gone so far as to suggest that the terms ‘slavery’ and ‘freedom’ should be replaced with other analytical concepts. For example, Winnebeck et al. have recently proposed using the substitute term ‘asymmetrical dependency,’ which they say “allows for the study of a wide range of societal, group-related, and individual varieties of hierarchization and oppression.”

This international conference seeks to contribute to this ongoing debate by critically examining the concept of ‘freedom’ in the study of slavery and its aftermath in the Red Sea Region.

Building off earlier collaborative initiatives, this conference aims to further consolidate the subfield of Red Sea slavery studies by expanding the scope of inquiry beyond the processes that enslaved people and held them in bondage. Instead, the conference will focus on what happens “afterwards” – i.e. when human bondage ends. In the Red Sea Region, abolition and emancipation have been incompletely implemented. This has had complex ramifications that continue to reverberate at the individual, communal, and societal levels. For individuals, emancipation from slavery was shaped by manifold and often overlapping legal, cultural and religious norms. These at times contradictory norms shaped the position of former slaves and their descendants within the broader community. This was true both while slavery was a state-supported institution and after it was officially prohibited over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scholars working on other regions have also identified legacies of slavery at the macro-level that persist long after abolition and emancipation. They have proposed that these societies should be studied within a lens of ‘post-slavery’ even after the institution has been formally eradicated.

In the Red Sea Region, this is further complicated by the fact that people continue to be held in bondage, albeit illegally.

We invite contributions that address these processes. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Political, philosophical and religious conceptualizations of ‘freedom’ in the Red Sea region
• European colonial understandings of ‘freedom’ and their impact
• Formal routes to emancipation and their consequences
• Marronage and self-manumission
• The descendants of formerly enslaved people
• The economics of abolition and emancipation
• Social/racialized hierarchies and their links to historical forms of bondage
• The connection between slavery, indentured labour and modern forms of coerced labour in the Red Sea.

This two-day conference will be held at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. Selected papers will be published in an edited volume. Please submit a title and a 300-400 word abstract for your proposed paper, as well as a brief biographical note (100 word maximum), to steven.serels@zmo.de and magdalena.moorthy-kloss@zmo.de by 1 May 2025.

Contact Email magdalena.moorthy-kloss@zmo.de

Palestine and global resistance to genocide

The Workers of the World journal invites submissions for the upcoming themed issue, Palestine, and global resistance to genocide. The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2025.

Description

Using its incomparably superior military might and US support, the Israeli Army in the service of Netanyahu’s far-right government used retaliation for the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack as a pretext to kill, starve, and forcibly displace Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They destroyed their homes, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure at a scale unprecedented in recent history. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) about 100,000 Palestinians have left the enclave, 11,000 are missing while more than 55,000 are presumed to have lost their lives. Over the past year, Palestinian life in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Occupied Territories has been upended, and the conflict has bled into Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria with the threat of escalation to Iran ever present. The reaction has been global with Palestine at the forefront of the geopolitical stage. South Africa’s case, which brought Israel before the International Court of Justice, is now being supported by 14 countries, mostly from the global South, accusing Israel of committing the crime of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Despite the horror being inflicted on Gaza, we have seen the continuing inspirational fighting resistance of the Palestinian people, as well as an unprecedented movement of global solidarity with Gaza.

This themed issue invites contributions that explore:

• The path of liberation of the Palestinian people – strategies of the liberation movements
• The implications of the geopolitical realignment and Palestinian liberation.
• An assessment of the global solidarity movement and its significance.
• Global labor and the question of Palestine
• The limits and possibilities of international law in relation to Palestine
• The growth of the BDS movement, challenges, and prospects
• Academic and cultural boycotts of Israel
• The significance of the anti-Zionist Jewish movement, in and out of Israel, and its future
• The complicity of western countries in supporting the genocide and repression of dissent
• How has Palestine shifted domestic, regional, and global politics?

The deadline for submissions is May 15 2025, and should be sent to the Executive Board at workersoftheworld1848@gmail.com

 

Work and the Balkans, special issue of the Études Balkaniques

(scheduled for publication in the second half of 2026)

Editors: Antonis Nasis, PhD candidate in history at EHESS/CETOBaC – University of Crete, and Christos Andrianopoulos, PhD in History and member of the CRH at EHESS

Call for contributions

Work and the Balkans

The concept of work—its meaning and how it is culturally, socially, and historically constructed—varies significantly from one region and society to another. In the context of the Balkans, an area rich in cultural diversity, political complexity, and historical transformations, the notion of work has experienced considerable changes. These shifts have been shaped by various socio-economic systems, from Ottoman rule to socialist regimes and the post-socialist transition to market economies.

This collective volume aims to critically explore and analyse the evolution of conceptions of work within the Balkan context. Authors are invited to reflect on how work has been understood, practised, and experienced in the Balkans across different historical periods and through the lens of social class, gender dynamics, and rural or urban settings. Second, we encourage a critical examination of the Balkan context through the analysis of work in its semantic and historical dimensions and from a broader spatio-temporal perspective. Lastly, we propose to examine work as a representation or an imaginary construct by exploring its connotations across different Balkan languages.

Additionally, we aim to highlight lesser-explored aspects, such as geography and the environment, emphasising the significant variations in the landscape: island territories, mountainous and semi-mountainous regions, plains, coastal cities, and the hinterland. We will also consider the contrast between major urban centres (such as Istanbul) and small villages, examining women’s labour, alongside domestic work, artisanal traditions, and working-class identities in major industrial hubs. Other points of interest include foreign workers (seasonal or otherwise), intellectual labour, work narratives, labour activism (anarchism, syndicalism, and marginal forms of communism), labour reforms, and resistance to these reforms. Finally, we will address the complex issue of forced labour and slavery, which persisted in the Ottoman sphere until the 20th century despite its official abolition.

Historiographical approaches to the Balkans often remain confined to traditional frameworks, failing to clarify whether there is a distinct “Balkan” specificity. Some portray the Ottoman period as a "dark" era, while others view it as a “laboratory” of Westernization or modernisation (especially in the 19th century). National historiographies tend to focus on post-Ottoman emancipation. These approaches frequently position Balkan histories in relation to the so-called “West” within a narrative of progress or its absence.

However, recent historiographical perspectives emphasize the permeability of Balkan societies to modern ideas originating from the West thus challenging interpretations attribute

certain phenomena solely to the region's national or cultural particularities. The Balkans, integrated into global dynamics, have not only absorbed external influences but have also become a hub for producing and disseminating new ideas and challenges, situating the region within broader global transformations.

Our study on labour in the Balkans, which we propose to conduct within the framework of Études Balkaniques, does not seek to oppose these various approaches but rather to re-examine them in light of an issue that has yet to receive systematic analysis. Indeed, labour is rarely regarded as a central focus when studying the Balkan region despite its enduring significance in its societies. Over the years, labour has been explored through multiple lenses: politically (the distinction between socialist and capitalist modes of production), as a tool of oppression (e.g., for political prisoners in Greece), economically (such as the self-management labour model in Yugoslavia), or as a marker of craftsmanship and product quality in popular cultures.

Our goal is to broaden these perspectives and examine whether a specific typology of labour exists in the Balkans beyond rigid categories such as socialism, empires, nations, and war—whether by applying terms used in other contexts, frequently shaped by European or Western societies.

When examining the history of labour in the Balkans, can we truly speak of "industry," "proletariat," "factory," or "modernity," or should we instead consider a distinct form of "archaism" in Balkan labour organisation? What are the various forms of labour organisation—whether scientific or not—across different historical periods and regions in the Balkans? How did the Ottoman state's attempts at centralising production models interact with centrifugal local dynamics in the Balkan provinces? How is labour represented in literature, art, folklore, and popular culture, and what does this reveal about the symbolic value of labour in Balkan societies? To what extent do ethnic, national, linguistic, and religious identities shape labour markets, and how does the latter, in turn, condition the working class? Moreover, do Balkan diasporic movements contribute to the perpetuation of "Balkan" labour practices in regions such as Russia, Ukraine, or Poland? Finally, can contemporary labour and production crises in the Balkans be interpreted as the manifestation of a crisis of a precisely "Balkan" form of labour, or do they reflect the challenges of a global system?

To address these questions, we propose an analysis spanning multiple historical periods, from the 17th century to the present day, and covering an extended geographical space that transcends the traditional geographic and cultural boundaries of the Balkans. This special issue encourages interdisciplinary contributions, welcoming perspectives from all disciplines within the social sciences and humanities, including sociology, anthropology, history, and economics.

The Travail et Balkans volume, scheduled for publication in the second half of 2026, is a peer-reviewed journal available on demand and indexed on the CAIRN platform, ensuring the highest academic standards. https://shs.cairn.info/revue-etudes-balkaniques-cahiers-pierre-belon?la… The editors of this volume are Antonis Nasis, PhD candidate in history at EHESS/CETOBaC – University of Crete (antonios.nasis@ehess.fr), and Christos Andrianopoulos, PhD in History and member of the CRH at EHESS (andriano.paris10@gmail.com).

Articles will be published in French, although a limited number of contributions in English will also be accepted. The average length of articles is 40,000 characters. Abstracts, along with completed participation forms, are expected by April 18, and full articles must be submitted by September 26, 2025. For abstract submissions or further inquiries, please contact workandthebalkans@gmail.com

Education, how, what and for whom?

The Workers of the World journal invites submissions for the upcoming themed issue, Education, what, for whom, how? The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2025.

Education has been at the centre of some of the most important debates in recent years. Words and expressions such as burnout;  students’ mental health pathologies; workers’ “blackout” and inadequate training; teacher shortages; digital “teaching”; have spread to the “common sense” lexicon. In parallel, a new wave of strikes, from Chicago to South Africa, from Amsterdam to Lisbon, has since 2008 put teachers’ struggles i.a. for public education in the forefront of social movements, in what seems to be a trend toward a global response to the degradation of public services in the era of declining capitalism.

As far as the ruling classes are concerned, education is central not only because of its sheer reach in society — more than 1.5 billion students and teachers attend the world’s schools and universities every day, which makes them decisive crucibles for the internalisation of ruling ideologies — but also because of the demands of the labour market in a context of radical transformations in the world of work and, more broadly, in the capitalist mode of production itself. In a number of countries around the world the order of capital drives the relentless modification of curricula to the detriment of scientific and historical-social education, as well as the accelerated marketisation of the sector in line with the velocity of capital accumulation and investment; it promotes digitisation, automation and AI in line with algorithms designed by corporations, as well as increasingly precarious labour relations to make up for teacher shortages (caused, strictly speaking, by low salaries and terrible working conditions). Despite growing xenophobia, capital can’t help but deal with the integration of migrant populations through the educational apparatus, albeit as an industrial reserve army. Faced with such onslaughts, everyday educational practices end up assimilating crucial aspects of bourgeois cultural policies. In this, the liberal view re-signifying multiculturalism as a paradigm of diversity and inclusion without any connection to the material basis of societies prevails. The same applies to the active methodologies that remove the ontological dimension of labour from human agency, as if the profound educational inequalities could be overcome by operative procedures in educational processes.

As far as the working classes are concerned, however, there is an evident deepening of strategic dilemmas, as expressed in critical theories. Teaching workers’ struggles around the world corroborate the generalised dissatisfaction with capital’s proposals. In academia questions are also being asked. However, education progressives are far from a consensus. Amid the liberal educational thinking, some progressive conceptions have adopted a constructivist vision that distances students from work as an educational principle on the basis of its ontological, ethical and political dimensions, as advocated by Vygotsky and his interlocutors. Instead of knowledge mediating with nature and society, capital celebrates so-called “skills” — a subject that is hardly broached by many pedagogical currents. Within dialectical materialist conceptions some have come to support the idea that the meaning of education is disinterested knowledge (not aimed at the unilateral training of the workforce), an education that aims for real universalism, overcoming false liberal universalism and committed to the knowledge and explanation of the totality, always in the process of searching for truth through science, which are central dimensions of public education in the face of dogma and obscurantism. Historical-critical pedagogy rejects educational dualism and stands for integral education: in Marx’s terms, omnilateral. The point is discussing the state of the struggle against commercialisation of education and for the protection of the freedom of teaching at all levels of education.

This dossier aims to address these issues and invites all teachers, struggle collectives, researchers and scientists to reflect critically on education and propose solutions that are both a critical reflection on education and a proposal for transformative action.

The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2025, and should be sent to the Executive Board at workersoftheworld1848@gmail.com

 

Accès libre : https://journals.openedition.org/histoirepolitique/

Contenu:

• Adeline Blaszkiewicz-Maison et Romain Castellesi

Les politiques sociales du travail dans l’Europe contemporaine (France métropolitaine, Angleterre, Italie, XIXe-XXIe siècles) : introduction [Texte intégral] 

Social labour policies in contemporary Europe (mainland France, England, Italy, 19th to 21st centuries): Introduction

• Laure Piguet

Chiffres et politiques sociales. La Société fabienne et les savoirs comme stratégie du socialisme réformiste (1884-1889) [Texte intégral] 

Statistics and Social Policy: The Fabian Society and Knowledge as a Strategy for Reformism (1884-1889)

• Adeline Blaszkiewicz-Maison

L’Organisation internationale du travail et les politiques sociales françaises de l’entre-deux-guerres : histoire d’une ambivalence [Texte intégral] 

The ILO and French social policies during the interwar period: history of an ambivalence

• Léo Rosell

Le rôle des organisations ouvrières dans la fabrique du régime général de la sécurité sociale à la Libération [Texte intégral] 

The role of workers' organisations in the creation of the Social Security system in post-liberation France 

• Alessandro Brizzi

Une entreprise-providence ? Les acteurs de la politique sociale de la Fiat entre collaboration et conflit (années 1920-1960) [Texte intégral] 

The company as a welfare state? The actors of Fiat’s social policy between collaboration and conflict (1920s-1960s)

• Aurélie Andry

La Confédération européenne des syndicats et la fabrique d’une politique sociale européenne (1957-années 1980) [Texte intégral] 

The European Trade Union Confederation and the making of a European social policy, 1957-1980s

• Romain Castellesi

Accompagner le désastre ouvrier : les politiques sociales de la désindustrialisation en France dans le second XXe siècle [Texte intégral] 

Accompanying the workers’ disaster: The social policies of deindustrialization in France since 1945

·  Varia

• Louise Francezon

L’agente Nancy Wake ou la fabrique d’une virago ? Pratiques et sociabilités masculines dans les mondes militaires de la Seconde Guerre mondiale [Texte intégral] 

The Making of a Virago? Nancy Wake and the Gendered Dynamics of Military Sociabilities during the Second World war

• Evelyne Hery-Vielpeau

Le genre de l’orientation : un discours sur « les carrières féminines » en France à l’heure de la scolarisation de masse [Texte intégral] 

The gender of school guidance: a discourse on « women’s careers » in France at the time of mass schooling

 

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
Hiroshimastraße 28, 10785 Berlin

Ferdinand Lassalle wurde am 11. April 1825 in Breslau geboren. Der Jurist, politische Organisator und herausragende Redner rief 1863 den Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiterverein (ADAV) ins Leben. Eineinhalb Jahrzehnte nach der verlorenen Revolution von 1848/49 nutzte Lassalle das liberaler werdende politische Klima zur Gründung einer eigenständigen Organisation der Arbeiter:innenklasse. „Der Arbeiterstand muss sich als selbstständige politische Partei konstituieren und das allgemeine, gleiche und direkte Wahlrecht zu dem prinzipiellen Losungswort und Banner dieser Partei machen“, wie er es 1863 formulierte.

1875 vereinigte sich der ADAV mit der Sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterpartei in Gotha zur Sozialistischen Arbeiterpartei – seit 1890 die Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands. Der gebürtige Breslauer Jude Ferdinand Lassalle gilt somit als Begründer der deutschen Sozialdemokratie.

Anlässlich seines 200. Geburtstags laden wir ein zum Gespräch über die Bedeutung Lassalles für die Sozialdemokratie in Geschichte und Gegenwart.

https://www.fes.de/geschichte/veranstaltungen/ein-abend-mit-ferdinand-l…

Archiv der Arbeiterjugendbewegung, Oer-Erkenschwick/Germany

Am 15. und 16. August 2025 findet der 5. Forschungsworkshop „Arbeit-Jugend-Bewegung“ statt.

Der Forschungsworkshop »Arbeit-Jugend-Bewegung« geht am 15./16. August 2025 in die fünfte Runde! Erstmalig wird er als Kooperationsveranstaltung des Archivs der Arbeiterjugendbewegung (Oer-Erkenschwick) mit dem Bildungswerk Stenden (Düsseldorf) durchgeführt.

Der Workshop richtet sich an Studierende, Promovierende und Postdocs, die zur Geschichte von Arbeit, Jugend und sozialen Bewegungen seit dem 19. Jahrhundert forschen. Im Mittelpunkt steht der interdisziplinäre Austausch: Teilnehmende haben die Gelegenheit, ihre Forschungsergebnisse zu präsentieren, aktuelle Fragestellungen zu diskutieren, sich zu vernetzen und neue Impulse für ihre wissenschaftliche Arbeit zu erhalten. Die Beiträge werden in der Zeitschrift "Mitteilungen" des Archivs der Arbeiterjugendbewegung veröffentlicht.

Die Teilnahme an dem Workshop sowie die damit verbundenen Kosten für Übernachtung und Verpflegung im Salvador-Allende-Haus, Oer-Erkenschwick, ist kostenfrei, sofern Sie sich bis zum 21. Juli 2025 über den folgenden Anmeldelink registriert haben, ein kurzes Exposé zu Ihrem Forschungsprojekt per E-Mail bei m.daldrup@arbeiterjugend.de eingereicht haben und Ihre Teilnahme von uns bestätigt wurde.

Anmeldung: https://www.bildungswerk-stenden.de/seminarangebot/arbeit-jugend-bewegung-forschungsworkshop-2/

by Michel Cordillot

Quelle est la place occupée par cette association dans l'histoire du mouvement ouvrier en France ? Quelle était l'ambition de ses membres fondateurs ? Dans quel contexte ont-ils réussi à se rassembler ? Mais surtout, qui étaient-ils ?

Historien, professeur émérite de l’université Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint Denis, Michel Cordillot est l’auteur de nombreux ouvrages d’histoire sociale, dont La Commune de Paris (1871), La Sociale en Amérique, Aux origines du socialisme moderne (Éditions de l’Atelier, 2021, 2002 et 2010) ou encore, Eugène Varlin, internationaliste et communard (Spartacus, 2016). Il est également traducteur de l’anglais (Éditions de l’Atelier et Éditions du sous-sol).

https://editionsatelier.com/boutique/accueil/478-la-premiere-internatio…

20-21 November 2025, University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

This conference aims to explore the history of students through their regional, religious, national and international organisations in the second half of the twentieth century. The aim is to examine the student agency through the analysis of their social profile, the forms of material or symbolic compensation for their commitment, and the circulation of knowledge about the economic and social situation of the students.

The history of students has been approached through two overlapping frameworks: chronological and thematic. There is a historiography that covers the long 19th century up to the Second World War, in which historians were mainly interested in this social group through the study of its social characteristics, venues, and rituals - in a word, its identity. The approach used for this period, i.e. to look at the institutions created and governed by students, their ways of identifying themselves and organising their lives, has remained overlooked in the study of student life during the Cold War. For this early period, such methods like comparison (Dubois, 2021; Levsen, 2008) or global, imperial and/or postcolonial history (Laqua, 2011; Löhr, 2021; Legrandjacques, 2021) have proved their worth in studies focused on the early 19th century and could be further analysed in the relation with the post-1945 period. 

When studying the second half of the twentieth century, historians focused mainly on students as a fundamental driving force to explain major social movements, the emergence of a globalised mass culture, especially in the context of the “long 1960s”, or to illustrate the evolution of development policies through scholarship schemes and the growth of academic mobility.

This conference aims to explore the history of students through their regional, religious, national and international organisations in the second half of the twentieth century, using certain approaches generally used for the previous period. The goal is not to scrutinise the official language and organisational structures but the social profile of the students, the forms of material or symbolic reward for their commitment, and the circulation of knowledge about the economic and social situation of the students. While taking into account the geopolitical context of the Cold War and the youth movements of the 1960s, we want to pay more attention to the emergence of the mass university on the one hand and decolonisation on the other. This conference will provide a more precise overview of practices and actions carried out by students, while focusing less on discourse.

We therefore give priority to the papers on:

• East-West or North-South comparison in the history of international and national student organisations;
• The participation of students, through their local, national or international organisations, in ‘development’ policies (literacy campaigns, support for the democratisation of studies);
• Local commitment to global, progressive or reactionary causes (anti-/feminism, anti-/racism, anti-/colonialism, inter-/nationalism). 

The conference focuses on the second half of the twentieth century, but diachronic comparisons, as are sociological approaches to the present with a historical dimension, are also welcome. 

The conference is part of the project From Student Internationalism to Erasmus (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Czech Science Foundation) whose members form the scientific committee.

Dates and places

Dates: 20-21 November 2025

Place: University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

Submission guidelines

Please send a summary of your paper (up to 500 words) and a short CV to Dr Lidia Lesnykh (lidia.lesnykh@unifr.ch)

by 1 May 2025.

Applicants will be notified on the 1st of June.

Travel and accommodation costs are, in principle, at the participants’ own expense. Where necessary, we will do our best to help colleagues without financial support.

Information: Prof. Matthieu Gillabert (matthieu.gillabert@unifr.ch)

Scientific Committe

• Pr. Matthieu Gillabert, Professor of Contemporary history, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Dr. Mikuláš Pešta, Sssistant professor, Institute of World History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Czechia
• Dr. Lidia Lesnykh, Postdoc in Contemporary history, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Martin Pácha, Ph.D. candidate, Institute of Czech History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Czechia
• Timothy Schürmann, Ph.D. candidate in Contemporary history, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Cited works

Dubois Antonin, Organiser les étudiants. Socio-histoire d’un groupe social (Allemagne et France, 1880-1914), Paris, Le pupitre, 2021.

Laqua Daniel (eds.), Internationalism reconfigured: transnational ideas and movements between the World Wars, London, I.B.Tauris, 2011 (International library of twentieth century history 34).

Legrandjacques Sara, Voies étudiantes : pour une histoire globale des mobilités étudiantes en Asie (Inde britannique - Indochine française, années 1850-1940), PhD Dissertation, Paris 1, 2021.

Levsen Sonja, « Constructing Elite Identities: University Students, Military Masculinity and the Consequences of the Great War in Britain and Germany », Past & Present (198), 2008, pp. 147‑183.

Löhr Isabella, Globale Bildungsmobilität 1850-1930: von der Bekehrung der Welt zur globalen studentischen Gemeinschaft, Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2021.

Kramersplein 23 9000 Ghent

Liberas, UGent, the Laboratoire des pratiques et des identités journalistiques (ReSIC-ULB) and CAMille (ULB/KBR) are organizing between 5 and 7 June a three-day international colloquium on the life stories and careers of "forgotten journalists". The history of journalism has often focused on a limited number of famous individuals. Behind these big names are many journalists whose names and work have not made it into the canon. But to capture the full diversity of the journalistic field, these careers and lives need to be recovered. Three particular groups of forgotten media professionals stand out: women journalists, journalists who made an important mark on the media landscape of their colonial and post-colonial societies during periods of (de)colonization, and those who worked in sectors and areas of journalism that are often considered less prestigious. The third category includes forgotten war photographers, for example, as well as invisible news workers such as telegraph and linotype operators.

Both young researchers and established scholars, including several authors with extensive experience in professional journalism, will present new research on the experiences of forgotten journalists in very different geographical and historical contexts from biographical or prosopographical perspectives.  The speakers will take us from a French political exile from the Second French Empire (1852-1870) who took up his pen again in Brussels, to a Belgian nobleman who covered historical events around the world a hundred years later during the early Cold War.

The program includes three keynote lectures: a French-language lecture by Marie-Eve Thérenty (Université de Montpellier III) on women who wrote for the film sections of French newspapers in the interwar period, a lecture by Will Mary (Louisiana State University) on the importance of the workplaces and technical resources available to large groups of news workers, and a lecture by Noah Amir Arjomand (University of California) on the professional particularities and importance of "fixers" in making sense of current-day crises in the Middle East.

The colloquium can take place thanks to the support of the Research Foundation Flanders-FWO and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS.

The colloquium will take place in the conference room of Liberas in the center of Ghent - (Kramersplein 23).

The full program, with all up-to-date details and information on the speakers and the abstracts of their papers, can be accessed at www.forgottenjournalists2025.eu.

Please check this website for updates as the program can be subject to changes.

If you wish to attend, please register by sending an email to: inschrijven@liberas.eu. Please specify which day(s) of the conference you'd wish to attend.

The registration fee for the full conference is 50 euro (sandwich lunches included). The registration fee for one conference day is 25 euro.

by Laure Pitti

À travers le cas des travailleurs immigrés venus d’Algérie, il s’agit ici de retracer l’histoire, à ce jour peu documentée, de la condition (post)coloniale en terrain usinier dans la France des « Trente Glorieuses ». S’appuyant sur une enquête menée sur l’emblématique usine Renault de Billancourt, ce livre montre comment ces migrants coloniaux en viennent alors à incarner la figure du travailleur immigré et de l’ouvrier subalterne, destiné à le rester. Il révèle comment le recours à une main-d’œuvre coloniale est la condition nécessaire à une expansion industrielle à moindre coût dans les entreprises nationalisées. Par la mise en regard des politiques de main-d’œuvre et des carrières de ces subalternes, l’enquête éclaire les logiques imbriquées de l’exploitation capitaliste et de la domination raciale et dévoile leurs effets sur les trajectoires de cette fraction du groupe ouvrier. À partir de ce cas exemplaire, l’ouvrage constitue une contribution originale à une sociohistoire du capitalisme industriel d’État, au prisme des subalternes et des résistances que ces derniers lui opposent. En étudiant comment ces subalternes politisent leur condition, depuis les mobilisations anticoloniales des années 1950 et la guerre d’indépendance algérienne, jusqu’aux grèves d’OS des années 1968, il met au jour une généalogie de la condition de subalterne et des mobilisations antidiscriminatoires dans la société française d’aujourd’hui. 

https://pur-editions.fr/product/9812/algeriens-au-travail-une-histoire-…