Social and Labour History News

Auteur: Marie Thirion

Du point de vue opéraïste, les travailleurs de la chimie sont l’incarnation d’une classe ouvrière montrant la voie à suivre. L’intervention à ses côtés semble d’autant plus urgente que le secteur se prépare à se mobiliser pour le renouvellement des conventions collectives à la suite des métallurgistes. Ces derniers ne sont pas parvenus à surmonter la division entre public et privé, ni à créer les conditions d’une lutte commune.

Les opéraïstes sont convaincus que les chimistes peuvent éviter ces écueils en portant des revendications pertinentes (notamment sur le temps de travail et l’augmentation des effectifs) et en s’assurant de pouvoir généraliser et contrôler eux-mêmes la lutte. Pour les opéraïstes, la classe ouvrière est désormais seule face au capital. Ce sont “les premiers pas vers un nouveau type d’organisation, totalement autonome” qu’ils croient déceler dans les grèves de l’été 1963. Quant au reflux de la conflictualité ouvrière qui suit, il est inter- prété comme un refus de suivre les syndicats, et non comme un refus de la lutte.

Aux « années de plomb » italiennes est associée la violence de groupes radicalisant la contestation issue de Mai 68. Parmi eux figure l’opéraïsme, courant marxiste né en Italie au début de la décennie. Loin du cliché d’une extrême gauche enfermée dans ses spéculations théoriques et condamnée à sombrer dans une fuite en avant mortifère, l’histoire que retrace Marie Thirion restitue toute l’ampleur d’un mouvement ancré dans la classe ouvrière. Cette tentative de mener une lutte autonome, détachée des bureaucraties syndicales et politiques, fait écho à tout questionnement sur l’articulation entre production intellectuelle et mobilisation des travailleurs.

Marie Thirion est agrégée d’italien et docteure à l’université Grenoble Alpes. Elle a mené une enquête sociologique et historique au chevet de la mémoire ouvrière et militante italienne, dont elle a tiré son premier livre.

https://agone.org/livres/organiser-le-pouvoir-ouvrier

Despite its dynamic and multifaceted character, the port is often presented as a masculine place where men worked, sought entertainment and traveled from and to. In the 43rd edition of the Yearbook of Women’s History, with guest editor Irene Jacobs (Maritiem Museum Rotterdam), we want to question this stereotypical image by focusing on women who worked and lived in the port, who arrived or sailed from there, and the gendered constructions that shaped this environment.

Women and Ports. Re-evaluating a Gendered Space

Ports have played an important role in history as spaces of transit and transitions, of encounters and exchanges, of comings and goings. As nodes in trading networks and hubs of economic activity, ports serve as dynamic meeting spaces for peoples and cultures throughout time. Ports were also zones of conflict, spaces where wars and battles were fought, and where interests and convictions clashed. For some, ports signified freedom and possibilities; for others – such as enslaved people – captivity and extraction.

Despite its dynamic and multifaceted character, the port is often presented as a masculine place where men worked, sought entertainment and traveled from and to. In the 43rd edition of the Yearbook of Women’s History, with guest editor Irene Jacobs (Maritiem Museum Rotterdam), we want to question this stereotypical image by focusing on women who worked and lived in the port, who arrived or sailed from there, and the gendered constructions that shaped this environment. The volume wants to emphasize that women were and are active participants in all sections of the maritime industry on shore. From the repairing of nets, the selling of fish, making navigational instruments, housing sailors or keeping inns, to the maintaining of communities while the men were away at sea: women were key players in maritime societies. This new volume aims to travel to many ports around the world to investigate the role women have played in ports from economic, political, social, and cultural perspectives. In doing so, the volume will help scholars gain the broadest possible insight into the actions and influences of women in the port areas and the influence of the port on women from ancient times to the present.

In doing so, the volume focuses on the following questions: How were ports considered as a gendered space? Which forms of cultural expression did ports produce, and which role did gender play in them? Why do we know so little about women working, living, and staying in ports? Which (new) sources or methodologies could change this? From a more socio-economic perspective, this volume also considers the jobs and positions women held and their contribution to the maritime sector. How were gender roles imposed or negotiated in port labour? Was there occupational segregation, and in which jobs do we see the largest distributions? Which labour was traditionally seen as female labour, and why? Which roles did women take up in the port environment?

In addition to women, this collection also aims to focus on the broader effect of gender and the role of femininity and masculinity in the port. In this way, this collection touches on various intersections of gender with other political, socioeconomic, and cultural phenomena in the port.

We welcome contributions that employ different scales of analysis from all over the world, written by (academic) researchers, teachers, museum professionals, and other cultural and heritage experts. We are looking for articles that vary in length (3000-6000 words) and are written in Dutch or English. We also want to encourage authors to send in more creative expressions of (academic) writing, such as essays, image essays, or poems. Abstracts (200-300 words) written in English or Dutch are to be submitted by 1 June 2024 to jaarboekvrouwengeschiedenis@gmail.com.

Possible topics include:
- Women who worked in maritime industries ashore
- The port as a gendered place
- Women and slavery in ports
- Women’s roles in ports
- Women’s agency in ports
- Transoceanic perspectives on women in ports
- Gender, women, and criminality in ports
- Female piracy and ports
- Stigma, maritime world, and ports
- Ports and (ideas and practices of) masculinity and femininity

Important dates:
1 June 2024: Deadline for abstracts.
15 June 2024: Information concerning acceptance will be sent to the writers.
1 October 2024: Submission deadline first drafts to be submitted to editorial/peer review.
1 June 2025: Submission deadline for final versions

Kontakt

jaarboekvrouwengeschiedenis@gmail.com

Clermont-Ferrand (France), 25-27 November 2024

The conference “Displaced, Exiled: Thinking and making Europe through the experience of exile and displacement” will explore the role of displaced and exiled populations in the construction of Europe, whether they came from European countries or other regions of the world. Taking a resolutely multi-disciplinary approach, it will especially focus on the period that began with the Spanish Civil War and the outbreak of the Second World War, although it will not exclude looking at earlier periods. The central question will be to examine how these populations conceived of and made Europe — how they contributed to its construction, or on the contrary to its failure.

Displaced, Exiled: Thinking and Making Europe through the Experience of Exile and Displacement (20th–21st century)

At the end of the Second World War, Europe faced the twofold challenge of restoring peace and rebuilding, as well as confronting the displacement and exile of millions of people as a result of the war and the Holocaust. In the ensuing decades, decolonization and the violent conflicts connected to it induced further movements that came on top of and intertwined with previous displacements, including those whom historian Andrea Smith has referred to as “invisible migrants”. Since then, Europe has never ceased to be “on the move”, to use the phrase coined by sociologist Eugen Kulischer, himself a Jewish refugee of Russian origin who arrived in the United States in 1941. This also brings to mind the boat people of the 1970s, those displaced by the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, and more recently Ukrainian refugees. Europe continues to be confronted with population displacements in the twenty-first century, contending with a major challenge over the last decade: in 2015 alone, one million people crossed the Mediterranean on their way to what Aleida Assmann has called the “European dream”.

The conference “Displaced, Exiled: Thinking and making Europe through the experience of exile and displacement”, to be held in Clermont-Ferrand from 25-27 November 2024, will explore the role of displaced and exiled populations in the construction of Europe, whether they came from European countries or other regions of the world. Taking a resolutely multi-disciplinary approach, the conference will especially focus on the period that began with the Spanish Civil War and the outbreak of the Second World War, although it will not exclude looking at earlier periods. The central question will be to examine how these actors conceived of and made Europe — how they contributed to its construction, or on the contrary to its failure. We will explore how these populations experienced European conflicts, violence, and control mechanisms, in other words the resources, uses, representations, and statements that have shaped this Europe on the move.

We notably seek to question not only what Europe is and wants to be, but also its transnational dynamic and ability to respect the norms and values it affirms, human rights in particular, as demonstrated by the recent pantheonization of Missak and Mélinée Manouchian in France. We thereby hope to confront Europe with its history and memory. The conference ties in with research that approaches Europe through the prism of its multiple movements, such as Eugen Kulischer's Europe on the Move, Klaus Bade's Europa in Bewegung, and more recently Aleida Assmann's Der Europäische Traum, in addition to Peter Gatrell's The Great Migration. Special emphasis will be given to three topics: spatial reconfigurations, the experience of regulatory frameworks, and representations of Europe in the face of exile and population displacement.

The conference is part of the commemorations held each year by the University of Clermont Auvergne to honour victims of the raid that occurred in Clermont-Ferrand on 25 November 1943. The topic of this year’s conference is highly symbolic, as it marks the 85th anniversary of the University of Strasbourg’s arrival in Clermont-Ferrand, as well as the 80th anniversary of the return of Strasbourg’s exiles from Clermont-Ferrand to Alsace.

Proposals for papers (maximum 500 words), accompanied by a brief CV (maximum 1 page), should be sent before 15 June 2024 to the following address:
colloque-exiles-deplaces.msh@uca.fr

Participants' travel and accommodation costs will be covered. The working languages of the conference will be French and English.

Scientific Committee:
Laura CALABRESE (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgique), Dorota DAKOWSKA (Science Po, Aix en Provence), Corine DEFRANCE (CNRS, Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne), Karim FERTIKH (Science Po Strasbourg), Oscar FREÁN-HERNANÁNDEZ (Université de Lyon 2), Ségolène PLYER (Université de Strasbourg), Brian SHAEV (Leiden University), Lina VENTURAS (Panteion University, Athènes)

Contact

colloque-exiles-deplaces.msh@uca.fr

Workshop at Freie Universität Berlin, 10-11 November 2024

In the past decades, the history of commercial sex has become a burgeoning field of research. While early scholarship confined “prostitution” to the fields of social history and women’s history, the past decade has witnessed a broadening of perspectives and methodological approaches – from cultural history to global history and histories of labor, gender, the body, and sexualities. Despite the development of the field and the evident centrality of sex to sex work, it is precisely these sex practices that have received the least analytical attention in historical research. This stems in part from the methodological difficulties involved in accessing past sexual practices and experiences in historical sources. It might also be due to the “respectability” politics that historians engage in when trying to research sex work while avoiding the “prostitution stigma” attached to the topic and to the subjects who performed it. By focusing on governmental perspectives, social and economic factors, and media and social constructions of “prostitution”, historians could attempt to avoid the sex of sex work. Nevertheless, as trends in the fields of the history of sexuality and queer histories have shown, concrete sexual practices are situated in specific times and social environments.

Histories of sexuality have increasingly moved away from a focus on discourse and policing and towards a study of sexual practices and experiences. We propose using the sources and methodologies used by historians of sex work/prostitution to give us an insight into the sexual practices and the subjectivities of historical actors more generally. In doing so, we can also fight back against the stigma surrounding this topic, and against “respectability” politics, by openly and analytically discussing the still-taboo topic of sex practices in the history of sex work and prostitution. The goal of this workshop is to bring the sex of sex work into the centre of historical analysis and to thus truly integrate histories of sex work into histories of sexuality. We also hope to bring the history of sex work closer to queer history, where commercial sex so far had a problematic status since the sex of sex work was and is not associated with the leisure or sexual identity of the sex worker. We plan to explore the methodological, theoretical, and ethical dimensions of researching the histories of sexual practice and sexuality through sex work and prostitution history.

We welcome submissions that address one or more of the following questions (as well as all submissions that engage with the histories of sexual practice and sexuality in the field of sex work/prostitution from a variety of perspectives and methodologies):

- How do we access sexual practices in historical sources?
- Many sources used in sex work history are regulatory and transmit governmental and institutional perspectives, such as police reports, court records, and medical examinations: how can we best use these sources while still acknowledging their limits and biases?
- What methodologies can be made fruitful for the history of sex work and prostitution, especially when examining body and sex practices?
- How can we meaningfully frame, analyze, compare, and differentiate sexual practices and sexual identities in our work?
- How do historical actors themselves distinguish between sex for pleasure, sex for work, and other types of sex, how do they discuss sexual practices in general, and what topics do they engage in or avoid?
- What can this research add to the history of sexuality, gender history, and queer/trans- histories?
- What are the ethical concerns in this approach, and how can we approach our subjects’ voices and experiences while (as historians and researchers) avoiding voyeurism and over-sexualisation of the historical actors?

Submissions from all disciplines are welcome (and we hope to have a fruitful interdisciplinary exchange), as long as they have a historical perspective. We especially welcome submissions from MA students, PhD students and early career researchers. Please send an abstract of 250 words and a short bio to priska.komaromi@hu-berlin.de by the 5th July 2024. Please indicate whether you can get funding from your institution or require financial assistance to attend the workshop, as we have a limited budget.

10.10-11.10.2024, Freie Universität Berlin

Organised by Working Group: Sex work history (Adrina Schulz (Zurich), Alisha Edwards (Bochum), Annalisa Martin (Greifswald), Nora Lehner (Vienna/FU Berlin), Priska Komaromi (HU Berlin), Sonja Dolinsek (Magdeburg)

Contact

Nora Lehner (nora.lehner@univie.ac.at)

Université de Rouen Normandie, GRHis - Le 106, 12-14 March 2025

The objective of this conference is to take a closer look at the various forms of activism and empowerment of rock and contemporary music performers, through their work, their positions and their career, focusing in particular on activism based on a desire for liberation and in opposition to ideological, social, economic, cultural or religious norms. These topics will be addressed within a broad chronology, from the aftermath of the Second World War to the present day, through all types of music that fall within the loose definition of "rock", and on the basis of deliberately interdisciplinary approach.

Organisation

International conference organised by Jean-Christophe Aplincourt, Pascal Dupuy and Joann Élart

Argument

In the collective consciousness, Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) represents the embodiment of a musician fighting social and economic injustices. One of the most renowned singers of the first half of the twentieth-century, Guthrie, in a testament to his conviction of the power of music and lyrics, inscribed on his guitar, "This machine kills fascists." John Steinbeck even associated him with the spirit of freedom and resistance that animates the American people. The reality, as revealed to us by his biographers, suggests a musician whose progressive ideological commitment needs to be partially tempered. Nevertheless, despite his ambiguities, he represents a singer who, through his words, courageously expressed his convictions against oppression and in favor of freedom of expression. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly for rock fans, he was the artist who inspired Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen in the United States and Joe Strummer (known as Woody during his pre-Clash years) in the United Kingdom, three emblematic figures of the politically engaged musician of the last third of the twentieth century. Similarly, though more discreetly, there have been a number of bands / singer-songwriters who have displayed support for right-wing and/or extremist ideologies. A tradition of political commitment from various ideological perspectives animates rock music and can be traced back to individual charismatic musicians from the past. This tradition is constantly being reified, renewed, and reshaped by new generations of musicians.

Political activism in songs is obviously not a new phenomenon. From the ballads of the Middle Ages through to the songwriters of the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, various crises (wars, revolts, uprisings, revolutions) inspired the creation of music that was like a weapon, utilized by activists and feared by authorities. Rock music and all its variations have also never been immune from political discourse, even if in the case of a genre born in the early 50s, it has occasionally appeared naïve or rather superficial. Similarly, in recent decades this political awareness has been transformed into a device for empowerment, raising awareness on many fronts, from the defense of a number of major environmental causes to the fight against sexual, social, political and economic injustice on a global scale

The objective of this conference is to take a closer look at the various forms of activism and empowerment of rock and contemporary music performers, through their work, their positions and their career, focusing in particular on activism based on a desire for liberation and in opposition to ideological, social, economic, cultural or religious norms. These topics will be addressed within a broad chronology, from the aftermath of the Second World War to the present day, through all types of music that fall within the loose definition of "rock", and on the basis of deliberately interdisciplinary approach. Proposals from historians, sociologists, musicologists and political scholars are particularly welcome. Proposals must address one of the following predefined topics:

Theme 1. Creation, activism and emancipation

At its inception, rock music was decidedly apolitical. However, beginning with the political turmoil of the 1960s and continuing to the present, bands and singer-songwriters have tackled controversial topics and engaged actively in the cultural conflicts, social causes, and political battles of their day. The papers in this section will interrogate the positions adopted by musicians through their statements, music, and activism with regard to contemporary controversial issues; artists who became generational spokespersons; and music and musicians that became counter-cultural touchstones.

Theme 2. Promoting activism

Papers in this section will focus on venues for music and activism. More specifically, papers will address concerts and festivals as platforms for promoting activism and expressing empowerment, and solidarity. These spaces of communion brought together artists and their audiences in support of particular causes and shared values.

Theme 3. Activism and protest

The second aspect of public activism involves protest concerts and rallies. In addition to humanitarian causes, artists can also take part in major protest events. The artists' notoriety helps to publicize the struggle or to legitimize their beliefs to a wider community. In addition to the organization of these events, the causes and the role of the artists - a whole range of issues that could be the subject of communications - this section welcome papers on international organizations (UNICEF, UN, Amnesty International, etc.) for whom these major media concerts become an extraordinary mass communication tool and a means of federating or attracting new supporters.

Theme 4. Empowerment and cultural sector

What are the effects of a song or concert on personal liberation? How does one become involved in supporting a cause and how is the activism of an artist and/or their audience generated? Does the cultural sector promote these emancipatory impulses or, on the contrary, does it seek to normalize, appropriate or erase them? 

This section will address issues relating to radio, television, cinema, the press, record companies, social networks, advertising, etc. In an attempt to gauge the attitudes of the above to activism and empowerment, the following questions are amongst the many that can be asked: how does the cultural sector serve a cause or, on the contrary, manipulate it? What role have records companies played in the ideological disputes that emerged over the last fifty years.

Theme 5. SMAc and emancipation: assessment and current situation

The Scènes de Musiques Actuelles (live music venues) were created by a mix of players and by public authorities, and are dedicated to a variety of practices (concerts, rehearsals, creation, cultural action, etc.). Created in the 1980s, these venues have spread across France and have had a transformative effect on the cultural and artistic landscape. However, this emergence is now subject to the test of time, and the SMAc, like all organizations, are faced with queries about their future. This uncertainty and these questions raise fundamental interrogations such as whether empowerment is transitive. If so, can a collective body such as these be sustainably liberating? What historical examples can we point to? Popular education, trade unions, the associative movement and cooperatives all have points in common, as do certain public services (social security, museums, theatres, music conservatoires, etc.). By broadening the scope, it is certainly possible to identify solidarities, similarities and historical points of reference in order to place the Scènes de Musiques Actuelles epic more firmly within the context of numerous civic movements and thus update their perspectives. If we consider them over the long run, we are not only taking reality into account, but also reinventing a new relevance for each time period, thus making new futures possible on the basis of contemporary thinking. These reflections and questions will be at the heart of Theme 5, which invites anyone involves with the Scènes de Musiques Actuelles to submit a paper.

Conditions of Registration

Proposals for papers should be sent in either French or English and addressed to Pascal Dupuy (pascal.dupuy@univ-rouen.fr) and Joann Élart (joann.elart@univ-rouen.fr)

before 30 June 2024.

They should include the paper’s title, a brief abstract (1000 characters maximum), and a short bibliography (500 characters maximum).

Papers accepted by the scientific committee will have to be presented in French or in English.

Unfortunately, we are unable to cover travel expenses (special conditions will be granted to doctoral students), but meals and accommodation will be provided for all participants.

Organising committee

• Jean-Christophe Aplincourt (106, directeur)
• Nathalie Cordier (106, responsable action culturelle)
• Pascal Dupuy (université de Rouen Normandie, Maître de conférences, historien)
• Joann Élart (université de Rouen Normandie, Maître de conférences, musicologue

Scientific committee

• Jean-Christophe Aplincourt (106, directeur)
• Pascal Dupuy (université de Rouen Normandie, Maître de conférences, historien)
• Joann Élart (université de Rouen Normandie, Maître de conférences, musicologue)
• Stéphane Escoubet (université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, PRAG, musicologue)
• Gérôme Guibert (Sorbonne Nouvelle, Professeur des universités, sociologue)
• Christophe Pirenne (Université de Liège, Professeur, musicologue)
• Florence Tamagne (Université de Lille III, Maître de conférences, historienne)
• Sophie Victorien (CNRS, CLAMOR UAR 3726, Ingénieure de recherche, historienne)

Bibliographic references

Baker Catherine, The Routledge Handbook of Popular Music and Politics of the Balkans, Routledge, 2024, 704 p. 

Carlet Yasmine, Stand Down Margaret ! L’engagement de la musique populaire britannique contre les gouvernements Thatcher, Clermont-Ferrand, Éditions Mélanie Séteun, 2004, 114 p. [en ligne sur OpenEdition Books] https://books.openedition.org/ms/1274?lang=fr

Delmas Yves, Gancel Charles, Protest song. La chanson contestataire dans l’Amérique des sixties, Paris, Textuel, 2005.

Guibert Gérôme, « Détourner le contrôle ? Le cas de la Fédération des lieux de musiques actuelles », Sociologies pratiques, 2011/1, n° 22, p. 79-92 [en ligne sur CAIRN] https://www.cairn.info/revue-sociologies-pratiques-2011-1-page-79.htm

Peddie Jan, Popular Music and Human Rights, Routledge, 2012, 222 p. 

Reed Thomas, « Famine, Apartheid and the Politics of “Agit-Pop”- Music as (Anti)colonial Discourse », Cercles, n° 3, 2001 (Musique Populaire Britannique et Americaine: Subversion et/ou Divertissement ?), p. 96-113 [en ligne et téléchargeable] http://www.cercles.com/n3/reed.pdf

Seca Jean-Marie, Carlet Yasmine, « Vingt ans de Live Aid : comment le charity rock a-t-il transformé l’engagement politique en musique populaire », Cahiers de psychologie politique n°7, juillet 2005 (Musiques et politique), p. 16-40, 2007 [en ligne] https://cpp.numerev.com/articles/revue-7/657-vingt-ans-de-live-aid-comment-le-charity-rock-a-t-il-transforme-l-engagement-politique-en-musique-populaire

Renton David, Never again. Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi Leaugue (1976-1982), Routledge Books, 2018.

Springer Robert. « Chuck Berry: conformiste ou contestataire ? », Cercles, n° 3, 2001 (Musique Populaire Britannique et Americaine: Subversion et/ou Divertissement ?), p. 96-113 [en ligne et téléchargeable] http://www.cercles.com/n3/springer.pdf

This summer semester, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is participating in the "Cologne Lectures" organised by the Historical Institute of the University of Cologne. We cordially invite you to the four events of the lecture series "Global Labour History between Colonialism and Development Policy". The FES itself is represented with a contribution on our work in Africa.

Program:

30 April 2024 (17:45 to 19:15)

Global Labour History: An Interim Assesment

Prof. Dr. Marcel van der Linden (University of Amsterdam)

 

28 May 2024 (17:45 to 19:15)

Labour in Rural and Agricultural Development Schemes: Reducing or Deepening Inequalities? A Twentieth-Century Perspective

Prof. Dr. Corinna Unger (European University Institute Florenz)

 

11 June 2024 (17:45 bis 19:15)

Anschluss an den Weltmarkt: Infrastrukturbau in den deutschen Kolonien, ca. 1880 - 1914

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Nina Kleinöder (Universität Bamberg)

 

09. July 2024 (17:45 to 19:15)

Solidarität und Arbeit postkolonial!? Die Demokratieförderung der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Afrika

Dr. Henrik Maihack (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung)

 

For online access via Zoom, please send an email to public.history@fes.de.

 

Best regards

Stefan Müller

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e. V.
Archiv der sozialen Demokratie

Tampere University, Finland from 7-10 May 2025

 

Deadline for session and paper proposals: October 31, 2024

Notification of acceptance: November 29, 2024

 

The XVI Nordic Labour History Conference, taking place at Tampere University, Finland from 7th to 10th May 2025, continues the trajectory set forth by previous conferences in Copenhagen 2022 and Reykjavík 2016 of broadening the scope of labour history with new approaches. This includes defining what constitutes labour, examining where labour occurs and under what conditions, reconsidering the notions of the working class and ‘the worker,’ and acknowledging diverse forms of labour organising, collective action as well as working-class culture.

Operating under the thematic umbrella of Labouring lives at the intersection of institutions, structures, and experiences, the conference seeks to spotlight different factors that have shaped the lives of workers in the Nordic region and beyond. We will explore the challenges faced by the Nordic welfare state and social democracy, as well as disruptions in the labor market. Additionally, we will address topics such as labour coercion, gender equality, and the evolving perspectives within the histories of colonialism and indigenous peoples that prompt a reexamination of labour history. We are also keen to explore methodologies and embrace new opportunities presented by digital tools in the historical study of labour.

The conference invites contributions from both established and emerging fields within the realm of labour history. It will feature the following recurring tracks (find details on the conference website https://events.tuni.fi/nlhc2025/call-for-papers/):

• Labour Market in Times of Crisis
• Controlled and Disciplined Workers
• Feminist Labour History
• Idols, Oddballs and Human Beings – Biography in Nordic Labour History
• Digital Labour History
• The Intertwined History of Labour, Colonialism and Indigenous People in the Nordic and Arctic Region
• Oral History and Labour Culture
• Borders and Border Crossings in Labour History
• Working-Class Literary Culture in Nordic Countries and Beyond.

Within or outside these tracks, proposals are invited for 90-minute sessions, including three papers and discussion with possible commentators. Session proposals should include the session title, a brief abstract (maximum 1000 words), and the names of all participants with their contact information. The person submitting the proposal can chair the session or provide the name of a chairperson. The conference also welcomes proposals for individual papers, from which the organizers will form sessions. Each paper proposal should include a title, a 300-word abstract, the name/s of presenter/s, and contact information. All abstracts should introduce the object of the study, aims, and scope, as well as source material.

Paper and session proposals within the thematic tracks will be reviewed by the conference organising team in collaboration with the coordinators responsible for each track. Paper and session proposals outside the tracks will be reviewed by the organizing team.

We encourage researchers proposing sessions within or outside the tracks to collaborate and exchange ideas well in advance to ensure session coherence. Each session should ideally include contributions from three different countries. Accepted individual papers will be grouped into sessions with attention to both topic and cross-Nordic exchange. Please note that each participant can deliver only one presentation at the conference.

The conference’s primary language is English, but we also consider proposals for sessions and papers in Nordic languages.

Please submit your proposal by 31st October 2024 through this form: https://www.lyyti.in/nlhc2025_cfp.

For further information, please contact sami.suodenjoki@tuni.fi or the organisers of the thematic tracks.

The Spring 2024 issue of the World History Bulletin, “Water in World History,” is dedicated to the question of how water has shaped and continues to shape the human world historical experience.

Call for Papers | World History Bulletin | Spring 2024: "Water in World History"

World History Bulletin is seeking quality research essays, experiential learning case studies, and classroom activities for inclusion in its upcoming Spring 2024 issue, “Water in World History.”

Historians and archaeologists have for some time acknowledged the role of water management in the formation and development of civilization. The role of water in shaping human history is not limited to past experience, however. In The American Future: A History, historian Simon Schama argues that “future history” will be determined by competition for water. The Spring 2024 issue of the World History Bulletin, “Water in World History,” is dedicated to the question of how water has shaped and continues to shape the human world historical experience.

The Bulletin is interested in a range of topics related to the theme of water in world history, including:

- The role of water in nation-state formation, from earliest human times to the modern age.
- How access to water (or the lack of it) has influenced social outcomes historically, including the shaping of societies.
- How water has influenced cultural development, from religious practices among the peoples of the Indus Valley to the “water wars” of the American West.
- The role of water in determining economic outcomes, from vital oases facilitating trans-Saharan trade and the rise of the Sahelian kingdoms of West Africa to the impact of piracy in the Red Sea on modern global economies.
- Historical lessons Case studies examining how instructors have used water as a defining feature of course instruction.
- Interdisciplinarity and water in world history.
- Recent trends in water in world history research.
- Historiographies of theories and practice of water in world history.

World History Bulletin therefore invites contributions to a thematic issue on water in world history. We are especially interested in articles that share fresh research or historiographical perspectives which explore the questions of water in world history; present innovative teaching at all levels that employs techniques related to sustainability and resource availability in world history; or explore the connection between student engagement and world history as a result of coursework related to the theme “water in world history.” We also welcome short interviews with designers, artists, writers, and scholars and small roundtables on a book, film, or other work.

Submission Guidelines: Research and pedagogical articles should range between 1,500 and 8,000 words in length, including endnote text. The Bulletin accepts submissions which adhere to the style, format, and documentation requirements as outlined in the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. The Bulletin uses endnote citations, rather than footnote citations. Text of submissions should be spelled according to American English standard usage (e.g., favorite, rather than favourite). Submissions should be written in past tense, rather than the literary present, and passive voice should be avoided.

Submission Deadline: May 15, 2024

Essays and questions should be directed to Joseph M. Snyder, Editor-in-Chief of World History Bulletin, at bulletin@thewha.org.

Contact (announcement)

Joseph M. Snyder
Editor-in-Chief
jmsnyder@semo.edu
bulletin@thewha.org

https://www.thewha.org/publications/whb-publication/

Luxembourg, 25-27 June 2025

Since the 1970s, deindustrialization has fundamentally changed Western societies, their industrial-economic base and their sociostructural composition. Beginning in the United States, the decline in industrial production, closure of plants and the loss of industrial jobs mainly affected the classic industrial sectors and regions of the first industrialization, but also the production of electronic consumer goods. The conference asks in a historical perspective about the supra-regional, economic, global, cultural and gender-specific effects and meanings of deindustrialization.

Confronting Decline – Challenges of Deindustrialization in European Societies since the 1970s

Since the 1970s, deindustrialization has fundamentally changed Western industrial societies. In North America and Europe, thousands of jobs have been lost in traditional industrial regions, in particular in the textile industry, coal mining, the iron and steel industry and shipbuilding. Even in the electronic consumer goods sector and the watch and photography industries, many millions of jobs have been eliminated or relocated to other regions of the world. There is no question that deindustrialization is one of the most far-reaching transformation processes in contemporary history, fundamentally changing landscapes, economic structures and socio-cultural environments.

Starting from this observation, the conference, organized by the CONDE research group, will reflect on the impact and wider historical reverberations of deindustrialization in Europe from the 1970s onwards. While deindustrialization was initially addressed mainly by the social sciences, in recent years historians have increasingly turned their attention to the subject, pointing to the complexity of the historical phenomenon. In contrast to economic concepts such as "restructuring" or "downsizing", which do not adequately capture societal and social change, a historical approach to deindustrialization can offer a broader view, encompassing multiple dimensions: first, the economic development of production, turnover and sales; second, the political shaping of the policy field; third, the cultural ramifications; and fourth, a perspective from below, which takes into account personal memories of workers, the dissolution of traditional social and cultural communities and changes in social spaces.
The conference will focus on the European particularities of deindustrialization since the 1970s – in Western and Eastern Europe, with an East-West comparison over the epochal years 1989/90, and in terms of entanglements among European states and beyond. What distinguished Europe from the US and Canada, from the North American experience of deindustrialization? To what extent did European reactions to deindustrialization differ from one country to the next? Did the Cold War resonate in deindustrialization policies, in the ensuing political mobilization or in personal experiences? In what ways did deindustrialization leave its mark on the co-transformation process after 1989/90, both in the East and in the West? Last but not least: is it possible to conceive of a specifically ‘European’ deindustrialization?

The aim of the conference is to widen our understanding of deindustrialization and its multidimensional impact on European politics and societies in the period of its most recent history. The conference organizers are especially interested in papers addressing the following seven fields of research:

1) International politics: What were the strategies implemented by European states faced with the rapid dismantling of industries on an international stage? Was the realm of international politics used by individual nation states, and if so, how did they address the issue of deindustrialization in this context? In what way was the challenge taken up by supranational and international organizations such as the EC/EU or the OECD or by trade unions, employers’ organizations and NGOs? Were there any joint industrial or economic policy measures to save existing industries or to accelerate the transition to a service society?

2) Welfare state: Although European welfare states played a key part in the integration of large swathes of European society after 1945, they were challenged by the demands and burdens placed on them by deindustrialization. Were they prepared for the loss of traditional industrial enterprises? What social and educational policy measures were adopted to compensate socially for job losses or to retrain workers within a different type of economic system?

3) Gender, migration, race: Men were particularly affected by the loss of hard physical work in mines and steelworks, whereas women were often disproportionately affected by job losses in the textile industry. Migrant workers were an important part of the industrial workforce and were hit hard by the decline of the manufacturing sector. The ensuing distribution battles laid bare the social and cultural inequalities of European societies. What role did gender, migration and race play in deindustrialization? How did European experiences differ from deindustrialization in the United States? How did gender and racial inequalities show during deindustrialization? And what consequences did disparities in treatment have for social cohesion?

4) Religion and culture: What was the significance of religion and other cultural influences in the context of deindustrialization? The task of the workplace chaplaincy was to help employees with problems, conflicts or other emotional challenges in the workplace. Moreover, as a result of migration, separate communities, some of them Islamic organizations, emerged in Western Europe to engage with the concerns of “their” employees. What role did these organizations, networks and influences play in coping with deindustrialization? Deindustrialization also led to cultural manifestations in the form of images, music, visual art, literature, etc. Taking deindustrialization as a distinct lens through which to make sense of the world, the conference welcomes papers that reflect on Europe’s cultural history.

5) Ideas: From the perspective of the history of ideas, the conference will be an opportunity to reflect on the ideas, theories and approaches that circulated in order to prevent, manage or overcome deindustrialization. Where and from whom did these ideas originate – in the political or academic sphere, in companies or in trade unions? What political discourse was used to describe the fundamental change in industries, work and social life? And what ideational transfer processes took place between different nation states or industrial regions?

6) Economic landscapes: What impact did deindustrialization have on the European economic landscape? How did certain regions react in order to develop into successful clusters of future industries? Why did other European regions slip into crisis? What factors favoured or prevented the successful transformation of regions? Were there (supra-)national models – such as Anglo-American liberalism or Rhenish capitalism – whose specific characteristics helped to overcome deindustrialization?

7) Environment: Last but not least, the conference organizers invite participants to consider the effects of deindustrialization on the environment. As early as 1961, Willy Brandt called for the sky over the Ruhr area to become blue again. The book "Silent Spring" (1962) by Rachel Carson is often seen as the starting point of the global environmental movement. Many workers looked wistfully at the loss of their traditional jobs, but there is no doubt that the industrial age was also accompanied by enormous damage to the environment. The limits to growth had become apparent by the 1970s with the Club of Rome study. Particularly in view of current calls for the decarbonization of the economy, i.e. the conversion of the economy to carbon-free production, a historicization of the relationship between deindustrialization and environmental history is essential.

We welcome submissions for 20-minutes papers across these fields of deindustrialization research. Please submit your abstract (around 250 words) and a brief CV in English to Stefan Krebs (stefan.krebs@uni.lu) and Christian Marx (marx@ifz-muenchen.de) by 30 June 2024.

The conference will take place at the University of Luxembourg in Esch-Belval (Luxembourg) from 25 to 27 June 2025 and will be hosted by the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), which is well known for organizing international academic conferences at the highest level. The conference venue on Esch-Belval campus – a former location for iron and steel production – is the result of an industrial wasteland that has been converted into a new hub for science and education. It is one of the largest urban repurposing projects in Europe and offers a relaxed but exclusive atmosphere for discussion. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered; publication of the lectures in an English-language edited volume is planned.

Deadline: 30 June 2024, at 23:59 (CEST)

Decisions by: end of August

Contact: Stefan Krebs (stefan.krebs@uni.lu) and Christian Marx (marx@ifz-muenchen.de)

Kontakt

Stefan Krebs (stefan.krebs@uni.lu) and Christian Marx (marx@ifz-muenchen.de)

https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/aktuelles/themen/confronting-decline

Gießen (Germany), 4-5 November 2024

We are looking for abstracts for a 15- to 20-minute presentation in the field of social theory. The workshop deals with seeing racism, anti-Semitism, and antigypsyism through the lens of materialist critique.

Theorizations of social marginalization and exclusion place minorities in a position of insecurity in two respects: On the one hand, the actual insecurity of their positions in society is a starting point for research and a phenomenon to be explained. On the other hand, minorities are also insecurely situated within the theories used in social sciences. The workshop will focus on theoretical approaches that analyze racism, anti-Semitism, and antigypsyism against the background of capitalist dynamics. Such approaches are strong in that they explain the insecure positions of minorities in the context of material, social structures rather than attributing them solely to prejudice. They show how the ideological localization of minorities in specific positions within capitalist society, for example as “exploitable blacks”, “backward Muslims”, “money-grubbing Jews” or “begging gypsies”, legitimizes the fact that people are exposed to the pressures of expanding capitalist value on unequal terms. Yet what is striking about current capitalism-critical theorizing on anti-Semitism, racism, and antigypsyism is that the analyses of the different ideologies are largely detached from one another, they become blind to the other ideologies, or even reproduce them. It is all too easy to overlook the fact that members of all minorities can find themselves in precarious and insecure social positions.
The workshop aims at generating a constructive counter-dynamic by providing a forum for discussion on how different theories of marginalization and exclusion of minorities that are critical of capitalism can enrich each other. In order to do justice to anti-Semitism, racism, and antigypsyism as specific forms of domination and ideology, they need to be examined separately. At the same time, however, it is also necessary to look at them together in order to work out their differences and relate them to capitalism. Therefore, the project is complex. All the more reason for the three fields of research to reflect on each other's methodological premises and findings.
However, the epistemological potential of such mutual enrichment has hardly been exploited to date. In most contributions on Racial Capitalism, which focus on concrete social hierarchies and their effects on the material living conditions of racialized people, the topic of anti-Semitism does not appear. In some cases, simplified explanations of Racial Capitalism even make use of anti-Semitic stereotypes. There are also anti-Semitism researchers who, following early critical theory of the Frankfurt School, for example, attempt to understand their subject matter as a ramification of the capitalist form of society, and attribute it to a misguided, personalized critique of capitalism. This often leaves social inequality along racialized lines underexposed. In the shadow of these discussions is the relatively new field of materialist antigypsyism research. In German-speaking research contexts, perspectives from both the subject-theoretical analysis of anti-Semitism and Marx's critique of capitalism have been incorporated here. Such theories of antigypsyism complement anthropological and prejudice-related approaches, but have so far been little developed.
The workshop aims at exploring ways in which capitalist forms of accumulation and subjectivation can be taken into account in order to adequately theorize the particularities of anti-Semitism, racism, and antigypsyism.

We are looking for contributions that address one or more of the following questions or related topics:
1) In what ways can materialist approaches to the critique of racism, antigypsyism, or anti-Semitism enrich each other? Where does a joint approach have its limits?
2) Is the concept of Racial Capitalism suitable for approaching the phenomena of anti-Semitism and antigypsyism? Where are possible points of contact?
3) How is the use of antisemitic stereotypes in theories of Racial Capitalism to be explained?
4) How can we mediate the claim of materialist theory to precise conceptual work and a critique of ideology with other types of theory that are concerned with hierarchies between social groups?
5) How can the strengths of different theoretical strands in research on anti-Semitism and racism be productively combined as part of a materialist analysis of antigypsyism?
6) To what extent does a perspective critical of capitalism allow us to show that the various ideologies directed against social minorities are complementary to one another?

Please send abstracts in German or English with a maximum of 400 words for a 15- to 20-minute presentation by May 30, 2024. We will notify the applicants about the status of their submission by June 30, 2024. The lectures and discussions will be held in German or English. Travel and accommodation costs for speakers can be partially covered.

Ulrike Marz, Lukas Egger, Christine Achinger, Floris Biskamp, Randi Becker, and Tobias Neuburger have already confirmed their participation at the workshop.

Kontakt

Anna-Sophie Schönfelder (anna-sophie.schoenfelder@sowi.uni-giessen.de) und Dr. Laura Soréna Tittel (laura.tittel@sowi.uni-giessen.de)

https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/zentren/ggs/forschung/sektionen/menschenrechte/insecure-minorities

Innsbruck (Austria), 3-4 February 2025

(Un)Freedom in Global Perspective Actors – Perceptions – Agencies

Volume 37 of the "Innsbrucker Historische Studien" and the preliminary workshop in Innsbruck address the perceptions, agency, and strategies of people who in research have been characterized as unfree, especially in connection with slavery, captivity, serfdom, and other forms of oppression. The aim of the workshop is to undertake a critical examination of the historical analysis of (un)freedoms, locating the topics within an open geographical framework (local, regional, global histories) and chronologically with a focus on the modern age (c. 1450–1920). The workshop encourages participants to submit contributions that overcome a dichotomous juxtaposition of freedom and unfreedom and a static idea of these concepts in order to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of different agencies.
The following questions may be helpful to shed light on the various nuances between freedom and unfreedom from a global perspective: What characterizes (un)freedom of individual actors or collectives? How is this (un)freedom perceived? Which strategies are used to render these individuals and collectives (un)free or to portray them as such? What possibilities and strategies do individuals and communities find to revolt against this unfreedom, to break out of it, or to escape it? Which effects does (un)freedom have on personal and collective identities? Can unfreedom in certain situations and contexts also become a resource from which people might obtain personal, social, economic, or political capital? Do slavery and other forms of unfreedom and bondage really mean "social death" for those affected or can the status or attribution of freedom and unfreedom be changed? How, when, and why can transitions from freedom to unfreedom and vice versa be made? Are such transitions temporary or permanent, linear or abrupt, reversible or irreversible? Which forms of interaction and conflicts can be found between free and unfree people and between people under different forms of unfreedom (e.g. enslaved Africans, European indentured servants, and Asian coolie workers on the plantations)? Is (un)freedom a permanent condition or can it be interrupted temporarily? In which forms does dependence persist after the transition from unfreedom to freedom (e.g. in the case of escaped prisoners, ransomed slaves, exchanged hostages)? Which correlations exist between (un)freedom and decisions about the own body and lifestyle?
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Slaveries (Transatlantic slavery, Mediterranean slavery, Trans-Saharan slave trade, slavery in the Indian Ocean World, Intra-African slavery, slavery in the Ottoman Empire, indigenous slaveries, ...) and human trafficking; agency of enslaved people in different geographical, social, and structural contexts (plantation slavery, domestic slavery, palace slavery, forced sex work, ...)
- Escaping unfreedom: runaways (runaway slaves), freedmen (manumitted and ransomed slaves or former slaves who achieved their freedom through reforms and revolutions), freedom seekers, maroons, cimarrones, escaped prisoners
- Hostage-taking, kidnapping, hijacking, and war captivity (hostage-taking in the context of political, dynastic and religious conflicts, extortion of ransom, exchanging of hostages and prisoners of war, maritime hijacking, piracy, privateering, war captivity, negotiations for the ransom, release and exchange of hostages/prisoners)
- Debt bondage, pawnship, indentured servitude (within Europe; indentured servitude and colonialism; continuities with indigenous forms of labor, e.g. encomienda and mita; blackbirding in the Pacific Ocean)
- Serfdom, servitude, bonded labor, corvée, robot, manorialism (e.g. Habsburg Empire, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire)
- Imprisonment (reasons for imprisonment, prison conditions, forms of coercion, prisons and penal labor houses as economic enterprises, death sentences)
- Religiously motivated forms of (un)freedom (e.g. hermitage, enclosure, extreme forms of asceticism)
- other forms of (un)freedom …

We invite applicants to submit an abstract (max. 350 words) and a short CV (max. 150 words) to florian.ambach@uibk.ac.at by 20 June 2024. We also encourage PhD students and early career researchers to contribute in the workshop and the volume. The workshop will take place in person at the University of Innsbruck. However, participation in the workshop can also take place online. Accommodation costs will be covered by the University of Innsbruck if possible.

Kontakt

florian.ambach@uibk.ac.at

This issue of Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal seeks to analyse in an interdisciplinary way both the food assistance structures of this era and their human, territorial, and social framing, studied from various perspectives, from history to architecture, from the specific site to the social landscape and territory.

Argument

The call for articles for the thematic dossier of issue 23 of Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal, “Soup Kitchens and social assistance in the 19th and 20th centuries: Spaces and foodscapes of the working world” is open until July 31, 2024.

At the end of the 19th century, the vigorous advancement of industrialization and urban growth brought to the cities a time of profound transformations, whether on an economic, social, spatial, or environmental level, among others. This scenario was characterized by the emergence and expansion of a significant urban working class, which settled in densely populated neighbourhoods, facing challenging, precarious, and unhealthy living conditions. In response to this reality, a new approach to food assistance emerged, essential to meet the basic needs of a growing population, often deprived of adequate food resources.

This movement is part of the broader framework of philanthropy and social assistance, which has been a continuous topic of debate and reform in many Western countries. It is within the framework of philanthropy that numerous support institutions were created, both secular and religious, which at the end of the 19th century acquired a more structured and complex approach to meet social needs. These ideas took shape in the form of kitchens and food assistance points, strategically located near working-class neighbourhoods and industrial areas.

However, the role of these institutions transcended mere food provision. They were also vital elements in shaping the social and urban landscape, reflecting, and responding to the socioeconomic complexities of that era. In addition to fulfilling a practical function of assistance in critical periods, these places also served as a tangible reminder of the existence of individuals in need. The reading and study of these spaces, particularly in terms of operation, aesthetics, and location, highlights the multidimensionality of the soup kitchens and food assistance centres, not only as entities that mitigated an immediate need but also as spaces that reflected and influenced the social and urban fabric of the time.

This issue of Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal seeks to analyse in an interdisciplinary way both the food assistance structures of this era and their human, territorial, and social framing, studied from various perspectives, from history to architecture, from the specific site to the social landscape and territory, namely:

1. Historical analysis of soup kitchens and other food assistance places as social assistance institutions.
2. The role of food assistance structures in the social and urban fabric of industrial cities.
3. The impact of industrial transformations on food supply and access to products.
4. The architecture, design, and functioning of food assistance structures and how they reflect the needs and values of the time.
5. Case studies and comparative perspectives between different regions or countries.

Submission guidelines

The call for articles for the thematic dossier “Soup Kitchens and social assistance in the 19th and 20th centuries: Spaces and foodscapes of the working world” is open until July 31, 2024.

More info.

• Original and unpublished works are accepted, based on research supported by a strong theoretical-methodological component, within the scope of the journal and relevant to a national and international audience.
• The journal accepts submissions in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish.
• All proposals for articles should be sent to am.cadernos@cm-lisboa.pt
• Cadernos do Arquivo Municipaldoes not charge any fees for the submission process, peer review, publication and availability of texts.

Conditions for submission

As part of the process, authors are required to check that the submission complies with all the items listed below. Submissions that do not comply with these standards will be returned to the authors.

• The paper is original, unpublished and the parts that come from other works are duly referenced. It is not under review or for publication in another journal. Otherwise, the author(s) should inform the journal editors.
• Authorship is subject to a grace period of four issues.
• Only one proposal per author and/or co-author will be accepted for a single issue and must be submitted using the submission template.
• The section for which the text is intended must be indicated: Thematic Dossier, Articles or Book Reviews.
• Authors' names, ORCIDs, affiliations (R&D centres, faculties and universities) and email addresses.
• Language of the text: Portuguese (according to the new spelling agreement), Spanish, French or English. Title, abstract and keywords in the language of the text, in English and in Portuguese.
• Limit of 10,000 words for articles and 2,000 for book reviews, including footnotes and bibliographical references.

Follow the Publication Guidelines.

About this journal

Scientific coordination

• Leonor A. Plácido de Medeiros (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal)
• Philip Carstairs (Independent researcher, United Kingdom)

 

Runs: From 9th May 2024 to 31st Aug 2024

Exhibition Opening takes place on Thursday 9th May from 4-7PM 

Here We Stand: The Art of International Solidarity

An exhibition of international solidarity campaign posters at Working Class Movement Library

This exhibition celebrates the tradition of working class communities standing in solidarity with people all around the world. The exhibition includes posters from campaigns such as the campaign against the war in Vietnam, The Spanish Civil War, Palestinian Solidarity, The Peace Movement and many more. The togetherness and mutual support of these campaigns resonates throughout history with some of the greatest sacrifices and political victories.

Throughout this history, artists have played an important role in bringing people together and communicating the ideas and demands of these struggles. The exhibition features the work of some of the most renowned artists of the last century including Miro, Keith Haring and Peter Kennard.

The exhibition includes posters campaigning for causes in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa and the Middle East. These posters are a window to the incredible archive at the library that documents some of the most extraordinary stories from these campaigns through letters, pamphlets, photographs, clothing, banners, and flags. These are also complemented by a rich collection of books that together complete an amazing resource for anyone wishing to learn more about both these campaigns and how working class people have engaged in them.

 

 

Since its establishment as an academic research field in the U.S. in the late 1970s, public history has grown significantly, serving as a vital tool for examining contemporary issues, community memories, and conflicts at both scholarly and practical levels. In the 21st century, the field has become a prominent platform for “making history with the public(s)”, moving beyond the confines of academia. Despite its popularity, comprehensively defining public history without oversimplification remains challenging. Indeed, in addition to the audience’s centrality and its dual identity as both a scholarly research field and a practice, public history encompasses a variety of methodologies to (co-)investigate peoples’ cultures, memories, and histories. Furthermore, there is a multiplicity of media and organizations through which public history projects can be shared, ranging from participatory initiatives to studies addressing complex topics of public interest. Moreover, recent internationalization processes have added another layer to the epistemological framework of public history. As James B. Gardener and Paula Hamilton noted in the introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Public History in 2017, “Given that both the state and the nation have been central to the development of public history, we ask what we can learn if we engage with the local context within a wider international frame”.

With this call, we aim to investigate the discipline of public history from our unique perspective as a journal focused on American Studies from outside North America. USAbroad seeks to engage with studies and practices of public history concerning US history and politics, whether originating in the United States or elsewhere. As each public history project is influenced by its location, we are interested in comparing studies and practices regarding US politics and history across different countries. For this reason, the call also welcomes contributions that explore the challenges and possibilities of engaging with US history outside the US, as well as articles that question the methodological and epistemological foundation of public history as a discipline per se vis-à-vis US history.  

USAbroad invites public history or public history-related contributions investigating US compelling past(s), heritage, memories and socio-economic fractures. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the field, which benefits from the integration of various research areas and communication methods, contributions may draw from, but are not limited to, the following research areas related to American history:

- Foreign relations (e.g. soft diplomacy actions);

- Postcolonial studies;

- Intellectual history (e.g. international circulation of ideas);

- Global history;

- Cultural studies (e.g. culture wars, Lost Cause);

- Ethnic studies; (e.g. migrant communities, transnational connections)

- Economic politics;

- Media and game studies (e.g. the impact of American products over communities at home and abroad);

- Military history (e.g. historical reenactments, war cemeteries)

- Urban studies;

- Heritage interpretation in museums, libraries, parks, rural or urban settings, etc.;

- Teaching and education (e.g. historical anniversary);

- Memory studies (e.g. analysis and practices over monuments; memories of trauma in communities or families)

Please submit your abstract (500 words max) and your CV (2 pages max) to usabroad@unibo.it by May 5, 2024. Successful applicants will be notified by May 15, 2024, at the latest.

The selection of abstracts will be based on a range of criteria including scientific originality, clarity of the proposal submitted, use of primary sources and adherence to the themes of the call for papers. Please highlight in the abstract whether your contribution will offer a scholarly analysis of public history, explore a specific case study/practice of public history, or it will do both. Abstracts that do not clearly address these criteria will not be considered for publication.

Please note that, if your application is successful, you will need to submit a full 7000-word article by August 31, 2024.

More info can be found at http://usabroad.unibo.it/  

Après l’exode massif du début de l’année 1939 qui mène vers la France plusieurs centaines de milliers de républicains espagnols, ces derniers connaissent tout au long de la Seconde Guerre mondiale des itinéraires marqués par le travail – souvent forcé –, par des engagements militaires et par diverses formes de résistances contre l’occupant de leur pays d’exil. Ils sont prestataires de l’armée française ou soldats incorporés dans des unités étrangères de celle-ci. Et, ce qui est encore relativement méconnu, ils contribuent massivement à l’économie de guerre tout au long de la période en France mais aussi en Allemagne et en Espagne.

Comment la IIIe République puis l’État français dirigé depuis Vichy ont-ils conçu, géré, l’utilisation de la main-d’œuvre abondante que représentaient ces « étrangers indésirables », d’abord dans les Compagnies puis dans les Groupements de travailleurs étrangers (CTE et GTE) ? Comment les autorités nazies ont-elles puisé dans le vivier des GTE pour leurs besoins industriels en Allemagne et en France occupée, notamment pour la construction du Mur de l’Atlantique ? Et aussi, comment la dictature franquiste a-t-elle fait du travail esclave effectué par ses opposants un pilier économique du régime ?

Les études historiques sont suivies d’articles sur le travail accompli par des associations mémorielles œuvrant pour rappeler l’histoire des travailleurs forcés des bases sous-marines allemandes et honorer leur mémoire. Deux exemples particulièrement éclairants reflètent la vie des « Espagnols rouges » – Rotspanier – ayant travaillé pour la construction des bases sous-marines de Bordeaux et de Brest.

Ce numéro double comprend également la rubrique « La fabrique des archives », un aperçu sur de nouvelles recherches – femmes galiciennes émigrant seules en Catalogne sous le franquisme – et des notices de livres – sur des GTE dans le Sud-est français et sur la guérilla antifranquiste dans le León et en Galice.

The conference will take place in Warsaw at the Faculty of Modern Languages ​​at the University of Warsaw
(ul. Dobra 55) on 25-27 September 2024 in a hybrid format with possible online participation.    The vital and complex role of the landowning elites in the political, economic, and cultural history of Europe has been extensively researched, resulting in a wealth of literature. However, the question of how this role has been remembered since the dissolution of these elites as a social class, and what the implications of this memory and legacy are for contemporary European societies, has only recently been addressed by sociologists, historians, and anthropologists.

The opening hypothesis of the conference is that post-feudal social structures, which were a consequence of the power dynamics between the landowners and peasants, can be examined through a perspective of the longue durée. The existence of landowners as a class was brought to an end by political decisions and revolutionary movements, or gradually transitioned into social and political systems based on more democratic principles. This led to various legacies from the past, modes of remembrance, and finally, legal and economic circumstances. These diverse trajectories serve as a reminder of the East-West dichotomy in Europe, as in part of Central and Eastern Europe the end of the landowners' domination came with bloodshed and violence, as part of the making of the ‘Bloodlands’. However, our aim is to go beyond this dichotomy and see whether schemes other than East-West can be employed to understand the diversity of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy history in Europe.

An illustration of this diversity is also the multitude of terms used to describe the phenomena we discuss and its internal stratification. While we use the ahistorical terms "landowners" or the „landowning elites” as the overarching terms for the purpose of this call for papers, we acknowledge that in different regional contexts, more specific categories such as gentry, nobility, and aristocracy are relevant. We also welcome discussion on the terms used in the papers.

Individual and collective memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy, and in a broader sense, of the post-feudal period with all its complexities, will, however, vary depending not only on how the landowners' era concluded, but also on its characteristics in different regions of Central and Eastern Europe. The landowning elites might have shared the same ethnicity and religion as the subordinate classes, or they could have been of different backgrounds, such as in Eastern Galicia, where Poles owned vast swathes of land populated by ethnic Ukrainians. They could have also belonged to the titular nation of the nation-state, as in interwar Poland, or been ethnically connected to another nation, as was the case with the German aristocracy in interwar Czechoslovakia. Its social and political standing, as well as its proportion within the general population, could range from significant, as seen in Hungary, to marginal, as observed in Romania. Moreover, the gentry, nobility and aristocracy could either be the sole elite in the country or blend, compete with, or even give rise to other influential groups, as exemplified by the Polish intelligentsia. Lastly, the current status of the landowning elites and their (former) property varies greatly across Europe: from regions where its status was never formally challenged, such as in Great Britain, to countries where extensive (re)privatization laws were enacted after the collapse of communism, like in the Czech Republic and Lithuania, and to the post-Soviet states of Ukraine and Belarus, where the issue of reprivatization was never politicized and remains largely absent from public discourse.

With this complex agenda in mind, we want to approach the topic of this conference in a comparative and contextualised perspective. We wish to pose questions about memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy as inscribed in the official narrative, vernacular beliefs, cultural practices and art. We will have a close look at the approach to the their material heritage, the role its history and legacy plays in maintaining collective identities on the local and national levels, as well as the complexity of the legal constraints involved. We will be interested in broadening our approach to the dynamics of the social relations between various actors and seeing among them not only the landowning elites and peasantry, but also Jews in their traditional and less conventional roles, city dwellers as a counter-community, rich bourgeoisie as the competing and/or aspiring class, and intelligentsia with its multifaceted role. Thus, we will include the internal and external perspective of various memory actors and keepers. Additionally, our key focus will be the material heritage: objects, buildings and spaces as spheres of interference, contested property battleground and non-sites of difficult memories.
 
The proposed papers might address, but not be limited, to the following issues:

THE LONGUE DURÉE OF POST-FEUDAL STRUCTURES
• How did the memory of the landowning elites, their role and status change over the time? What were the dividing lines or the turning points? 
• What is the group memory dynamics among the descendants of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy themselves, among people with peasant origins, and in local village communities where once the gentry resided?
• What are the main determinants of this memory – how are violence, power relations and class dependencies remembered?
• How can the longue durée of the post-feudal social mechanisms and structures be discovered in the cultural memory, values and elements of the identity of different social groups?
• How are various aspects of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy ethos perceived in contemporary social life, art and culture?
• Who endeavours to uphold this ethos as the ethos of their own group – in other words, who currently belongs to the group that regards the landowning elites’ legacy as its own?

CHANGE  
• How the ways the post-feudal system was dissolved in different countries influenced the memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy?
• How the categories of guilt, victimhood and historical justice have been employed in the narratives about the end of these groups’ domination on various levels (local, group, national)?
• How is the violence against the gentry, nobility and aristocracy that accompanied their dissolution as a social strata – physical, political and symbolic – remembered today?
• In which form, if any, is the past social order reactivated if an estate is bought by a new owner?  How does such new ownership, be it by descendants of a historical landowning family, or by new people,  resonate with the legacy of the past?
• How did the memory and survival strategies of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy families form and evolve during the communist and post-communist period?

MATERIAL HERITAGE
• What is the status of the material heritage of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy – manors, parks and palaces? To what extent is it considered common heritage – by local communities, by the national community, and by authorities on various levels?
• What does the memoryscape of such places look like?
• What are the commemorative practices connected with such spaces?
• Does the issue of the post-1989 (re)privatisation influence attitudes towards the landowning elites’ material heritage?
 
REGIONAL AND PARTICULAR VS. UNIVERSAL
• What is the specificity of memory related to the gentry, nobility and aristocracy in various European countries? Is the East-West division the main important one?
• Is the memory of the aristocracy different from the memory of the lower nobility, or landowners without noble titles? How does the social and political diversification of the landowning elites in the past influence its memory today?
• Which historical factors influence the collective and individual memory, as well as memorial practices?
• Is the overlapping of class, ethnicity and religion in the past decisive for the contemporary memory of the landowning elites and post-feudality?
• Is there any specific memory of the Jewish landed gentry?
• Can any parallels be found outside Europe? What is the postcolonial aspect of the landowning elites’ historical presence in these countries?

We welcome submissions from memory studies, heritage studies, and other related disciplines. The comparative approach will be particularly welcome.

Organisational information
The conference will take place in Warsaw on 25-27 September 2024 in a hybrid format with possible online participation.
The conference language is English. The organisers provide accommodation for the participants. There is no conference fee.

Call for Papers To apply please send the following documents to: genealogies@enrs.eu

The deadline for the submission is 19th of May 2024:
o          Abstract (maximum 300 words)
o          Brief biographical note (up to 200 words)
o          Scan/photo of the signed Consent Clause

Applicants will be notified of the results in mid-June 2024. Written draft papers (2,000–2,500 words) should be submitted by 25th of August 2024. Papers should aim to be 20 minutes, to be delivered in English.

Selected authors will be invited to submit their paper to an edited volume to be published with a leading academic publisher, most likely in the European Remembrance and Solidarity book series developed by ENRS and Routledge.

Social History Archive to provide access to world’s largest digital archive of UK historical source material

• New academic resource - Social History Archive - launches to UK and US universities and academic institutions
• Powered by the latest technology, the platform offers access to the largest collection of British & Irish historical resources online
• Major partnerships with the British Library and the National Archives provide a growing collection of exclusive and unique source material
• Powerful AI and search technology delivers accurate results in an instant, while Single Sign-On (SSO) ensures security
• The Social History Archive will be exhibiting at UKSG conference at stand 83

The Social History Archive, a brand-new resource for academics and researchers has launched, offering access to the largest collection of British and Irish historical resources online.

Catering to a range of academic interests, the digital archive contains over 14 billion records which offer centuries of data and insights. Through access to a diverse range of source material, including newspapers, census returns, crime reports and emigration records, researchers can delve into the people, places and events that have shaped the world.

This is thanks to partnerships with some of the world’s most prestigious cultural organisations and archives, including the National Archives and the British Library. A continuous comprehensive digitisation process enables the Social History Archive to deliver exclusive source material on an ongoing basis.

The archive is fully searchable through a powerful search function, with advanced and simple options, using keywords, names, dates, and even phrases to pinpoint accurate results faster. Students and researchers can also discover every detail of the original documents and newspapers on their screen, and a simple citation export function allows users to swiftly add references to working documents.

Institutions will benefit from the seamless integration of the Social History Archive into their single sign-on, for secure on and off campus access. The platform also complies with accessibility standards and offers COUNTER reporting with SUSHI support.

The Social History Archive is launching with four packages catering to a range of departmental requirements:

• Records – the entry level subscription gives users easy access to the complete repository of records, excluding the 1921 Census of England & Wales
• Records+ – in addition to everything included in the ‘Records’ subscription, researchers will be able to access the unique and invaluable 1921 Census – the last to be published until 2051.
• Newspapers – user-friendly, online access to The British Newspaper Archive, the largest collection of historical British and Irish newspapers online, with 30m pages covering over 300 years of history.
• Access all areas – unrestricted, unlimited access to everything
  The Social History Archive has to offer.

Sarah Bush, Managing Director, said:

“We’re delighted to launch the Social History Archive to the academic community, offering a goldmine of historical primary source material to benefit a huge range of specialisms and faculties. Whether you’re researching UK history, geography, sociology, journalism, politics and economics, or even data science, this growing collection provides a vast and varied record of life over the centuries.

“In collaboration with our partners and users, we’re constantly working to develop our offering. We’re committed to delivering a product powered by the latest technology and a growing repository of records, which together provide a world-class experience for researchers.”

The Social History Archive will be exhibiting at the upcoming UKSG event in Glasgow on 8-10 April 2024, at stand 83, where they with be demonstrating the platform.

 

ENDS

For more information, to request images or to discuss feature opportunities, please contact:

Madeleine Gilbert, Senior PR Manager, Findmypast: pr@findmypast.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Findmypast

Findmypast is a fast-growing, technology-driven, subscription service. With a bank of more than 14 billion digitised records, and exclusive access to some of the world’s most renowned historical databases, Findmypast’s technology allows customers to connect to people, both past and present, and visualise their family story in more detail than ever before. 

With a global community of over 13 million registered users, this innovative and agile British technology company has strong network effects and is trusted by some of the world’s largest archives, museums, and governments. Findmypast is building a team of world-class technology professionals where people from every background come together to help millions of others understand theirs.

Workshop at the Center for Modern East Asian Studies (CeMEAS) at Göttingen University, November 15-16, 2024

In Western political science literature, political passivity is generally regarded either as a symptom of weakening democratic institutions or, if it is observed in an illiberal regime, as an expression of citizens’ acquiescence with authoritarian rule. This binary view in which civic engagement is situated on the democratic end of the spectrum of political systems, while “passive obedience” is associated with non-democratic rule, assumes that individual agency in the public sphere is preconditioned by a clear division of state and civil society as is characteristic of liberal democracies. On the contrary, autocratic systems are believed to offer little to no space for political activism beyond the ruling party or government. There is, however, also the possibility of constituting an alternative dichotomy in which the opposite of political passivity is not civic engagement but mobilization. Indeed, the history of the twentieth century has provided us with ample evidence that totalitarian governments share a tendency to seek to arouse, enlist, awaken, or revive the people under their rule. Following this logic, passivity can be a form of resistance to creating a new man, nation, or culture. Even though Linz (1975) argues that passivity is a core feature of authoritarian rule in contrast to the mobilizational character of totalitarianism, the end of the Cold War and the waning influence of Communist ideology did not ring in the end of mass mobilization. Populist movements and dominant parties worldwide revived or reinvented the political tools of mobilization via mass campaigns, assisted by the possibilities of social media and artificial intelligence. Simultaneously, we see trends of a conscious retreat from society in youth phenomena popularized in China and beyond under the slogans of “lying flat,” “involution,” or “quiet quitting.” As we argue, political passivity has to be studied as a form of Eigensinn that transcends notions of compliance or resistance in authoritarian and hybrid regimes.

This workshop sets out to investigate 1) how contemporary governments in authoritarian and hybrid regimes discuss and problematize political passivity and social disengagement, 2) how passivity is sanctioned under dominant ideological, cultural, social, or religious norms, 3) which practical measures are taken to counter signs of disengagement, and 4) how citizens react to pressures to engage in political and social life.

Possible topics of workshop contributions include, but are not limited to:
- Strategies, aims, and (unintended) consequences of political campaigns addressing citizens’ passivity
- Discourses on civic virtues and the initiation and impact of moralizing campaigns
- State-led attempts to create opportunities for the nationalistic, ideological, or cultural re-engagement of citizens
- Questions of methodology and source access in the study of political passivity
- Comparative approaches to passivity as a political problem in different countries and cultures
- Differentiated analysis of reasons for political passivity among citizens in non-democratic states
- Political passivity as an expression of youth subculture, especially among urban youths
- The reception of Western (academic) discourses on passivity and civic engagement in non-democratic states
Format
The workshop will take a hybrid format to accommodate participants from outside Europe.

Funding
Limited funding is available to cover travel costs and accommodation for participants who cannot get reimbursement from their home institutions. Preference will be given to junior researchers.

Submission
Please submit an abstract of about 250 words to bertram.lang@uni-goettingen.de and henrike.rudolph@uni-goettingen.de by April 30, 2024. Please also include information on whether you would like to attend in person or online and if you require financial support to cover travel and accommodation.

Timeframe
- Call for papers: April 30, 2024
- Decision on submissions by early May
- Submission of position papers (about 3-5 pages): November 1, 2024
- Workshop: November 15-16, 2024

Kontakt

Dr. Henrike Rudolph (henrike.rudolph@uni-goettingen.de), Dr. Bertram Lang (bertram.lang@uni-goettingen.de)

Rome, 17-19 April 2024

This conference at the German Historical Institute in Rome is designed to illuminate the historical relations between two factors in urban history: migration and urban activism.

Migration and Urban Activism in 20th Century Europe

Cities are made by people who inhabit them. European cities over the 20th century have been strongly shaped by domestic and international migration as well as urban social movements, civil society action, and political protest of various forms. This conference at the German Historical Institute in Rome is designed to illuminate the historical relations between these two factors in urban history: migration and urban activism. It brings together scholars discussing the history of urban developments subject to activism by migrants, against migrants, and for migrants. These three perspectives shall contribute to more systematic understanding of important processes in our cities to which European historiography hitherto has paid relatively little attention.

Programm

Wednesday, 17 April

14.30 Reception

15.00 Opening: Migration, Urban Space and Forms of Activism
Martin Baumeister (Rome), Bruno Bonomo (Rome), Olga Sparschuh (Vienna), David Templin (Osnabrück) and Christian Wicke (Utrecht)

15.30 Part 1: Migrant Activism
Chair: Bruno Bonomo (Rome)

1. Markian Prokopovych (Durham): Locating Transmigrants in Vienna and Budapest around 1900: Spaces, Institutions, Informal networks

2. Michael Goebel (Berlin): Local Struggles over Global Order: Migration and Anticolonialism in Interwar Paris

16.40 - 17.00 Coffee Break

3. Sarah Jacobson (Berlin): Organizing from the Neighborhood: Southern Italian Migrants and Housing Occupations in 1970s Italy and West Germany

4. Simon Goeke (Munich): Solidarity, Gastronomy, and Exile Politics: Leftist Anti-Junta Resistance and the Alternative Lifestyle in Munich during the 1960s and 1970s

5. Grazia Prontera (Salzburg): Navigating Political Spaces: The Role of Migrant Activism in Munich’s Local Consultative Body during the 1970s and 1980s

19.00 Keynote: Panikos Panayi (Leicester): Racists, Revolutionaries and Representatives in London: From Hostile Environment to Multiculturalism

Thursday, 18 April

09.30 Reception

10.00 Part 2: Urban Activism against Migration
Chair: Christian Wicke (Utrecht)

1. Stefano Gallo (Naples): Internal urban-oriented Migration in 20th century Italy: Exploring the Social Consequences of Administrative Discrimination

2. Andreas Weigl (Vienna): From the Referendum “Austria First” to the “Sea of Lights” (Lichtermeer): Urban Activism on Immigration after the Fall of the Iron Curtain in Vienna

11.20 - 11.40 Coffee Break

3. Malte Borgmann (Berlin): “We want to live peacefully again.” Anti-migrant Protest and its Influence on the Accommodation of Asylum Seekers in West Berlin

4. Carsta Langner (Jena): “A Danger to Upscale Living” – Local Engagement against the Accommodation of Migrants in the Postsocialist Society of East Germany in the 1990s

13.00 Lunch Break

15.30 Excursion: Migration and Activism in Contemporary Rome: from the Pantanella Factory to Spin Time Labs

Friday, 19 April

9.00 Reception

9.30 Part 3: Urban Activism for Migrants
Chair: David Templin (Osnabrück)

1. Daniel Renshaw (Reading): The Church Army and Jewish Communities in Urban Britain, 1900-1914: Poverty, Proselytization and Prejudice

2. Brian Shaev (Leiden): Civil Society Activism for Migrants in Dortmund, 1945-1968

10.40 - 11.00 Coffee Break

3. Giulia Zitelli Conti (Rome): Firstly Lumpenproletarians, then Immigrants: The Migration Issue in the Struggle for Housing in Rome in the Post-War Period

4. Luca Provenzano (Paris): Taking Back the City: Revolutionary Leftists, Migrants, and Urban Struggle in France and Italy, 1969-1975

5. Tahire Erman (Ankara): Contested Spaces in the Turkish Urban Periphery: Leftist Interventions in Informal Neighborhoods of Rural Migrants

12.45 Lunch Break

13.30 Final Discussion: Urban Activism and Migration
Chair: Olga Sparschuh (Vienna)

Commentaries: Alexander Sedlmaier (Bangor) and Alessandra Gissi (Naples)

14.30 End of the Conference

Kontakt

Christian Wicke (Utrecht University)
E-Mail: c.wicke@uu.nl

David Templin (Universität Osnabrück)
E-Mail: david.templin@uni-osnabrueck.de

http://dhi-roma.it/index.php?id=tagungen&L=0

Los Angeles, 28-29 June 2024

This workshop will explore new ways of thinking about archives, archival records, and other artifacts historians might use as primary sources to gain deeper insight into the history of migrants in transit and the knowledge they possessed, produced, transmitted, or lost. With a starting point in the history of Jewish migration from National Socialist-occupied areas, the workshop broadens out to investigate the experiences of refugees and migrants fleeing genocide, armed conflict, and persecution throughout the twentieth century.

Archives in/of Transit: Historical Perspectives from the 1930s to the Present

The workshop is focused on migrants in the situation of transit: How do their letters, photographs, and other artifacts communicate their experiences both to their contemporary and future generations? How can we reframe personal documentation, visual (re)sources, artifacts, and other material culture of migrants as sites of knowledge production? What role do archives play in allowing us to ask and address these questions? And what happens to the “archive” in contexts of transoceanic forced migration, such as the Holocaust? How does migration challenge concepts of archival materiality and fixity and, further, how have the “material turn” and the new interest in soundscapes and the digital age not only complicated but also enhanced our research?

Programm

June 28, 2024
Location: USC Shoah Foundation Offices

8:30 am – 9:15 am Registration / Coffee and pastries

9:15 am Welcome
Jennifer Rodgers (USC Shoah Foundation)
Simone Lässig (German Historical Institute Washington)

9:30 -11.30am Panel 1: Silence and Experience

Phi Nguyen (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne): Where Did the Boats Go? Silenced Tales of Vietnamese Repatriated Refugees from Hong Kong
Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York): What Remains of the “In-Between”: Tracing Experience and Afterlife of Refuge in the Orient

Chair: Simone Lässig (German Historical Institute Washington)

11.30-12.30pm Lunch

12.30-1.30pm Archives session (Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, University of Southern California, Los Angeles)

1.30-3pm Panel 2: Knowledge and Networks

Eliyana Adler (Penn State University): Networks of Knowledge: Polish Jewish Holocaust Memorial Books as Archives in/of Transit
William Pimlott (Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London): YIVO’s Foreign Sections: Building Transnational Immigrant History Before, During and After the Holocaust

Chair: Swen Steinberg (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario)

3-3.30 pm Break

3.30-5.00 Panel 3: Music and Fashion

Svenja Bethke (University of Leicester): Making Clothes, Designing Fashion: Jewish Migrant Knowledge between Nazi-Occupied Europe and the British Mandate for Palestine
Andrea Orzoff (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces): Music as Migrant Archive: European Musical Refugees in Latin America, 1935-1945

Chair: Dan Stone (Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London)

7pm Reception at the Thomas Mann House, Discussion with Julia Frank (Thomas Mann Fellow) and Andrea Orzoff

June 29, 2024
Location: Villa Aurora

10:00-10:30 Coffee and pastries

10.30-12.30am Panel 4: Solidarity, Gender, and Activism

Christopher Neumaier (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam): Gender Roles in Transit: Impact of Immigrant Background on Work and Housekeeping in West Germany, 1970s–1990s
Tori Martinez (Linköpings Universitet): Lost Knowledge in a Hidden Archive: Ludwika Broel-Plater’s Agency and Activism as a Forced Migrant in Sweden
Robert Andrejczyk (Józef Piłsudski Museum, Sulejówek): Refugees in Need – Museum in Action. Case Study of Józef Piłsudski Museum in Sulejówek

Chair: Jane Freeland (Queen Mary, University of London)

12.30-1.30pm Lunch

1.30-2.30pm Tour of the Villa Aurora

2.30-4pm Panel 5: Collections and Agency

Charlotte Lerg (Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich): When Libraries Take Flight. Migrating and Re-assembling Destructed Archives of Cultural Knowledge in Times of War
Miriam Chorley-Schulz (University of Oregon, Eugene): The Making of the We Refugees Archive

Chair: Jennifer Rodgers (USC Shoah Foundation)

4-4.15pm Break

4.15-5.45pm Panel 6: War and Violence

Elissa Mailänder (Science Po, Paris): The Archives in our Attics: Material Hermeneutics of Vernacular Wehrmacht Photography
Jadzia Biskupska (Sam Houston State University, Huntsville): Settlers, Partisans, and Expellees: Framing the Consequences of the SS Colony in Zamość

Chair: Christine Schmidt (Wiener Holocaust Library, London)

5.45-6pm Final discussion

Chairs: Jennifer Rodgers, Simone Lässig and Swen Steinberg

https://www.ghi-dc.org/events/event/date/archives-in-of-transit-2024