Social and Labour History News

by Jean-Numa Ducange

https://www.puf.com/les-marxismes

Parmi les grands courants de pensée de l’histoire contemporaine, le marxisme occupe une place à part. Né après la mort de Karl Marx dans le contexte de développement des partis ouvriers, il est devenu l’une des idéologies les plus influentes du XXe siècle, revendiquée par des régimes politiques et de nombreux intellectuels de sensibilités diverses.

Tour à tour, Jean-Numa Ducange expose les principes fondamentaux du marxisme, puis il présente ses multiples déclinaisons au XXe siècle, depuis sa version stalinienne la plus rigide jusqu’aux nombreux courants critiques qu’il nourrit intellectuellement pendant des décennies. Enfin, il rend compte de l’éclatement en « mille marxismes » après la chute du mur de Berlin, soit la période de son incontestable déclin, contrebalancé toutefois par quelques renouveaux récents dans le contexte de la crise du capitalisme.

 

Introduction

Chapitre premier – L’invention du marxisme I. Le marxisme après Marx : le laboratoire allemand II. Comprendre les mécanismes du capitalisme et le critiquer III. Le marxisme, une philosophie IV. Le marxisme, une politique révolutionnaire ?

V. Un objectif : structurer le parti

VI. Géographies du marxisme

VII. Le « révisionnisme » marxiste

Chapitre II – Les courants marxistes au XXe siècle I. De la révolution de 1917 au « marxisme-léninisme » (1920 1930) II. Les critiques du dogme : des marxistes contre le stalinisme (années 1920 1940) III. Les années 1950 1970 : l’apogée paradoxal IV. Des marxistes critiques, mais sans rupture avec les partis communistes « officiels » V. De nouveaux modèles marxistes : de Belgrade à Pékin en passant par Tirana VI. Les sociaux-démocrates et le marxisme (1920 1970) VII. De la droite aux religions monothéistes : des appropriations multiples

Chapitre III – De la « crise du marxisme » aux « mille marxismes » I. La « crise du marxisme » II. Le regain international : la place décisive du monde anglophone III. Persistances et éclatements en Europe IV. Marx dans le « Sud global », du Brésil à la Chine

Conclusion

Bibliographie

Autour de l'auteur

Jean-Numa Ducange est professeur en histoire contemporaine à l’université de Rouen et membre de l’Institut universitaire de France. Codirecteur de la revue Actuel Marx (Puf), il est l’auteur de nombreux ouvrages sur le socialisme, traduits en plusieurs langues.

 

Sommaire:  

·     Michel Pigenet, Éditorial. Les villes portuaires en question

·     Table ronde : Tours d’horizon, avec John Barzman, Marie-Laure Griffaton et Françoise Péron, animée par Michel Pigenet

·     Eduard Page Campos et Jordi Ibarz : Le dos tourné à la mer : la relation entre Barcelone et son port au XIXe siècle

·     Joe Redmayne : Idéologies, mobilisations ouvrières et usages de l’espace dans la ville portuaire de South Shields (Angleterre, 1914-1922)

·     Prerna Agarwal : Vers une histoire de Calcutta comme ville portuaire

·     Fabien Bartolotti et Céline Regnard : Marseille, quelle identité portuaire à l’époque contemporaine ?

·     Claire Flécher : Les ports vus du bord

 

https://sfhu.hypotheses.org/11924

by Nihat Öztürk, Nuria Cafaro, Bernd Hüttner, Florian Weis

Die migrantischen Kämpfe für menschenwürdige Arbeitsbedingungen und gerechte Entlohnung sind zugleich ein mutiger Kampf gegen die Zumutungen des Kapitalismus und des Rassismus seit Beginn der 1960er-Jahre. Ein Höhepunkt dieser Kämpfe war eine Serie von Migrantenstreiks im Sommer 1973.
Im Bewusstsein der politischen Linken und der migrantischen Gewerkschafter*innen sind diese Streiks als Wendepunkte des Widerstands gegen Ausbeutung und rassistische Strukturen tief verankert. Insofern sind die spontanen Streiks der Migrant*innen im Sommer 1973 mehr als nur historische Ereignisse – sie sind Symbole des Kampfes um Gerechtigkeit, Solidarität und Würde. Diese Kämpfe haben die Arbeitswelt verändert und unser Verständnis von Zusammenhalt und Widerstand in einer Gesellschaft geprägt, die leider allzu oft eher spaltet als solidarisch vereint. Deshalb sind diese Kämpfe ein Mahnmal, aber auch eine Quelle der Inspiration für die kommenden Generationen.
Zweifellos haben diese spontanen Streiks gegen die kapitalistische Ausbeutung die Gewerkschaften enorm gestärkt. Es waren die spontanen Streikwellen seit Anfang der 1960er-Jahre und verstärkt im Sommer 1973, die die Gewerkschaften dazu veranlassten, die Humanisierung der Arbeitswelt, die Abschaffung der frauendiskriminierenden Niedriglohngruppen, die Verlängerung des tariflichen Urlaubs und die Verkürzung der Wochenarbeitszeit flächendeckend durchzusetzen.
Der Sammelband diskutiert und würdigt migrantische Kämpfe aus einer kapitalismuskritischen, antirassistischen oder radikaldemokratischen Perspektive. Die Erinnerung an migrantische Kämpfe dient sowohl der historischen Würdigung der am Streik beteiligten Arbeiter*innen als auch der Ermutigung für eine solidarische Praxis, die gerade in Zeiten der Prekarisierung und Segmentierung von Arbeits- und Lebenswelten geboten ist.

https://diebuchmacherei.de/produkt/der-streik-hat-mir-geholfen-als-jung…

Chères et chers collègues,

J'ai le plaisir de vous informer de la parution du dernier n° de la revue d'histoire Le Mouvement social comportant le dossier "Identités portuaires" susceptible de retenir votre attention et dont j'ai assuré la direction.
Bien cordialement.

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to inform you of the publication of the latest issue of the history review Le Mouvement social including the file "Port Identities" likely to attract your attention and of which I was responsible for the direction.

Kind regards.

Michel Pigenet

Sommaire

• Michel Pigenet, Éditorial. Les villes portuaires en question
• Table ronde : Tours d’horizon, avec John Barzman, Marie-Laure Griffaton et Françoise Péron, animée par Michel Pigenet
• Eduard Page Campos et Jordi Ibarz : Le dos tourné à la mer : la relation entre Barcelone et son port au XIXe siècle
• Joe Redmayne : Idéologies, mobilisations ouvrières et usages de l’espace dans la ville portuaire de South Shields (Angleterre, 1914-1922)
• Prerna Agarwal : Vers une histoire de Calcutta comme ville portuaire
• Fabien Bartolotti et Céline Regnard : Marseille, quelle identité portuaire à l’époque contemporaine ?
• Claire Flécher : Les ports vus du bord

Acheter le numéro du Mouvement social chez CAIRN-Info

First Edition: Conceptual Change

22–26 September 2025, Warsaw

The Asynchronous Histories Summer School aims to explore regions and moments in history marked by the coexistence of asynchronous sociopolitical tendencies and processes. These conditions often reveal paradoxical outcomes when seemingly well-established actors and mechanisms are put into practice. The absence—or inefficiency—of “The Great Synchronizer,” whether imperial order, centralized state apparatus, or the power of capital, has, in various periods and regions, created fertile grounds for blending the old and the new in unequal and unexpected ways.

Rather than viewing this coexistence of asynchronicities as a static phenomenon, we understand it as a dynamic and intricate process. In such situations, old forms may act as tools paving the way for new developments, while new forms may consolidate old arrangements, laws, and privileges. This interplay also triggers epistemological challenges, as research tools developed in global centres often fail to yield productive results when applied to these complex settings. This is why it is both challenging and indispensable to abandon normative definitions of phenomena and states of affairs in favour of listening to local actors, whose diversity ultimately calls into question apparently universal models and descriptions of reality—models that, in practice, are deeply rooted in Western centres.

In the first edition of the Asynchronous Histories Summer School, we seek to stimulate reflection on the theme of conceptual change, broadly understood. Our goal is to examine how concepts, ideas, and ideologies evolve amidst the coexistence of asynchronicities. We aim to move beyond binary perspectives, such as portraying given actors as never-fully-Western imitators or as guardians of domestic traditions. Instead, we propose thinking outside such frameworks, exploring the diverse intellectual stakes pursued by actors in the world’s “grey zones.”

Exemplary areas of inquiry include:

1. Western ideologies in non-Western settings.
2. Domestic political terminologies and procedures.
3. Christian ideas in non-Christian worlds.
4. Non-institutionalized areas of intellectual debate.
5. Transfers as resistance; transfers as domination.
6. Unrealized potentials, repressed imaginaries, and projects halted midway.
7. Local academic traditions in the history of ideas or philosophy.

Confirmed Lecturers

Among the distinguished lecturers for the first edition are:

• László Kontler (Central European University)
• Franz Fillafer (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
• Augusta Dimou (University of Leipzig)
• Waldemar Bulira (University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin)
• Jan Surman (Academy of the Sciences of the Czech Republic)
• Elías José Palti (University of Buenos Aires; National University of Quilmes)
• Olena Palko (University of Basel)
• Banu Turnaoglu (Sabancı University)
• Maciej Janowski (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
• Jani Marjanen (University of Helsinki)

Organizing Institutions

Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw

in partnership with

Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences

The History of Concepts Group

Organizing Comittee

Anna Gulińska, Bartłomiej Błesznowski, Jan Krakowian, Piotr Kuligowski

Eligibility and Application

We welcome submissions from PhD students. Advanced MA students and early career postdocs (up to two years post-defence) are also encouraged to apply.

How to Apply

Please submit the following materials by May 31, 2025:

• A short CV (maximum two pages).
• A concise description of your research interests (up to 1,000 words).

Send your application to ahss.warsaw[at]gmail.com

Participation Fee

The participation fee is 150 EUR. In justified cases, this fee may be reduced.

Cagliari/Italy from 16 to 17 October 2025

The conference on ‘The press of political exiles in the Mediterranean (19th-20th centuries) : a practice of resistance’ will look at the periodicals produced by political exiles and refugees in the Mediterranean area, and more specifically in maritime and port cities, where this press had been published and circulated internationally.

Argument

Exile became an integral part of the repertoire of political action in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a special category of immigration, exile implies the political nature of the departure from the country of origin. From the ordinary use of the term ‘exile’ to the definition of the legal category of refugee adopted by the International Geneva Convention in 1951, as ‘a person with a well-founded fear of being persecuted and not merely the victim of persecution’[1], the deployment of political activities directed towards the country of origin and challenging the legitimacy of the regime or government in place in order to promote a major transformation or the elimination of the latter, is a fundamental dimension of the experience of political exile[2] .

From the exiles of the Napoleonic Wars to the exiles of the Paris Commune, from the Russian exiles of the inter-war period to the exiles of dictatorships in Southern Europe, from the persecuted exiles of dictatorial regimes in South America (Argentina, Chile) to the dissidents of the Cold War, from the exiles of the colonial and/or neo-colonial order to the anti-fascist exiles of the 1920s and 1930s, the Mediterranean is at the heart of these movements, as it often represented a refuge for these exiles. In the context of « exopolitie »[3], the publication of periodicals (newspapers, magazines, newsletters) by exiles is one of the ways in which they express their opposition to the political regime in place in their country of origin..

The conference on ‘The press of political exiles in the Mediterranean (19th-20th centuries) : a practice of resistance’ will look at the periodicals produced by political exiles and refugees in the Mediterranean area, and more specifically in maritime and port cities, where this press had been published and circulated internationally. Apart from the diversity of the ideological orientations of the editors, but also the political situations in their countries of origin, linguistic practices vary as well between titles appearing in the official language of the country of exile and those published in another language. This allophone corpus, which brings together publications in languages other than those established/recognised as official and/or minority ones in the area where they are published, occupies a special place in the study of the phenomenon of political exile.

Among the areas of research proposed for papers at this conference are :

• mapping the editorial landscape of the exile press

• study the different types of publications

• map out the careers of the main contributors (publishers, authors, printers, etc.)

• explore the networks that have supported them and the relationships established between the various publishing initiatives

• see how this press contributes to the creation of categories of exile and political exile

• examine the role of this press in the general movement of people and ideas, the cultural transfers to which they have given rise, and the resulting mixed identities

• contribute to understanding the strategies of those involved in promoting ideological and aesthetic prerogatives

• assess the influence of this press in the countries of origin of their publishers and readers (cultural, political influence, etc.)

Submission Guidlines

If you would like to take part in this conference, please send your proposal in French or English, of 250-300 words maximum, followed by a brief bio-bibliographical presentation,  to the following addresses : alessandra.marchi@unica.it and nicolas.pitsos@bulac.fr .

before 15 April 2025

The working languages of the meeting will be English and French.

Organisation Committee

Marchi Alessandra (Université de Cagliari)

Pitsos Nicolas (CHCSC/Paris-Saclay)

Scientific Committee

• Cooper-Richet Diana (CHCSC/Université Paris-Saclay)
• Felici Isabelle (Université de Montpellier) 
• Finzi Silvia (Université de Tunis/Institut italien Dante Alighieri, Tunis)
• Manduchi Patrizia (Université de Cagliari)
• Marchi Alessandra (Université de Cagliari)
• Martelliere Marie-Delphine (Centre d’études alexandrines)
• Michailidis Iakovos (Université Aristote de Thessalonique) 
• Paonessa Costantino (Université de Bologna)
• Pitsos Nicolas (CHCSC/Université Paris-Saclay)
• Rondinelli Francesca (Université Grenoble Alpes)
• Ruiz Acosta Maria José (Université de Séville)
• Servant Catherine (CREE/Inalco)
• Stead Evanghelia (CHCSC/Université Paris-Saclay)
• Toumarkine Alexandre (CREE/Inalco)

Notes

[1] Delphine Diaz, Un asile pour tous les peuples, Paris, Armand Colin 2014.

[2] Stéphane Dufoix, « La communauté politique des exilés, une nation hors l’État », Hommes et migrations, 2005, n°125, pp. 6-14.

[3]A term coined by Stéphane Dufoix to describe the political space formed by relations of alliance or opposition between groups or individuals engaged in a political struggle against the regime in place in their country of origin.

9-10 October 2025, University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

This conference aims to bring together researchers working on transnational aspects of the history of the extreme right after 1945 and provide a new impetus for fostering closer cooperation and exchange between researchers and projects in Europe and beyond. Adopting an actor-centred perspective, it will explore cross-border networks and contacts, the circulation of media products, and the exchange of ideas and thoughts, aesthetics and lifestyles, mobilisation strategies and organisational forms. While the primary focus is on the second half of the 20th century, contributions examining longer historical continuities are also welcome.

For a long time, historians showed limited interest in studying the history of the extreme right after 1945. In recent years, however, there has been a significant upsurge in the research on this topic. The rise of extreme-right movements and political parties has spurred numerous research projects, especially in Germany. These projects explore not only the aftermath of National Socialism, but also the emergence of a so-called New Right within the framework of democratic societies. Similar research initiatives have also gained momentum in countries such as France, Italy, Austria, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, reflecting the growing influence of the extreme right across Europe. Despite these shared research interests, collaboration between German-speaking scholars and their European colleagues remains sporadic and limited to occasional projects.

Against this background, the international conference “The Extreme Right Transnational. Towards a New Post-War History” aims to provide a new impetus for fostering closer cooperation and exchange between researchers and projects in Europe and beyond. This conference will also introduce the mainly German-language research network “Contemporary History Working Group on the Extreme Right” (Zeithistorischer Arbeitskreis extreme Rechte– ZAER) to the European research community. Founded in 2019, the working group organises – among other activities – annual conferences on the post-war history of the extreme right and is therefore a partner of this conference.

The conference will examine the transnational dimensions and dynamics of the extreme right after 1945 by adopting an actor-centred perspective. It will explore cross-border networks and contacts, the circulation of media products, and the exchange of ideas and thoughts, aesthetics and lifestyles, mobilisation strategies and organisational forms. Notable historical examples include the 1951 Malmö Conference that was organised by the European Social Movement and sought to unite the extreme right at the European level, or the efforts of rightwing media such as Nation Europa to promote extreme-right visions of Europe. Moreover, ideological entrepreneurs, such as the U.S. neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell, worked hard to revive transatlantic extreme-right exchanges. From the 1970s onwards, new projects and initiatives emerged, including the French Nouvelle Droite, which fostered intellectual networks through meetings organised by the Groupement de Recherche et d’Études pour la Civilisation Européenne (GRECE), by the right-wing ecological World Union for Protection of Life, which organised protests against nuclear power plants, and the very active transnational Holocaustdenial movement. During this period, extreme-right activists also travelled to South Africa, Spain and Portugal to demonstrate their support for authoritarian regimes. 

The dynamics of transnational exchange developed further with the rise of extreme rightwing youth subcultures such as skinheads, autonomous nationalists, and certain music scenes. The advent of the internet in the 1990s brought a new level of global connectivity, exemplified by platforms such as Stormfront or Thule-Netz, which facilitated real-time networking and accelerated the spread of extreme-right ideologies. With the emergence of social media, this connectivity has only deepened, transforming how extreme-right actors organise and communicate on a global scale. By analysing these transnational connections and exchanges, we not only gain deeper insights into the formation of the extreme right after 1945, but also seek to develop a new approach to post-war history – one that views the extreme right in Europe and North America not as an exception, but from the outset, as a significant actor.

This conference aims to bring together researchers working on the transnational aspects of the extreme right. While the primary focus is on the second half of the 20th century, contributions examining longer historical continuities are also welcome. We would like to invite historians and interdisciplinary researchers that engage with historical perspectives to submit presentation proposals that address one or more of the following thematic areas:

1.  Transnational Protagonists

Who were the key figures driving the transnational networking of the extreme right? How did they establish themselves in their roles as organisers, mediators, or translators? What role did factors such as access to travel, foreign language skills, and financial resources play in enabling their activities? Did these protagonists confine themselves to the role of intellectuals and ideologues, or were they also involved in violent, criminal, or even terrorist activities?

2.  Networks, Meetings, and Informal Connections

Which transnational connections, networks, and alliances were cultivated by extreme rightwing groups? How important were international meetings, conferences, and symposia in fostering these relationships? To what extent did informal working groups and personal friendships shape their cooperation? What common goals, ideals, or fears motivated cooperation? Conversely, what conflicts arose from ideological differences, cultural disparities, or personal rivalries?

3.  Media and Communication Channels

What role did media such as magazines, pamphlets, books, and later the internet play in facilitating communication and fostering networks among the extreme right? How were ideologies selected, adapted, and hybridised through transnational exchanges? What impact did translation into other languages have on the dissemination and reinterpretation of their ideas? How did these transfers shape the visual style and design of the media?

4.  Social Movements

What forms of action did extreme right-wing actors choose to combine their protest with rightwing ideology? Has violence been part of their repertoire of action? And if so, what function did it have for the movement? Why and how did extreme right-wing actors engage with other transnational social movements, such as the anti-nuclear, environmental, alternative, or peace movements? What strategies did they use to influence these movements, and how did other actors respond to their involvement?

5.  Youth Cultures, Leisure Activities, and Music Scenes

How did leisure activities contribute to the transnational networking of extreme right-wing actors? Did shared hobbies and interests serve as a conduit for spreading extreme right-wing ideologies across cultural boundaries? How have youth cultures, leisure practices, and music scenes been reshaped by these transnational exchanges?

In addition to oral presentations, we also invite submissions for poster presentations. Posters should present research in a clear and engaging manner, highlighting key questions, findings, and methodologies. There will be a dedicated session for poster presentations, where each poster will be introduced, followed by time for questions and discussions. The posters will be displayed throughout the conference, providing additional opportunities for informal exchange.

Submission guidlines

Abstracts (max. 3000 characters) and a short CV (max. 1 page) must be submitted by email to conference_transnational2025@unifr.ch

by 1 March 2025.

Please indicate in your submission if you would like to be considered for a poster presentation. The conference language will be English. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered as far as possible.

Organization

The conference is organised by the Department of Contemporary History, University of Fribourg.

Conference organisers: Stefan Rindlisbacher and Damir Skenderovic 

Conference coordination: Maximilian Mosbacher

São Paulo/Brazil from 9-12 December 2025

After the four International Conferences of Anarchist Geographers and Geographies organized in Reggio Emilia (Italy, 2017), Rabastens (France, 2019), Oaxaca (Mexico, 2021) and Córdoba (Argentina, 2023), the fifth will take place in São Paulo (Brazil) on 9-12 December 2025. 

This location is very significant because São Paulo, USP and more generally Brazil, have a tradition of reflection and organization of international conferences on historical figures of anarchist geography. Thus, the International Conferences on Elisée Reclus (2011) and on the centenary of the death of Peter Kropotkin (2021), were organized by the Terra Livre Library with the support of the Department of Geography of the University of São Paulo.

For this fifth edition, we invite you to submit abstracts mainly (but not exclusively) on the following thematic axes:
1. Practices of anarchist struggles and emancipatory spatialities
2. Anarchist pedagogies and other libertarian practices of education
3. Native peoples, black and indigenous movements and the challenges of
decoloniality
4. Environmental collapse and other relations between societies and natures
5. Body-territory. Gender, space and sexuality
6. Counter-cartographies
7. Geographies of abolition: Prisons, borders, states
8. Other histories of geography
9. Other histories and geographies of anarchism
10. Space in class struggles and spaces of class struggles
11. Transnational and internationalist perspectives of anarchist geographies

Important dates
Deadline for abstract submission: Until March 31, 2025, to cigga.icagg@gmail.com
Deadline for response/results of evaluations: April 15, 2025

Guidelines for submitting abstracts:
Include Title | Author | Reference to Activism and/or militancy, academic affiliation if you have | email | abstract (between 200 and 400 words) | References.

Important:
To avoid dispersion on overly generic themes, it is requested to include references to at least two authors from the anarchist camp.

Other presentations
Alternative formats such as theatre presentations, performance or videos are accepted.
Abstracts between 200 and 400 words. In all cases, it is suggested to send abstracts.

Languages: Portuguese | Spanish | English | French

Important: during the event, the translation will be solidary.

Nature of the event: In-person only.

Live streaming: Depending on the availability of the Department of Geography.

Fieldwork: The possibility of environment studies is being considered (for December 13, 2025).

Organizer: Terra Livre Library.

Support (provisional list):
Abolitionist Geographies
Department of Geography – University of São Paulo
AGB-São Paulo
History of Geography Commission-UGI
Aurora Negra Collective

Scientific Committee
Adriano Gonçalves Skoda, University of São Paulo
Álvaro Girón Sierra, CSIC, Barcelona
Anthony Ince, University of Cardiff
António Ferraz de Oliveira, University of Groningen
Breno Viotto Pedrosa, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
Carla Eleonora Pedrazzani, University of Córdoba
Carlo Romani, UNIRIO
Carolina Paula Ricci, University of Córdoba
Eduardo Donizeti Girotto, University of São Paulo
Eduardo Souza Cunha, University of São Paulo
Emilse Riveros, Sociedad de Resistencia y Oficios Varios – Córdoba
Fábio Betioli Contel, University of São Paulo
Fabrizio Eva, Independent researcher
Federico Ferretti, University of Bologna
Gerónimo Barrera de la Torre, University of Berkeley
Guilherme Ribeiro, UFRRJ
Ivanna Margarucci, University of Taracapá, Chile
José Luis Oyon, Polytechnic University of Catalonia
Júlio César Pereira de Freitas Guató, Indigenous activist
Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg, University of Milano-Bicocca
Marcelo Lopes de Souza, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Núria Benach Rovira, University of Barcelona
Patrick Minder, University of Fribourg
Perla Zusman, University of Buenos Aires
Philippe Pelletier, University of Lyon 2
Pietro di Paola, University of Lincoln, UK
Richard White, University of Sheffield- Hallam
Rodrigo Rosa da Silva, State University of Londrina
Ruth Kinna, University of Loughborough
Sara Letzen, University of Córdoba
Selva Varengo, Independent researcher
Simon Springer, University of Newcastle, Australia
Valéria de Marcos, University of São Paulo
Valeria Raimondi, University of Bologna

Conference in Odense M/Denmark from 8 to 9 October 2025

The conference will focus on societal and political challenges to postwar societies after World War II. The aim is to discuss how and if former collaborators, refugees, resistance fighters and other groups were reintegrated into societies after the war, and to what extent new ideas and practices of welfare, democratisation and resocialisation in postwar Europe influenced these processes.

From Warfare to Welfare? Resocialisation and Democratisation after World War II

How were former collaborators, displaced refugees, resistance fighters or war veterans reintegrated into societies after 1944/45? Did efforts to reintegrate them pave the way for welfare and democracy?

This international history conference on 8-9 October 2025 seeks to explore the processes of resocialisation and democratisation in postwar Europe.

The conference takes inspiration from ongoing research in Denmark (supported by VELUX FONDEN) at the University of Southern Denmark and three museums, which discusses to what extent authorities after the war tried to integrate German refugees into democratic frameworks and how the resocialisation of convicted collaborators as well as the reintegration of resistance fighters into postwar society was handled.

However, we aim to expand this scope to include broader geographical and historical perspectives.

By bringing together researchers from different disciplines and regions, this history conference seeks to contribute to broader understandings of how societies recover, rebuild, and lay the groundwork for democracy and inclusion in the wake of conflict.

We invite scholars to present their research on related topics in postwar European cases or in transnational comparisons.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Strategies for managing and reintegrating collaborators or former combatants.
- Narratives on punishment and resocialisation among convicted collaborators.
- Approaches to refugee resettlement.
- Democratisation of refugees and prisoners of war.
- Ideas of citizenship and welfare after the war.
- Welfare ambitions and ideals among the resistance movements.
- Policies addressing radicalisation and extremism in post-war societies.
- The role of state authorities in fostering reconciliation and citizenship.
- The role of civil society in fostering reconciliation and citizenship.
- Challenges faced by resistance fighters in adapting to peacetime societies.
- Recognition and commemoration: contested narratives and their social and political impact.
- The role of war victims in shaping post-war democratic and social policies.

Submission Details:
Please send proposals for contributions with a 300-word abstract and a brief bio to PHD Henrik Lundtofte, Archives of Danish Occupation History at Museum Vest hl@musvest.dk

Submission deadline is 1 May 2025. Accepted speakers will be notified by 15 June. We welcome submissions from established academics and early career researchers alike. Presentations will be 30 minutes, followed by discussion.

The conference will take place on 8-9 October 2025 at University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. Attendance and accommodation are free.

We prefer physical participation but are open to online talks as well. Contact: hl@musvest.dk

Kontakt

PhD Henrik Lundtofte hl@musvest.dk

Conference in Pula/Croatia from 18 to 19 September 2025

The series of biennial international conferences Socialism on the Bench have been organised since 2013 by the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism (CKPIS), Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia. Around a hundred participants per conference have been gathering to discuss different main themes. Selections of papers have been published in edited volumes and journals. This time the theme is defined as Global Socialism and Non-Alignment.

7th Socialism on the Bench: Global Socialism and Non-Alignment

The series of biennial international conferences Socialism on the Bench (Socijalizam na klupi) have been organised since 2013 by the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism (CKPIS), at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. Around a hundred participants per conference have been gathering to discuss different main themes: Cultural and Historical Interpretations of Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Societies (2013), Socialism: Construction and Deconstruction (2015), Communists and Communist Parties: Policies, Actions, Debates (2017), Continuities and Innovations (2019), Antifascism (2021), and Crises and Reforms (2023). Selections of papers have been published in edited volumes and journals.

Recent years have been marked by war conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, challenges of the pandemics, shifting roles among global powers and continents, as well as growing migration, social tensions and environmental issues. By focusing on global socialism, the conference seeks to explore the reach of socialist ideas, their impact over the past century and a half, and their relevance to the present day, with particular emphasis on the period from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. This era saw socialism intersect with Cold War dynamics, decolonization and the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement. During this period, socialist ideas and revolutionary movements influenced societies across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Progress, cooperation, internationalism and peace often coexisted with conflict and competition in political, economic, cultural and other spheres. While maintaining a focus on the discourse and practice of socialism and non-alignment, their histories and legacies, the conference aims to address policies, ideologies, manifestations and actions on the international, national and local levels, both within and beyond the blocs, in Europe and the Global South, from the global stage to individual interactions within societies.

The conference programme will include three keynote speakers:

CHIARA BONFIGLIOLI (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
TVRTKO JAKOVINA (University of Zagreb)
PAUL STUBBS (The Institute of Economics, Zagreb)

The goal of our conferences, as well as the entire mission of the Centre, remains the same: strengthening the cooperation among scholars with similar research interests, revealing thematic, methodological and theoretical similarities, getting to know different interpretations, enhancing dialogue and new research.

The conference languages are Croatian (and mutually understandable languages) and English. Participants’ presentation time is 15 minutes. We accept individual applications, but it is possible to indicate the desire to participate in a specific panel. It is also possible to suggest events like book launches and round tables.

The conference will be held at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula (Faculty of Humanities, Aldo Negri Street/Negrijeva 6, Pula), and in partnership with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation SEE. There is no conference fee. Conference organizers will provide a meal per day and arrange a discount at the recommended hotel. Participants will have to arrange and cover their own trip and accommodation.

APPLICATION DEADLINE IS APRIL 1, 2025. By April 30, applicants will be notified about the acceptance of their proposal. For more information and the application form, please visit the conference website

https://www.unipu.hr/ckpis/en/socialism_on_the_bench/2025, or contact us at ckpis.conf@gmail.com.

Programm

Application process is open until April 1. Full programme will be available by June 30, and will include three keynotes and at least 65 participants. The programme starts on September 18 at noon and ends on September 20 early afternoon.

Kontakt

ckpis.conf@gmail.com

https://www.unipu.hr/ckpis/en/socialism_on_the_bench/2025

Discover Global Society: Special Issue on Transnational Pop Culture and Work

Guest Editors

• Professor Anja Louis, Sheffield Creative Industries Institute, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
• Dr Will Kitchen, Department of Creative Industries, University of Chichester / Bournemouth Film School, Arts University Bournemouth, UK

Deadline for Full Chapter Submissions: 30th August 2025

This topical issue of Discover Global Society aims to explore the intersections of popular culture and labour across national boundaries, examining how global flows of media, film, music, literature, video games, fashion, and other cultural forms influence, and are influenced by, work practices, identities, and economies. Cultural products play a vital role in establishing, maintaining and transforming our shared experiences of labour – both the forms of behaviour that we adopt during working and leisure hours, as well as the values that determine our vocational choices, training, expectations and relationships. 

This special issue aims to compile a global dossier of interdisciplinary critical analysis to illuminate and challenge how the cultural metaphysics of modern labour are disseminated and negotiated by various forms of art, entertainment and community production. 

Topics of Interest:

We invite submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Global perspectives on the values of labour (i.e., the culturally constructed and ideologically determined meaning of 'success', 'creativity', 'skill', etc.)
• Global perspectives on pop culture, wealth and social mobility
• Sustainable cultural production in a global context
• Global perspectives on leadership and pop culture
• Global perspectives on craft and craftsmanship in pop culture
• Financial and economic themes in pop culture production
• The relationship between popular culture, labour, AI technology and other forms of automation 
• The relationship between global pop cultures, work and gender
• The impact of transnational media on local labour markets and work cultures
• The role of pop culture in shaping transnational labour identities
• Case studies of specific cultural industries (e.g., film, music, fashion) and their global labour dynamics
• The influence of digital platforms on transnational work and cultural production
• Comparative studies of pop culture and work in different regions
• Theoretical approaches to understanding the relationship between pop culture and labour in a global context

Submission Guidelines

• Full chapters of between 6,000-8,000 words should be submitted via the Journal’s submission portal, along with a 250 word abstract and brief cover letter: https://link.springer.com/collections/ahbhaibhbi
• All submissions must follow the Journal’s formatting guidelines, which can be found here: https://link.springer.com/journal/44282
• Please note that the referencing style is National Library of Medicine; further details can be found here: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with the Guest Editors at a.louis@shu.ac.uk and wkitchen@aub.ac.uk with the subject line “Special Issue Submission: Transnational Pop Culture and Work.”

IMPORTANT NOTE

All articles published by Discover Global Society are freely and permanently accessible online without subscription charges. However, please be advised that Authors are required to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC). We therefore strongly advise publication via research funding, and encourage authors – particularly early-career and precariously employed academics – to explore the options below: 

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover APCs and other open access publishing costs. For more information, please visit: https://link.springer.com/journal/44282/how-to-publish-with-us.

For a list of the 350 global funding organizations that can help cover the APC, visit: https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-science/funding.

For information about fee waivers and discounts for scholars from particular global regions, please visit: https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-science/policies/journal-policies/apc-waiver-countries.

The Guest Editors do not personally receive any financial remuneration from Springer Nature.

Contact Information

Please submit articles via the link: https://link.springer.com/collections/ahbhaibhbi

Professor Anja Louis, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Dr Will Kitchen, University of Chichester / Arts University Bournemouth, UK

Contact Email wkitchen@aub.ac.uk

by Laurent Dornel

Quelques mois après le déclenchement de la Première Guerre mondiale, le gouvernement français décide de mobiliser des dizaines de milliers de travailleurs dans les colonies afin de pallier la grave pénurie de main-d'œuvre en métropole. Il s'agit d'organiser non seulement leur recrutement aux quatre coins de l'Empire – en Indochine, à Madagascar, en Afrique du Nord, et jusqu'en Chine –, mais aussi leur acheminement, leur affectation professionnelle et leur gestion quotidienne.
Cette vaste entreprise, première expérience d'immigration " organisée ", conduit quelque 220 000 hommes dans les usines et dans les exploitations agricoles de l'Hexagone. Et elle secoue en profondeur l'ordre racial et les habitudes coloniales héritées du XIXe siècle.
Les nouvelles circulations impériales font en effet émerger des problèmes inédits. Afin d'assurer la continuité de l'autorité coloniale, comment adapter le régime de l'indigénat en métropole ? Comment empêcher que ces travailleurs transplantés ne s'affranchissent du nouvel ordre disciplinaire que l'administration s'efforce de leur imposer ? Comment prévenir les amours interraciales qui subvertissent radicalement la domination coloniale ? Et que faire des enfants métis qui naissent en métropole ?
Alors que la participation des soldats mobilisés dans l'Empire français à partir de 1914 est désormais bien documentée, le sort des travailleurs coloniaux de la Grande Guerre, perçus comme à la fois indispensables et indésirables, demeure largement méconnu. À l'aide d'archives inédites, Laurent Dornel ouvre un nouveau pan historiographique et éclaire un épisode qui a durablement marqué l'histoire des migrations vers l'Hexagone.

https://www.editionsladecouverte.fr/indispensables_et_indesirables-9782…

First Edition: Conceptual Change

22–26 September 2025, Warsaw

The Asynchronous Histories Summer School aims to explore regions and moments in history marked by the coexistence of asynchronous sociopolitical tendencies and processes. These conditions often reveal paradoxical outcomes when seemingly well-established actors and mechanisms are put into practice. The absence—or inefficiency—of “The Great Synchronizer,” whether imperial order, centralized state apparatus, or the power of capital, has, in various periods and regions, created fertile grounds for blending the old and the new in unequal and unexpected ways.

Rather than viewing this coexistence of asynchronicities as a static phenomenon, we understand it as a dynamic and intricate process. In such situations, old forms may act as tools paving the way for new developments, while new forms may consolidate old arrangements, laws, and privileges. This interplay also triggers epistemological challenges, as research tools developed in global centres often fail to yield productive results when applied to these complex settings. This is why it is both challenging and indispensable to abandon normative definitions of phenomena and states of affairs in favour of listening to local actors, whose diversity ultimately calls into question apparently universal models and descriptions of reality—models that, in practice, are deeply rooted in Western centres.

In the first edition of the Asynchronous Histories Summer School, we seek to stimulate reflection on the theme of conceptual change, broadly understood. Our goal is to examine how concepts, ideas, and ideologies evolve amidst the coexistence of asynchronicities. We aim to move beyond binary perspectives, such as portraying given actors as never-fully-Western imitators or as guardians of domestic traditions. Instead, we propose thinking outside such frameworks, exploring the diverse intellectual stakes pursued by actors in the world’s “grey zones.”

Exemplary areas of inquiry include:

1. Western ideologies in non-Western settings.
2. Domestic political terminologies and procedures.
3. Christian ideas in non-Christian worlds.
4. Non-institutionalized areas of intellectual debate.
5. Transfers as resistance; transfers as domination.
6. Unrealized potentials, repressed imaginaries, and projects halted midway.
7. Local academic traditions in the history of ideas or philosophy.

Confirmed Lecturers

Among the distinguished lecturers for the first edition are:

• László Kontler (Central European University)
• Franz Fillafer (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
• Augusta Dimou (University of Leipzig)
• Waldemar Bulira (University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin)
• Jan Surman (Academy of the Sciences of the Czech Republic)
• Elías José Palti (University of Buenos Aires; National University of Quilmes)
• Olena Palko (University of Basel)
• Banu Turnaoglu (Sabancı University)
• Maciej Janowski (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
• Jani Marjanen (University of Helsinki)

Organizing Institutions

Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw

in partnership with

Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences

The History of Concepts Group

Organizing Comittee

Anna Gulińska, Bartłomiej Błesznowski, Jan Krakowian, Piotr Kuligowski

Eligibility and Application

We welcome submissions from PhD students. Advanced MA students and early career postdocs (up to two years post-defence) are also encouraged to apply.

How to Apply

Please submit the following materials by May 31, 2025:

• A short CV (maximum two pages).
• A concise description of your research interests (up to 1,000 words).

Send your application to ahss.warsaw[at]gmail.com

Participation Fee

The participation fee is 150 EUR. In justified cases, this fee may be reduced.

 

Please find all information the PDF files:

University of Geneva, September 18-19 2025

How have workers' bodies been protected in hazardous working environments? Masks, gloves, goggles, helmets, ventilators, fume hoods, radiation detectors, shields, and fuses are just some of the devices deployed to safeguard health and ensure safety in dangerous spaces. Beyond their materiality and functionality, they carry with them the stories of technical innovations, workers' resistances, social transformations, and adaptations to toxic and polluted environments. They also reveal the complex trade-offs involved in the governance of risks, always marked by tensions between industrial productivism, health preservation, and social justice, between assigning responsibility to individuals and to collectives, and between the temporalities of accidents and chronic illness. What can these objects teach us about the strategies that past and present societies have adopted to balance protection and exploitation, technical progress and bodily vulnerability, and the impacts of industrialization on public health and the environment?

The international conference Protecting Bodies at Work: Technical Devices, Materialities of Health, and Political Imaginaries aims to explore the history of health technologies from the Middle Ages to the present in workplaces, urban areas, and colonial contexts. Through multidisciplinary and transnational perspectives, this conference will investigate how health-related objects and devices have both shaped and been shaped by social, cultural, scientific, and industrial dynamics. We invite researchers from all disciplines to submit original contributions in the field of occupational health and environmental health, focusing on the materiality, symbolic significance, circulation, uses, and disuses of sanitary objects.

Imaginaries of Risk and Prevention
Health protection devices are more than practical solutions; they embody a complex interplay of materiality, scientific knowledge, and social imaginaries. Designed to address health concerns, they carry beliefs, values, and norms, reflecting the ambitions and contradictions of their time. Inspired by Gilbert Simondon’s notion of technical objects as mediators between humans and their environment, and the works of Sheila Jasanoff, Soraya Boudia and Nathalie Jas on how technologies co-construct societal values and power structures, this theme examines how health-related objects have been perceived over time. How do they symbolize concepts like “healthy work,” “clean air,” “industrial hygiene,” or “protected environment”? How do they reflect tensions between prevention and productivity, innovation and inequality? Who are the actors and institutions promoting these devices? Moving beyond a functional analysis, this theme explores objects as reflections of broader social, scientific, and political transformations.

Circulation of Objects and Reconfiguration of Space
Health protection devices can be seen as tools for conquering spaces deemed dangerous, hostile, or unhealthy, often designed for multiple uses. These devices act as "boundary objects," crossing and linking distinct realms such as workshops, hospitals, urban spaces, and natural environments. What knowledge, practices, and narratives accompany these circulations? How are these devices transformed or reinterpreted as they move between spaces or across national and cultural borders? This theme invites contributions exploring not only their circulation but also how their transnational movement reveals flows of ideas, knowledge, and techniques while shaping local and global public health norms, working conditions, and environmental challenges.

The Politics of Objects and Negotiated Uses
Health devices are deeply embedded in power dynamics. Imposed as solutions to industrial, epidemic, or environmental risks, they reflect sanitary norms advanced by employers, medical professionals, hygienists, or states. Yet, they also face resistance, reappropriation, or rejection. This theme explores these tensions, examining how such devices function as both instruments of control and catalysts for social change. How are these devices introduced and legitimized? How do workers or targeted populations perceive and adapt them in their daily lives? How do they reshape work routines or individual and collective relationships with health and the environment? By studying their uses, appropriations, or rejections, this theme sheds light on the power relations surrounding health devices and how they redefine interactions between employers, workers, scientific institutions, regulatory bodies, and the public, revealing the ongoing tensions between bodily health, productivity, social justice, and environmental health.

Submissions:

Proposals should include a brief description of the research question(s) and the sources to be studied (300–500 words), and a short biography (150 words).
Contributions in French or English are welcome, and those focusing on non-European contexts are particularly encouraged.

Submission Deadline: March 1, 2025

Send your proposals to: veronique.stenger@unige.ch, yohann.guffroy@unige.ch, bruno.strasser@unige.ch

Références principales / Main References :
1. Boudia, Soraya, and Nathalie Jas, editors. Powerless Science? Science and Politics in a Toxic World, Berghahn Books, 2014.
2. Bruno Anne-Sophie, Geerkens Éric, Hatzfeld Nicolas, Omnès Catherine (dir.), La santé au travail, entre savoirs et pouvoirs (19e-20e siècles), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011
3. Greenlees Janet, When the Air Became Important: A Social History of the New England and Lancashire Textile Industries, Rutgers University Press, 2019.
4. Guignard, Laurence, et al., éditeurs. Corps et machines à l’âge industriel. Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011.
5. Jarrige, F. et Le Roux, T. La Contamination du monde. Une histoire des pollutions à l'âge industriel, Paris, Le Seuil, 2017.
6. Jasanoff Sheila, Sang-Hyun Kim (ed.) Dreamscapes of Modernity. Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power, University of Chicago Press, 2015.
7. Moriceau, Caroline, Les douleurs de l'industrie: L'hygiénisme industriel en France, 1860-1914, Paris, Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2010.
8. Rainhorn Judith, Blanc de plomb. Histoire d'un poison légal, Paris, Les Presses de Sciences Po, 2019.
9. Rosental Paul-André (dir.), Silicosis. A World History, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.
10. Rosner, David, and Gerald Markowitz, eds. 1989. Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in Twentieth-Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
11. Sellers Christopher, Hazards of the job: from industrial disease to environmental health science, Chapel Hill and London, University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
12. Weindling Paul (ed), The Social History of Occupational Health, London, Croom Helm, 1985.

APH Conference, Antwerp, 18-20 June 2025

In the light of current geopolitical constellations, the contemporary resonance of political history seems more relevant than ever. At the same time, the subdiscipline of political historiography has struggled to maximize its global relevance and to overcome its own historical biases. One of the longstanding critiques of the field has targeted its elitist character. It was written by North Atlantic elites about North Atlantic elites, about the institutions they had created and the struggles they waged. New forms of history-writing that came into being since the last decades of the nineteenth century were meant to be more democratic alternatives to political history. When political history was reinvented at universities in the North Atlantic world since the 1990s, this reproach of elitism was addressed. ‘The political’ which became the object of the new political history was not the realm of the rich and mighty, but involved all aspects of life in which power relations are somehow negotiated.

Still, this renewal of political historiography largely took place within the boundaries of the North Atlantic world, and therefore tended to replicate its fundamental paradigms. This did not exclude a growing interest for colonization and decolonization as political processes, but the subdiscipline did hardly question its origins in an era of colonialism, and the stamp it still carries from them. The decolonization of history-writing, therefore, has mainly taken place outside the ‘new political history’, even if it is intrinsically a political undertaking. Subaltern studies, gender history, new imperial history, area studies are some of the fields where the decolonizing efforts have been made – much less so in political history strictly speaking.

The aim of this conference is precisely to catch up with this delay, and to ask what it can mean to decolonize the field of political history. Should it only mean that we study processes of political decolonization, or does such an approach, on the contrary, perpetuate the focus on the colonizer? Should decolonizing political history entail a focus on pre-colonial political structures and actors, and how they survived during and/or after the colonial period? Or should it also make us question the ways in which we tackle political history in the North Atlantic world, both in modern and early modern times? Is every attempt to view political history from the perspective of non-hegemonic groups a form of historiographical decolonization? And if we answer positively to that last question, wouldn’t that devalue the term decolonization as such? Is ‘decolonization’ the most appropriate paradigm to renew the field of political history, or do we need other concepts?

Rather than theoretical answers to these questions, we expect to gain insights in this matter through empirical and methodological approaches. We hope to receive papers in which authors present the results of their historical research through the lens of these questions, and by doing so reflect on the possibilities and the limits of a decolonizing approach for political historiography. Of particular interest are papers in which the methodological and infrastructural challenges for this approach are being tackled. Questions that have been at the core of other subdisciplines deserve to be treated from a political history perspective. What kind of sources should we use to uncover power relationships in nonliterate societies? To which degree and in which ways can we use concepts from North Atlantic societies to describe pre-colonial political realities? How can we overcome language gaps? Which contributions can scholars from other disciplines offer to the decolonization of political history? How can we stimulate collaboration between scholars from
different parts of the world in order to genuinely practice what Carola Dietze has called a “history on equal terms”?

We welcome proposals both for individual papers and for full panels (3-5 papers). These panels can be dedicated to specific regions, periods and/or topics, or they can focus on conceptual or methodological challenges. Potential titles of panels include “Decolonizing the Cold War”, “The persistence of pre-colonial political structures”, “Decolonial epistemologies”. We encourage the submission of panel proposals which do not exclusively consist of presenters from the North Atlantic, and we would be glad to receive proposals in which decolonial perspectives are applied to ongoing conflicts. We expect the proposals in English, but we promote multilingualism and linguistic flexibility during the panels.

Doctoral students and junior scholars are warmly encouraged to submit proposals. For doctoral scholars whose proposals are accepted, a preparatory webinar will be organized in spring. In this preparatory seminar, first drafts can be discussed, and suggestions with regard to the presentations will be offered.

Paper proposals should not exceed 500 words. Panel proposals should contain, moreover, an introduction of maximum 500 words, in which a rationale is given for bringing these specific papers together. Please send your proposals by 10 February at the latest to marnix.beyen@uantwerpen.be. The organizers will put everything to work to make the conference affordable and accessible for all participants.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Roland Ndille (Buea University), Jihane Sfeir (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Musa Sroor (Birzeit University), Adriana Salay (Universidade de São Paulo)

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Marnix Beyen (UAntwerpen, Margot Luyckfasseel (UAntwerpen), Burak Sayım (UAntwerpen), Jan Schmidt (KULeuven), Jihane Sfeir (Université Libre de Bruxelles),

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Anne-Sophie Gijs (UCLouvain), Gillian Mathys (Ghent University), Roland Ndille (Buea University, Cameroon), Adriana Salay (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil), Roschanack Shaery-Yazdi (UAntwerpen), Musa Sroor (Birzeit University, Palestine)

https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/how-to-decolonize-political-hi…

by Christopher D. E. Willoughby

Medical science in antebellum America was organized around a paradox: it presumed African Americans to be less than human yet still human enough to be viable as experimental subjects, as cadavers, and for use in the training of medical students. By taking a hard look at the racial ideas of both northern and southern medical schools, Christopher D. E. Willoughby reveals that racist ideas were not external to the medical profession but fundamental to medical knowledge.

In this history of racial thinking and slavery in American medical schools, the founders and early faculty of these schools emerge as singularly influential proponents of white supremacist racial science. They pushed an understanding of race influenced by the theory of polygenesis—that each race was created separately and as different species—which they supported by training students to collect and measure human skulls from around the world. Medical students came to see themselves as masters of Black people's bodies through stealing Black people’s corpses, experimenting on enslaved people, and practicing distinctive therapeutics on Black patients. In documenting these practices Masters of Health charts the rise of racist theories in U.S. medical schools, throwing new light on the extensive legacies of slavery in modern medicine.

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469672120/masters-of-health/

Université du Québec à Montréal, 14-15 November 2025

In 1976 the Canadian Committee on Labour History (CCLH) launched its journal Labour/Le Travail, hoping to “foster imaginative approaches to both teaching and research in labour studies through an open exchange of viewpoints.” With the fiftieth anniversary of this event approaching, scholars, activists, unionists, and workers are invited to convene in the spirit of this tradition to exchange views and to consider new and renewed imaginative approaches to the study of labour and the working class.

Labour/Le Travail was founded in the mid-1970s amidst an apparent crisis in capitalism that can, in hindsight, be seen as a key moment of transition. In a period of stalled economic growth characterized by high inflation, unemployment, and a pattern of deindustrialization pushing production towards low-wage, less unionized jurisdictions, the nascent intellectual project of neoliberalism proposed solutions that would free capital from the regulation of the state and from the concessions won by the labour movement in the decades following World War II. Yet this was not the only vision of the future animating this historical conjuncture. This was also an era in which a wide array of social and political movements, organized labour among them, mobilized against inequality and oppression in their many forms and for a more just, sustainable, democratic, and humane world. Though there were tensions and contestations within and between these movements, they did create numerous local, regional, national and transnational networks of solidarity. It was in this milieu that Labour/Le Travail began its intellectual and political project, opening its pages to a diversity of analyses of the history of working-class life, culture, politics, and struggle with the conviction that such studies were of pressing relevance to the present and the future.

Fifty years later, the journal carries on its work in a context that is in some ways very different, but in others strikingly familiar.  Union membership and power has unquestionably declined, and yet a new generation of activists has emerged, in labour and other social movements, continuing the fight for social justice in a changed set of circumstances. These activists confront a capitalist order that, while faced once again with inflationary challenges, is transformed in important ways – a transformation that was already underway in the mid-1970s. Financial capital has superseded industrial capital as the principal agent of accumulation in Canada and other Western countries. With its distance from the site of production, finance capital is better positioned to evade workers’ collective resistance and, more broadly, from the legislative restraints of the state. This is particularly the case in the private sector, where the strategies of finance capital have been most directly imposed, but workers in the public sector, too, have struggled against a neoliberal logic that, using the public debt and the globalized competition to attract capital as imperatives, demands austerity.

If the social and intellectual relevance of labour and the labour movement was not in doubt in the context of the mid-1970s, today this relevance is no longer self-evident. It would be worthwhile, then, for researchers and activists to gather to revisit, reconsider, and, potentially, affirm the significance of labour history/studies. Why, fundamentally, does labour still matter? 

In recognition of the journal’s upcoming 50th birthday, the conference committee seeks proposals from researchers, activists, and public history practitioners for panels and papers that explore the past, present, and future of labour and labour studies. Questions and topics might include:

Why does labour history and labour studies – including in the domain of public history –  matter in our contemporary moment? What have been the contributions and the shortcomings of the past half-century of work in labour history/studies? How do we write about labour during a time of crisis and opportunity for labour and the left? How can issues of the past and present be reassessed in response to current challenges?

• What lessons does the study of past workers afford workers in the present as they confront an array of economic, social, political, environmental and other challenges? Conversely, how can current working-class struggles inform our understanding of the working-class past?
• How does context matter in our studies of labour and the working class across time and space? We especially invite panels that consider a theme in labour history/studies compared across national, regional, temporal, racial, linguistic, gendered, colonial or other contexts. How have labour, the left, and social movements worked together – or worked at cross purposes? What lessons about coalition-building (or its failure) can we take from the past?
• What can labour scholars learn from public history practitioners? How can scholars, teachers, and public history practitioners effectively collaborate? How can university researchers support the work of community groups and agencies involved in memory work?
• How can labour history/studies help us understand the evolution of political movements on the left and right alike? How can we deepen our understanding of the appeal of right-wing and far-right politics to working-class constituents?    

Submit a proposal:

Proposals for presentations, panels, or round tables can be submitted in English or French before 14 March 2025. Proposals, including a title, up to 250 word summary of the presentation, and up to 150 words biography of the presenters, should be submitted using this link:

https://forms.gle/tBaf5uz6fzMoDAYQ9

Travel subsidies:

Some funding will be available to subsidize travel expenses for students, precariously employed, or anyone else facing financial barriers to participating in the event.

Questions? info@cclh.ca

Organizing Committee:

Edward Dunsworth, Kassandra Luciuk, Benoit Marsan, Kirk Niergarth, Martin Petitclerc, Camille Robert, Joan Sangster  

by Jim Tomlinson

This book offers a new understanding of the main economic and political trends of 20th-century Britain, through the lens of Churchill's early career and approach to industrialisation.

Shedding fresh light on Churchill's political endeavours between 1900 and 1922, this study analyses his work within his political constituencies, and highlights how he attempted to balance their local concerns with his larger imperial agenda. Tomlinson guides readers through Britain's industrial challenges at the start of the twentieth century - with a particular focus on the textile economies of Churchill's constituencies in Lancashire and Scotland - and shows how industrial competition within the Empire exemplified the tensions between domestic economic policy and attempts at globalization, and influenced Churchill's later politics.

Tomlinson acknowledges the role of the First World War in boosting the industrial output and bargaining power of countries within the Empire, and analyses these alongside key moments in Churchill's early career, such as his defeat at Dundee, and time at the Exchequer. In doing so, the author highlights the context in which Churchill's ideas on the politics and economics of Empire were first formed, particularly in relation to the impact of imperial economic policy on British domestic prosperity. Ultimately, this book delivers a new assessment of twentieth-century British economic history, in the light of Britain's relationship to the Empire and the 'first great globalization'.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/churchill-and-industrial-britain-97813504…

by Max Farrar and Kevin McDonnell

This book addresses the ideas and experiences of a small British revolutionary socialist and feminist organisation in the 1970s and 1980s.

Written by two former members, it sets out the organisation’s eclectic influences: Italian Marxism, libertarianism, anarchism ― and its complex relationship with Leninism and Trotskyism. Big Flame lost momentum in the early 1980s when many leftists joined the Labour Party. It includes a critical interpretation of Big Flame’s successes and failures.

The analysis is interspersed with vignettes from 40 members reflecting on their days in the organisation. ‘Our book is aimed at those in the radical movements of every type who are seriously interested in political ideas and their relationship to political struggle. We are writing for an audience wider than those in the academy. This book seeks to assist those who continue to expose racist, patriarchal capitalism and to organise for a future where love and equality will prevail. The book explains Big Flame’s unconventional organisational structure and it includes descriptions of its interventions in a wide variety of struggles.”

https://www.merlinpress.co.uk/page/book-of-the-month