Social and Labour History News

University of Strasbourg, France; 6-7 November 2025

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Jessica Gordon Nembhard (CUNY, New York City), author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2014).

Summary:
Although feminist utopias have been the object of an important body of work especially in the literary field, the specific paradigm of labour within these experiments and imaginaries has received only limited attention. The purpose of this conference is to explore to what extent and in what ways labour (both as a site of oppression and emancipation) serves as a paradigm in feminist utopia-building. 
Utopias in the sphere of labour and their political content, which has sedimented in critical theory on work, are imprinted by the Western patrimony of utopian socialism. Although there has been radical, short-lived and often forgotten feminist influences as well as a matrimony now being highlighted, political constructions of “what labour could become” remain shaped by figures such as Fourier, Owen or Saint-Simon.
Feminist critiques have challenged androcentric definitions of labour, broadening the field to include alternative theoretical frameworks. Despite these critical claims, the historical development of capitalism – with its persistently gendered and racialised division of labour – can be considered as dystopian – a “bad place” – that has led some feminist thinkers to reject the idea of equality in such a context. 
The conference will use utopia for its central function: “confronting the problem of power” through sidelining and introducing “a sense of doubt that shatters the obvious” (Ricoeur). While we firmly acknowledge the need for utopia in critical thinking, we also underline the importance of multiple approaches to emancipatory politics as a compass for utopia-building. As a result, we will accept understandings of utopia both as a reflexive tool for critique and as a heuristic tool for transformation.
Three complementary approaches to utopia-building will be considered: 1. Reorganise labour ; 2. Redefine labour ; 3. Abolish labour

Publication:
We are planning to publish the most relevant and developed papers as an open-access book on the theme of “Feminist Utopias at Work” with a renowned publisher.

Submissions:
The conference welcomes contributions in the social sciences and humanities (sociology, anthropology, critical theory, political and social theory, political science, philosophy etc.), whether on theory or experimental practices. Contributions will investigate the political content and implications of feminist utopias that rethink capitalist relations to labour understood broadly. We will also welcome contributions from a broader array of disciplines, including the literary, historical and economical fields.
Presentations can be given in English or in French.

Submission deadline: 1 June 2025

Guidelines
Please submit an abstract of max. 500 words mentioning your chosen theme (reorganise, redefine, abolish), your preferred language (English or French) and a brief biographical note to Ada Reichhart (wecooperc@gmail.com) with the subject line “Feminist utopias at work” by 1 June 2025. We will notify you of our decision by 1 July 2025.

For any questions regarding the call or the conference, please contact Ada Reichhart (wecooperc@gmail.com).

The conference is organised as part of the ERC Starting Grant project “WE-COOP” (2023-28).

The conference will take place in person at the University of Strasbourg.

There is no participation fee. Recognising the financial challenges some scholars face, we have set up a solidarity fund to support those without institutional resources to join the conference. Please contact Ada Reichhart (wecooperc@gmail.com) for further information.

The Program Committee is excited to announce an extension of the deadline to May 15, 2025, as we work to gather a vibrant collection of panels and papers for what is shaping up to be an exceptional conference experience. We are thrilled about the outstanding guest speakers and the enriching local history programs that will be available to our attendees.

Call for Papers – 2025 Pennsylvania Historical Association Annual Meeting, York Pennsylvania, October 9-11, 2025

Exciting conference highlights include:

• Thursday Evening Opening Plenary: Peter Levy
  Peter Levy, historian and author of The Great Uprising: Race Riots in Urban America during the 1960s and The New Left and Labor in the 1960s, will offer a compelling discussion on the long-lasting impact of racial uprisings and labor movements in shaping the nation’s history.
• Friday Luncheon Speaker: Samantha Dorm
  A York County native and co-founder of the Friends of Lebanon Cemetery, Samantha Dorm has dedicated herself to preserving York’s Black history. Her recent project, Paved Over Prominence, utilizes Augmented Reality to recreate York’s lost Black built environment, ensuring the past remains accessible to future generations.
• Friday Banquet Speaker: Robert Parkinson
  Robert Parkinson, author of The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution, Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence, and Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier, will offer fresh insights into the intersections of race and revolution in early America.
• Local History Experiences
  The York County History Center will be offering free tours of the Colonial Complex and the new museum to PHA attendees on:
  • Thursday, October 9 | 2:00 – 4:00 PM
  • Saturday, October 11 | 12:00 – 4:00 PM

Call For Papers

The Program Committee for the 2025 annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Historical Association invites proposals that explore the theme of “Rights, Reform, and Protest in the Mid-Atlantic.” As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we’ll gather on October 9-11, 2025 in York, Pennsylvania—a city that hosted the Continental Congress during the British occupation of Philadelphia. Our theme encourages a broad examination of how the struggles for rights, reform, and protest have shaped revolutionary change across the history of the region.

From the American Revolution to the present day, the Mid-Atlantic has been a crucible for movements that challenge authority, expand civil liberties, and inspire transformative social change. We invite proposals that consider these movements across all historical eras, focusing on the roles of individuals and communities in advocating for political, economic, and social reforms. This includes, but is not limited to, studies of revolutionary activity during the 18th century, civil rights movements, industrialization and labor protests, suffrage campaigns, environmental advocacy, and other efforts where calls for rights and reform fueled protests and shaped the course of history.

The Program Committee encourages submissions that explore this theme through diverse lenses, including political, social, and cultural history, public policy, legal studies, and other interdisciplinary perspectives. We are particularly interested in sessions that highlight underrepresented voices and examine how various groups in the Mid-Atlantic—whether defined by race, class, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or political affiliation—have used protest and reform to claim rights and challenge systems of power.

In addition to this theme, we welcome submissions on all aspects of Pennsylvania and Mid-Atlantic history. Submissions from all disciplinary backgrounds, including but not limited to history, economic and community development, public policy, sociology, visual culture, and political science, are welcomed. Graduate students are especially encouraged to submit proposals. The PHA also supports student engagement with a research session featuring posters and multimedia projects on all aspects of Mid-Atlantic history.

Submit a Proposal

Full session proposals are preferred, but individual papers will also be considered. All program participants must be members of the PHA at the time of the annual meeting. Deadlines for paper, panel, and roundtable submissions will close on (now) May 15, 2025. We are accepting student poster and multimedia proposals through May 15, 2025.

Contact Information

Dr. Chris Pearl 

Program Chair

Lycoming College

Contact Email pearl@lycoming.edu URL https://pa-history.org/2025/03/cfp-deadline-extended-for-our-annual-meeting-in-…

Conference in Budapest, 6-8 October 2025

This conference aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on the historical and political dimensions of infant care, child welfare, and family policies in 20th-century Hungary. The conference will examine the political, social, cultural, and gender dynamics that shaped child-rearing practices and state interventions in family life. Understanding the professionalization of childcare requires examining developments from WWI to the present day. This allows for an examination of the diverse political and ideological regimes that have shaped the childcare field, as well as the memory politics that continue to influence its trajectory. In this way, particular emphasis is placed on the life and work of Emmi Pikler (1902–1984), a doctor and childcare specialist who influenced the evolution of infant care in post-WWII Hungary and established a highly successful international organization. Although Pikler was one of the most influential childcare experts in socialist Hungary, her life and work remain largely unexplored from an interdisciplinary perspective.

We invite researchers, historians, sociologists, psychologists, child welfare and care professionals to examine the historical development of infant and child care in Hungary, with a particular focus on Emmi Pikler’s work and the role of infant homes (csecsemőotthonok) in shaping child protection policies and the care of young children by families. The objective is to illuminate how child protection systems were shaped by social necessities and political aspirations, offering invaluable insights into the contemporary challenges in child welfare policy. Presentations that explore the political implications of child welfare policies, the interplay between government and society in child welfare, care, and protection, and the impact of ideologies on childcare systems are highly encouraged.

We welcome proposals that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Emmi Pikler’s Contributions and Political Context
Examination of Emmi Pikler’s work in the broader political and social context of 20th-century Hungary, including her influence on national child welfare and child protection policies and the support or resistance from political actors. The role of the „Lóczy” in sheltering the hidden infants of political prisoners in the 1950s.

The Functioning of Infant Homes and State Intervention
Historical analysis of how infant homes (csecsemőotthonok) were established and operated, focusing on the political motivations behind state intervention in family and child welfare, including the role of public institutions and the changing structure of out-of-home care of children from dominantly family-based foster care to institutional care.

Child-Rearing Ideologies
Exploration of how political ideologies (such as nationalism, socialism, or conservatism), traditions, and beliefs shaped child-rearing practices, especially concerning state-supported institutions for infant care and family-based care of young children.

Health and Welfare Policies in a Political Lens
Investigating the intersection between child health policies, welfare programs, and broader political agendas. How have political regimes from post-WWI Hungary to the present influenced healthcare, education, and welfare reforms for children and families?

Nation-Building and Childcare
The role of child-rearing practices and child protection policies in nation-building efforts, including how children were seen as future citizens and how infant care became part of political discourse on national strength and identity.

Women’s Roles and Gender Politics
The role of women, particularly mothers and caregivers, in the political discourse surrounding family and childcare. How did gender politics intersect with state policies on child welfare, and what have been the expectations placed on women influencing current policies and practices? How have professional and academic women influenced perceptions, policies, and practices, with particular attention to research and programs related to children, families, and women's roles?

The Politics of Poverty and Child Neglect
The state’s approach to dealing with child poverty and neglect including political debates around state, community versus family, and parental responsibility for children’s welfare and well-being. How did social class and political ideologies shape policies towards impoverished families and orphaned or abandoned children?

Comparative Political Perspectives
Comparative studies of how political regimes in Hungary and other European countries influenced establishing and managing infant homes and broader childcare policies.

Submission Guidelines

We invite individual papers or panel discussions. Proposals should include:
- Full name, institutional affiliation, and contact information of the presenter(s)
- Title of the presentation or panel
- Language of submission: Hungarian OR English
- A 300-word abstract outlining the research topic, methodology, and key findings or arguments
- Any specific AV or other technical requirements

All proposals should be sent to Mária Herczog (herczogmaria@me.com), Andrea Pető (petoa@ceu.edu) and Fanni Svégel (svegelfanni@gmail.com) as one Word (doc) or PDF file. Panel proposals should be sent as one merged file.

Important Dates
- Introductory roundtable discussing state-of-the-art research on 24th April, 2025 at CEU DI at 17CET in Hungarian
- Deadline for abstract submission: 1 May, 2025
- Notification of acceptance: 15 June, 2025
- Submission of papers: September 15, 2025
- Conference dates: October 6-8, 2025, at CEU DI

Venue: The conference will take place in Budapest, Hungary: CEU, with the support of Österreichische Kulturforum Budapest.

Outreach: The manuscripts will be published as an edited volume or a special issue.

Conveners: Mária Herczog, Andrea Pető and Fanni Svégel.

Conference in Bielefeld (Germany), 24-25 November 2025

Tagung „Nachtarbeit“ an der Universität Bielefeld in Kooperation mit der German Labour History Association: Nachtarbeit tritt in den unterschiedlichsten Branchen auf, dementsprechend viele Menschen müssen in den Abendstunden ihrem Beruf nachgehen. Betroffen sind nicht nur die Nachtarbeitenden selbst, auch das Umfeld ist gezwungen, sich dem Arbeitsrhythmus anzupassen. Gleichzeitig ist unser Zusammenleben auf diese Nacharbeit angewiesen. Trotzdem ist sie nach wie vor ein wenig erforschtes Feld der Labour History. Wir laden dazu ein, Beitragsvorschläge zu sozialen, kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekten der Nachtarbeit einzusenden.

Wenn der Tag zu Ende geht. Nachtarbeit seit dem 19. Jahrhundert

Tagung an der Universität Bielefeld, 24./25. November 2025

Ob Pflegerin im Krankenhaus, Portier im Hotel, Stahlarbeiter am Abstich oder Ingenieurin im Kraftwerk: Sie alle vereint die Notwendigkeit, nachts arbeiten zu müssen. Nachtarbeit gilt als eine Form atypischer Arbeitszeiten.

Die Gründe für diese Form des Arbeitens sind vielfältig und basieren auf technischen, wirt-schaftlichen, sozialen oder kulturellen Anforderungen. Letztere betreffen meist Berufe, die mit dem großstädtischen „Nachtleben“ verbunden sind wie Barkeeper:innen, Türsteher:innen oder auch Sexarbeiter:innen. Technisch bedingt ist kontinuierliche Schichtarbeit dann, wenn Pro-duktions- oder Arbeitsprozesse nicht unterbrochen werden können, wie etwa in der Chemiein-dustrie. Sozial notwendig ist Nachtarbeit etwa in Krankenhäusern und anderen Einrichtungen der öffentlichen Versorgung. Wirtschaftliche Ursachen finden sich in der Gewinnmaximierung, etwa durch längere Maschinenlaufzeiten.

Nachtarbeit tritt also in den unterschiedlichsten Branchen auf, dementsprechend viele Men-schen müssen in den Abendstunden ihrem Beruf nachgehen. Betroffen sind nicht nur die Nachtarbeitenden selbst, auch das Umfeld ist gezwungen, sich dem Arbeitsrhythmus anzu-passen. Gleichzeitig ist unser Zusammenleben auf diese Nacharbeit angewiesen. Trotzdem ist sie nach wie vor ein wenig erforschtes Feld der Labour History.

Ob und in welcher Weise die Arbeit „gegen die Uhr“ thematisiert wird, hängt stark von Fakto-ren wie Branche, gewerkschaftlicher Repräsentation, politischem System und sozioökonomi-schen Status der Betroffenen ab. So war es etwa in der Bundesrepublik gesellschaftlich ak-zeptiert, dass Kellnerinnen bis spät in die Nacht arbeiteten. Industriearbeiterinnen war genau dieses hingegen bis 1992 verboten. In der DDR war zeitgleich die Nacharbeit von Frauen poli-tisch wie wirtschaftlich erwünscht.

Wir laden dazu ein, Beitragsvorschläge zu sozialen, kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekten der Nachtarbeit einzusenden. Es bieten sich eine ganze Reihe von Komplexen an, die auf der Tagung behandelt werden können:
- Fallbeispiele für unterschiedliche Formen von Nachtarbeit
- Organisation und Regulierung von Nachtarbeit in unterschiedlichen Staaten und/oder Branchen
- ihre Verwissenschaftlichung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert
- Repräsentation und Erfahrung von Nachtarbeit
- ihre technische und bauliche Bedingtheit (künstliche Beleuchtung etc.)
- ihre räumliche und regionale Dimension

Wir freuen uns ferner über Vorträge, die Geschlechter- und Klassenzugehörigkeiten oder Mig-rationserfahrungen in den Mittelpunkt stellen. Auch ist es denkbar, dass Beitragende den Wert von Arbeit sowie Humanisierungsmöglichkeiten- und grenzen in ihre Überlegungen aufneh-men. Welche Rolle spielten Gesundheit und Krankheit für Nachtarbeitende? Wie sah ihr Ver-hältnis zu Freizeit aus?

Beitragsvorschläge im Umfang von 1.500 bis 2.000 Zeichen in deutscher Sprache sowie eine Kurz-Biografie werden bis zum 1. Mai 2025 an anna.horstmann@uni-bielefeld.de erbeten. Eine Benachrichtigung über die Auswahl erfolgt bis Mitte Juni 2025. Die Tagung wird am 24./25. November 2025 an der Universität Bielefeld stattfinden. Wir erstatten die Reisekosten und stellen eine Übernachtungsmöglichkeit.

Tagung an der Universität Bielefeld in Kooperation mit der German Labour History Associati-on: Nachtarbeit tritt in den unterschiedlichsten Branchen auf, dementsprechend viele Men-schen müssen in den Abendstunden ihrem Beruf nachgehen. Betroffen sind nicht nur die Nachtarbeitenden selbst, auch das Umfeld ist gezwungen, sich dem Arbeitsrhythmus anzu-passen. Gleichzeitig ist unser Zusammenleben auf diese Nacharbeit angewiesen. Trotzdem ist sie nach wie vor ein wenig erforschtes Feld der Labour History – das möchte diese Tagung ändern. Wir laden dazu ein, Beitragsvorschläge zu sozialen, kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekten der Nachtarbeit einzusenden.

Luxembourg

Since the 1970s, deindustrialization has fundamentally changed Western industrial societies. In North America and Europe, traditional industrial regions lost thousands of jobs – in particular the textile industry, coal mining, the iron and steel industry and shipbuilding. Even in the production of electronic consumer goods or in the watch and photography industries many millions of jobs were cut or relocated to other regions of the world. In fact, deindustrialization needs to be conceived of as 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. While deindustrialization was initially addressed mainly by the social sciences, in recent years historians have increasingly come in and pointed out the complexity of the historical phenomenon. In contrast to economic concepts such as "restructuring" or "downsizing", which could not adequately capture societal and social change, a historical approach to deindustrialization allows to cover, first, the economic development of production, turnover and sales, second, the political shaping of the policy field, third, the cultural ramifications and, forth, a perspective from below, which takes into account personal memories of workers, the dissolution of traditional social and cultural communities or changes in social spaces.

The conference will focus on the European particularities of deindustrialization since the 1970s – in Western and Eastern Europe, in an East-West comparison over the epochal year 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? In how far differed the variety of European reactions to deindustrialization from each other? Did the Cold War resonate in deindustrialization policies, in the ensuing political mobilization or in personal experiences? In which way did deindustrialization leave its mark on the co-transformation process after 1989/90 both in the former East and West? Last but not least: is it possible at all to conceive of ‘European’ deindustrialization? The conference aims at widening our understanding of deindustrialization and its multidimensional impact on European politics and societies in the period of its most recent history.

Guests are invited to attend the conference at their own expense; they should register in advance with Tessy Delledera (tessy.delledera@uni.lu).

Programme

Wednesday, 25 June

13.30-14.00 Arrival of participants (coffee and tea)

14.00-14.10 Welcome
Andreas Fickers (Luxembourg)
Andreas Wirsching (Munich)

14.10-14.30 Introduction
Stefan Krebs (Luxembourg), Christian Marx (Munich) and Martina Steber (Munich)

14.30-16.00 Panel 1: Industrial Production in Deindustrializing Economies
Chair: Christian Kleinschmidt (Marburg)

Christian Marx (Munich): Diverging Paths after the Boom: Deindustrialization in the German Household Appliance Industry (1960–2000s)

Anna Calori (Glasgow): The Steady Stream? De-industrialization and Re-industrialization in the Petro-Chemical Industry in Yugoslavia and Italy

Nicolas Arendt (Luxembourg): ARBED’s Takeover of the former VEB Maxhütte Unterwellenborn 1992-2001: The "last remaining island of socialism"?

16.00-16.30 Coffee and Tea

16.30-18.00 Panel 2: Deindustrialization and the Environment
Chair: Sabine Pitteloud (Brig)

Mauro Elli (Milan): Nuclear Deindustrialization? Italy’s Experience in the Long Decommissioning (1970s–1990s)

Riyoko Shibe (Glasgow): Deindustrialization of the Scottish Petrochemical Industry and the Experience of Noxiousness: BP Chemicals in Grangemouth from 1970 to 2000

Philipp Kröger (Siegen): From Fordist to Post-Fordist Nature? Landscape Planning and the Management of Urban Nature in Hamburg, 1960s–1980s

18.00-19.00 Keynote Lecture
Chair: Martina Steber (Munich)

Dietmar Süß (Augsburg): „Barbarisation of Social Conflict“? Work, Recognition, and Vulnerability in the History of Deindustrialization

19.30 Conference Dinner

Thursday, 26 June

08.45-09.45 Kick-off Lecture
Stefan Berger (Bochum): Deindustrialization in a Global Perspective

09.45-10.45 Panel 3: Spaces of Deindustrialization
Chair: Emmanuel Droit (Strasbourg)

Pascal Raggi (Nancy): The Deindustrialization of the Lorraine du fer and Luxembourg from a Comparative Perspective

Jan Kellershohn (Halle): Contested Spaces of Decline: Deindustrialization in the Ruhr and in the Central German Industrial Region

10.45-11.15 Coffee and Tea

11.15-12.15 Panel 4: The International Politics of Deindustrialization
Chair: Benoît Majerus (Luxembourg)

Maria Adamopoulou (Bucharest): ‘Ceilings of Tolerance’: Deindustrialization and Labour Migration in the EEC in the 1970s

Mathieu Dubois (Rennes): European Trade Act or open Single Market? Devising a European Response to Deindustrialization in the early 1980s

12.15-13.15 Lunch

13.15-15.00 Visit of blast furnace A on the campus of the University of Luxembourg

15.00-16.30 Panel 5: Deindustrialization and Gender Orders
Chair: Jackie Clarke (Glasgow)

Helena Schwinghammer (Munich): A Silent Farewell: The Deindustrialization of a German Textile Region (1970-2008)

Stefan Hördler (Göttingen): The Intertwined History of Male Unemployment and Women’s Initiatives: Scenarios of Decline and Socio-Economic Consequences in the Steel Industry since the 1980s

Nora Küttel (Bremen): Shifting Tides: Gendered Impacts of Deindustrialization of East German Shipbuilding

16.30-17.00 Coffee and Tea

17.00-18.30 Memories of Deindustrialization: Film Screening and Round Table Discussion

Film Screening: “Identity Disputes. The Image of Life in the Minett”, Boretska/Schönfelder 2022

Round Table Discussion with Denis Scuto (Luxembourg), Jörg Arnold (Munich) and Joanna Wawrzyniak (Warsaw)

18.30 Reception (food and drinks)

Friday, 27 June

08.30-09.30 Panel 6: Deindustrialization and the European Welfare State
Chair: Christoph Brüll (Luxembourg)

Jonas Fey (Bonn): Deindustrialization and Adult Education in Germany since the 1970s: Politics, Participation and Effects

Zoé Konsbruck (Luxembourg): Steel Towns and Crisis Management: The Dynamics between Industrial Towns and the ‘Luxembourg Model’ during the 1975-1985 Steel Crisis

09.30-10.00 Coffee and Tea

10.00-11.30 Panel 7: Migration and Race in Deindustrializing Societies
Chair: Machteld Venken (Luxembourg)

Christopher Lawson (Berkeley): No Going Back: Deindustrialization, Decolonisation, and the Remaking of Urban Communities in Western Europe

Paroma Ghose (Munich): “Quand la justice slalome”: Sounding Deindustrialization through French Rap Narratives (1981-Present)

Herrick Chapman (New York) & Lizabeth Cohen (Cambridge/MA): Surviving Deindustrialization as Ethnic and Racial Minorities

11.30-12.00 Concluding Remarks
Chair: Stefan Krebs (Luxembourg) and Christian Marx (Munich)

Conference in Herne (Germany), 16-17 October 2025

The DGO Annual Conference aims to discuss the dynamics of property relations from a historical perspective, considering their long-term consequences and adopting a comparative approach, beyond the narrower legal and economic history. It seeks to address this research gap and invites approximately 15 speakers, who may also contribute to a subsequent joint publication.

DGO Annual Conference

Property relations are not merely the economic foundation, but also a fundamental social, political, and ideological problem of societies and states. They also shape cultural frameworks. Changes in property ownership serve both as catalysts and indicators of political and social transformation. This is particularly evident in Eastern Europe during the "Age of Extremes" (Hobsbawm), where land reforms, expropriations, and restitutions have marked the various phases of transition from one political and social system to another.

The DGO Annual Conference aims to discuss the dynamics of property relations from a historical perspective, considering their long-term consequences and adopting a comparative approach, beyond the narrower legal and economic history. It seeks to address this research gap and invites approximately 15 speakers, who may also contribute to a subsequent joint publication. Possible core themes of discussion include:

a) Temporalities: What is the temporal relationship between property change and political or social transformation? Did ownership change trigger broader transitions, or did it follow them? Can we identify patterns of causation and delayed effects?

b) Property change in times of crisis and war: How did transformations in property ownership unfold during wars, revolutions, and economic crises? What strategies did individuals and groups develop to protect or reclaim property? What role did transitional justice and restitution measures play after regime changes?

c) Policies of property transformation: How did political and social transformations shape policies regarding property change? To what extent did such policies accelerate broader societal changes?

d) Legal and institutional dimensions: How have legal frameworks and institutions structured property changes? To what extent were new property regimes stabilized or challenged through legal reforms, court rulings, or administrative practices? Were there informal or alternative ownership structures beyond state-defined property regimes?

e) Property change and inequality: How did shifts in ownership affect economic disparities? Who benefits from property reforms, and who loses? What is the mutual relationship between property change and ethnic and religious majorities and minorities? Can specific national or ethnic groups be identified as primary targets of property redistribution, and were they strengthened or weakened by these processes?
f) Property and gender: How did legal reforms, regime changes, and codifications (e.g., marriage law, inheritance law, property law, procedural law) affect women’s and marginalized gender groups’ access to property in Eastern Europe? In which historical conjunctures were women excluded from property ownership, and when were they empowered? What role did family structures and social norms play in regulating female property rights?

g) Migration and property change: Were there specific social groups (e.g., smallholders, ethnic minorities) particularly affected by migration due to property changes? How did remittances or the return of migrants influence property ownership in their regions of origin?

h) Experience and memory of property change: How did the experience of property transformation shape societies? How do societies and individuals remember changes in ownership? Is property change part of cultural memory and historical narratives?

i) Ecological aspects of property change: How did property transformations affect land use through nationalization or privatization? What environmental consequences arose from industrialization and deindustrialization? How do property rights intersect with environmental protection? How was resource management affected in regions with large state-owned or collective enterprises?

This conference aims to foster a broad and interdisciplinary discussion of property transformations in Eastern Europe, examining their multifaceted implications from a comparative and historical perspective.

For the 44th issue of the Yearbook of Women’s History (guest editors: Lidewij Tummers and María Novas), we invite contributions that explore feminist architectural practices in past and present – whether through built projects, design approaches, or biographies. How have feminist frameworks (re)shaped our understanding of architecture and urban planning? How were women involved in the making of houses, institutional buildings such as asylums, schools, prisons, monasteries, shops, markets, governmental buildings? Whose stories remain untold, and what can we learn from them?

Yearbook for Women's History: Feminism and the making of the built environment from past to present

Gender theorists and activists often highlight the historical notion that “cities are made by men.” But is this entirely true? Or does this perspective omit and erase critical aspects of history? The scarcity of women in the architectural canon compels us to ask: why is this the case? What were – and are – the institutional gatekeepers that systematically excluded women, people of colour, and other marginalized groups from the proverbial drawing board, nowadays and in the past? Recent research into these questions has uncovered a wealth of historical information that challenges the supposed absence of women and other marginalized groups from architectural history and theory.

Feminist critiques of urban planning and development from the 1980s and 1990s exposed how the built environment often failed to accommodate everyday practices tied to female roles. This failure was largely attributed to the lack of female representation in planning structures. But feminism is about more than simply the presence of women. It is a critical lens and theoretical framework through which the nature and impact of gender inequality can be explored. As such, feminist architecture challenges entrenched norms and reimagines how spaces are designed and inhabited. Starting from this premise, the Yearbook of Women’s History aims to examine how the built environment was shaped within and beyond the confines of architects' offices. How have local authorities, clients, building firms, activist organizations, and knowledge institutions been influenced by feminist ideas, intersectional perspectives, or decolonial thought on architecture? How have feminist contributions influenced the development of buildings, districts, and entire cities? And in what ways were such perspectives excluded or ignored?

For the 44th issue of the Yearbook of Women’s History (guest editors: Lidewij Tummers and María Novas), we invite contributions that explore feminist architectural practices in past and present – whether through built projects, design approaches, or biographies. How have feminist frameworks (re)shaped our understanding of architecture and urban planning? How were women involved in the making of houses, institutional buildings such as asylums, schools, prisons, monasteries, shops, markets, governmental buildings? Whose stories remain untold, and what can we learn from them?

CALL FOR PAPERS
We are looking for articles that vary in length (3000-6000 words). We will also consider experimental pieces – poems, short explorations, visual essays, and creative interventions. We welcome contributions that employ different perspectives and scales of analysis from all over the world. We invite authors from academia, museums and cultural and heritage institutions, NGOs, and activist organisations. We welcome contributions from a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to architecture, history, cultural studies, anthropology, and social and cultural geography.

Abstracts of 200-300 words are to be submitted by 1 May 2025 to jaarboekvrouwengeschiedenis@gmail.com.

Lidewij Tummers, Feminist Architect and Researcher
María Novas, Senior Lecturer and Scientific Researcher, ETH Zürich

Tentative timeline:
1 May 2025: Deadline for abstracts
30 May 2025: Information concerning acceptance sent to the writers
15 September 2025: Submission deadline for articles to be submitted to peer review
February/March 2026: Revised articles due
April/May 2026: Copy-editing
September 2026: Publication

25-28 August 2025, Conference in Bologna (Italy)

 

Dear colleagues,

we are excited to invite your contributions to our section at the Annula Conference of the European International Studies Association 2025 in Bologna:

"(Post-)Socialist Internationalism: Witnessing, Theorizing, and (Re-)Crafting International Relations of the Global East."

Best regards,
Maria Ketzmerick-Calandrino & Luis Aue

(Post-)Socialist Internationalism: Witnessing, Theorizing, and (Re-)Crafting International Relations of the Global East

This section explores the legacies and transformations of socialist internationalism and its relevance today. We welcome paper and panel proposals on themes such as:

- Socialist worldmaking and alternative internationalisms
- Post-socialist transitions and their global entanglements
- Solidarity movements across and beyond the Global East

If you have ideas for roundtables or other formats, we'd love to hear them! Let's rethink the Global East together—submit your proposals via the EISA website: https://eisa-net.org/pec-2025/

The deadline for submissions is March 20 2025.

10-12 September 2025, Växjö (Sweden)

We invite paper proposals for a double panel on global connections in socialist maritime history at the VIII European Congress of World History. The congress takes place on 10-12.09.2025 at Linnaeus University in Växjö (Sweden). The panel has been accepted for the congress program. Please send your proposal to: SocMarHist@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

Panel “Global Connections in Socialist Maritime History”

Maritime history has played a crucial role in global history writing. It allows to reconstruct a multitude of interactions, entanglements and transfers that transcend political borders and orders. However, global maritime history has been mainly concerned with connections between Western Europe and the Atlantic world with Asia, Latin America and Africa. Global connections in the socialist world, have so far played a rather marginal role in the field. While the history of socialism has been increasingly studied from a global perspective, thereby focusing on relations between state socialist countries in Eastern Europe and socialist states and movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the maritime world of the socialist sphere has rarely been considered. In this panel, we address this missing dimension at the intersection of global and socialist history by investigating the global connections of the socialist maritime worlds.

Our first perspective is socialist merchant fleets, which grew immensely after the Second World War and sailed global routes, and their ports which became nodes of connections due to the regular docking of ships from ountries from all over the world. We are particularly interested in the histories of fleets and ports in the Soviet republics in the Black Sea region and in East Central Europe, challenging the understanding of Moscow’s domination over the whole socialist world. Their fleets allowed the participation in the global economy, and created global connections. Writing their history helps to challenge historical narratives that portray many parts of Eastern Europe as peripheries.

Our second perspective focuses on people, infrastructures and politics of the socialist maritime sphere which reveal connections and entanglements that are hard to grasp in global histories of the territorial socialist world. We think, among others, of sailing crews and their experiences of cultural encounters, of port workers and their contacts to the international shipping networks, of the concrete operation of socialist shipping industries and of the connectivity it entailed, and of socialist shipping policies influencing the international politics on maritime transport and trade.

In a double-panel on socialist maritime history during the Cold War period, we aim to investigate three topics: First, the global networks, exchanges and transfers of socialist merchant fleets (e.g. charter ships and charter organizing firms, global trade routes, workers on the ships etc.) and the intricacies of globalization processes; second, the globalization of socialist ports (foreign ownership and acquisition policies of landlocked countries) with their global connections; and third, the international circulation of maritime knowledge and policies of socialist countries and their impact on international politics.

These lines of investigation, we believe, are not only instructive for the exploration of the socialist dimension of global maritime history, but open intriguing questions regarding the nexus of land-based history and maritime history which have potential for transregional comparisons.

We hope to bring together scholars from maritime history, global history, and Eastern European and socialist history, to discuss global maritime entanglements and their implications from a micro-historical perspective on socialist ports, from a global perspective on socialist fleets, and from the international circulation of socialist modes of organizing shipping.

With this approach we intend to:
- rethink the concept of a “divided globalization” and an “alternative globalization” of Eastern Europe and the “Eastern Bloc” during the Cold War: Linkages of maritime trading networks on a global level (including examples from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe as well as from Africa, Latin America and Asia) highlight the participation of socialist fleets in globalized maritime networks, beyond the Cold War Bloc logic and an East-South-line of investigation;
- consider the local implications of maritime globalization in the organization, surveillance, and economic relevance of port zones in socialist countries in the context of the world, thereby challenging the understanding of “national” fleets, “national ports” and their histories by introducing the Socialist space into global maritime history;
- reveal the international circulation of maritime knowledge and policies from the socialist world and its impact on both national and international shipping policies and development.
- reconsider Socialist coast as profoundly global spaces and challenge our understanding of homogenous socialist societies.

We plan to publish the papers in a special issue after the congress and thus kindly ask for original and unpublished proposals.

by Romain Castellesi

« Histoire des luttes ouvrières contre la désindustrialisation en France, des années 1960 à nos jours, ce livre analyse les mutations du répertoire d’actions, entre mobilisations et démobilisations, à l’épreuve de la raréfaction de l’emploi. Quand la grève est lancée, les ouvriers – et encore plus les ouvrières – se retrouvent presque systématiquement dos au mur, dans un combat désespéré et souvent désespérant, parce que le rapport de force est alors du côté du patronat : les maigres perspectives se réduisent à un accès de violence stérile, ou à une négociation juridique interminable, qui ne permettra pas de sauver grand-chose. À rebours d’une vision parfois décliniste et condescendante de ces luttes, l’auteur souhaite néanmoins les interroger à l’aune de la désagrégation de la classe ouvrière. La disparition de l’appareil industriel a été envisagé dans une optique largement économique. Or le phénomène de désindustrialisation est un fait social qui a ravagé la main-d’œuvre ouvrière, ses territoires, ses sociabilités et solidarités. C’est ce processus de destruction et d’invisibilisation que l’ouvrage souhaite révéler, en plaidant pour une approche historienne «”par le bas”. »

Au-delà d’une historicisation du point de vue ouvrier, ce livre a un intérêt politique : contre le discours des élites faisant la leçon aux ouvriers et aux ouvrières de l’Hexagone – qui devraient se contenter de leurs conditions de travail et salariales, après tout meilleures que celles qui ont cours dans le reste du monde –, il est bon de rappeler que c’est avant la catastrophe finale qu’il faut lutter et s’organiser.
 Parce qu’après, c’est trop tard.

https://agone.org/livre/savoir-commencer-une-greve/

Workshop in Berlin/Germany from 8 to 10 July 2025

The Centre Marc Bloch and the research program Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe (EUME) at the Forum Transregionale Studien invite scholars from the humanities and social sciences to apply for the workshop “Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe in the Middle East and North Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries” to be held on July 8-10, 2025, at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin.

Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe in the Middle East and North Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries

The workshop is organized by Alexandros Lamprou (Research Fellow, Philipps-Universität Marburg), Esther Möller (Centre March Bloch), Rim Naguib (EUME Fellow of the Gerda Henkel Foundation 2024/25), and Georges Khalil (Forum Transregionale Studien / EUME), and is financially supported by funding Alexandros Lamprou receives from the Gerda Henkel Foundation (Special Programme Forced Migration, Grant No. AZ 09/FM/22), and the Centre Marc Bloch.
The Middle East and North Africa are connected to Europe and other world regions by infrastructures, politics and the mobility of goods, ideas, images, and people. The selective historiography of these connections however is marked by boundaries and uneven power relations and capacities. In recent years, mobility from the South or the East of the Mediterranean northward has been increasingly framed as a concern or problem in European host societies. While there seems to be a consensus among scholars that mobility, migration, and exchange are common and constitutive features of human history everywhere, attention has rarely been paid to the long history of inverse movements of people from Europe southward and eastward, to North Africa and the Middle East.
Our workshop aims to look at the MENA region as a destination and space for Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe. This approach may contribute to a more nuanced assessment of the movements of people, and how they have reciprocally affected and shaped societies, economies, cultures, and thought, not only in the Middle East and North Africa but also in Europe. In contrast to the hegemonic political and media discourses and much of the scholarly literature on migration, that have tended to uncritically think of population movements in unidirectional terms – from the ‘Global South’ to the ‘Global North’ – we wish to reflect on the mobility of people from Europe towards the South and East, in the context of European colonialism, economic crises, political upheavals and wars, and to propose a reflexive approach to the study of human mobility in search of safety, freedom, and a better life.
We invite contributions by scholars who study the Middle East and North Africa as spaces of (post)colonial arrival, refuge, exile, migration, settlement, or transit for people from (East, West, South or North) Europe from the late 18th up until the end of the 20th centuries, a period that marked the beginnings and transformation of colonialism, the end of empires, the establishment of modern border-, passport-, citizen- and knowledge-regimes, of postcolonial rule – a period that witnessed major wars, crises, upheavals, and exponential growth. We would like to discuss movements of people, diasporic communities and relations, trajectories of exile and refuge, displacement, ethnic cleansing and settlement, experiences and regimes of arrival, protection, hospitality, or alienation. We are interested in the life and experiences of diasporas, migrants, exiles, and refugees from Europe in the Middle East. What was their place in the societies, economies or publics? What are the historical legacies of their presence, their lives, works, relations and ideas in post/colonial North Africa and the Middle East, and in Europe? How do their trajectories compare and relate to contemporary forms in the governance of diversity, mobility, and belonging, or could potentially modify the terms of the history of the respective issues or concepts? Such a broad perspective could relate for example the migration of Greek, Italian, Maltese, Jewish or Ukrainian workers or artisans to refugees from Russia, Poland, France, Germany, or the Caucasus, to the experience of diasporic communities from Europe that have been present in the Middle East and North Africa at least since the late 15th century, to broader discussions of the contexts and regimes of migration and mobility, nationality and foreignness. When and how, for example, did individuals or groups of people become diasporic, ex-patriate, foreign, native or minoritarian? How can we rethink the different categories at stake (nationals and foreigners, migrants or refugees, diasporas, settlers or natives) as well as the shifting boundaries between them?
The aim of this workshop is to bring together strands of research that have rarely been in conversation with each other due to scholarly and institutional arrangements that separate between specific areas of the world (such as the Middle East or North Africa) and systematic questions addressed from specific European or national locations as universal. Drawing on current approaches in global, transnational history and (post)colonial studies, we invite scholars to critically engage with (methodological) nationalism in the study of migration and displacement, exile or diaspora in historical and conceptual ways.
In connecting geographies and questions habitually thought of as separate, this workshop is intended as an invitation to think about how historical, spatial, cultural or conceptual imaginations of the nation and its fragments, regions and their boundaries, have been subverted or transformed by the movements of people from Europe who went to, lived in, or passed through North Africa and the Middle East. What potential might a decolonial approach to the questions of diaspora, exile, migration and refuge offer, and how does it challenge our understanding of areas or regions like West- or Eastern Europe, Near- and Middle East, or North Africa?

DISCIPLINES AND POSSIBLE TOPICS
We invite early career and established scholars to submit contributions from the disciplines or fields of History, Literary and Intellectual History, historical Sociology or Human Geography, Middle Eastern Studies or the study of Migration and Mobility. Possible contributions may treat, but are not limited to, the following topics roughly from the late 18th to the late 20th centuries:
- population movements and mobility from Europe to and through the MENA region;
- European diasporas, émigrés, exiles, workers, and refugees in the MENA region;
- the end of Empires and the displacement of people and communities;
- migration, exile, displacement, and refuge as consequences of crises and wars;
- colonial entanglements of population movement and displacement;
- expatriate communities and networks of mobility in the MENA and between MENA and Europe or other regions;
- diverse experiences of movement and displacement of refugees, host societies, colonial and national governments, and international organizations;
- regimes of arrival, settlement, and status;
- the question of race, religion, and language in addressing and understanding displacement, migration, exile, diaspora, refuge or arrival;
- the case of Palestine/Israel through the lens of diaspora, exile, migration, displacement or refuge;
- MENA as a transit space;
- population movements and border regimes, negotiations of legal and political statuses, and expressions of belonging;
- impacts of mobility on societies of arrival, and return.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE
The workshop organizers will evaluate the applications. *We kindly ask you to submit your application with a title and abstract of your contribution (up to one page) and a short academic CV (up to two pages) as one PDF file by March 12, 2025, 12.30h (noon) CET to:
eume@trafo-berlin.de*
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact one of the four organizers via e-mail:
lamprou@staff.uni-marburg.de / esther.moeller@cmb.hu-berlin.de / rime.naguib@gmail.com /
georges.khalil@trafo-berlin.de
Applicants will be informed about the outcome by March 31, 2025.
The invited participants will be asked to send a summary of their contribution by June 30, 2025, and subsequently to write a contribution to a series on “Diasporas, Exiles, Migrants, and Refugees from Europe in the Middle East and North Africa” on the TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research.

PRACTICALITIES
Limited funding is available to support travel and accommodation for participants who come from outside Berlin and are not able to use funding from their institutions. We can offer lump sums to contribute to the costs of travel and accommodation: between 500 and 800 EUR for participants who travel from the Middle East or North Africa, up to 500 EUR for participants who travel from the US or European Countries, and up to 300 EUR for participants from within Germany. We ask applicants to
indicate in their application what support they may need to partially or fully cover the costs of travel, and up to three days of accommodation in Berlin.

Symposium at the University of Tours/France from 27 to 28 November 2025

The industrialization has profoundly transformed the world of labor and the nature of war. Wars themselves have become industrialized and have gradually increased in scale since the mid-nineteenth century. The Crimean War (1853-1856) and the American Civil War (1861-1865) were the first conflicts involving mechanized armies: more powerful gunboats, larger caliber artillery pieces and more efficient locomotives were all industrial products that made this change in scale possible.

Against this backdrop of industrialization of societies, economies and conflicts, we need to understand how wars disrupted the world of labor. The workers’ mobilization has always been central in the historiography of contemporary conflicts, especially of the First and the Second World War. Over the last few decades, the historiography has moved away from the simple story of mobilization of the industry for the war effort, and since the 1980s and 1990s has given way to a social and political history that pays more attention to trade union movements, work in the rear or in occupied territories, and the societal transformations that followed the conflict.

Under the influence of transnational histories, works on colonial empires and gender studies, new perspectives opened in this field of study. New attention has been paid to actors (female labor, but also racialized workers on the European fronts, the contribution of colonial workers to the global war economy, etc.) and their agency, exploring both individual and collective strategies of behavior and survival. While the study of forced labor has been central to the approach to Nazi and Soviet regimes at war (Bonwetsch, 1993; Plato, Leh & Thonfeld, 2010; Westerhoff, 2012), highlights of forced labor in colonial empires have effectively demonstrated links between European front and the French and British colonial empires, thus moving beyond the Western framework (Tiquet, 2019; Stanziani, 2020). This approach could be applied to other spaces and conflicts, as outlined out by work on the American Civil War (Lause, 2015; Zonderman, 2021) or the Vietnam War (Foner, 1989; Sears, 2010).

Recent historiography also showed that wartime work cannot be reduced to simple outputs of the war economy, or to paid employment alone. Industrial work cannot exist without agricultural work, domestic and reproductive labor, or administrative activities essential to the conduct of modern warfare.

This broad definition of wartime work is even more crucial given that many armies of the late 19th and 20th centuries relied on conscription. The largescale mobilization of the working population, including in armies based on voluntary service, greatly disrupted the workforces of belligerent nations, forcing governments to redistribute men as well as resources.

To better grasp the complexity of relation between labor and war, it is necessary to adopt the most encompassing perspective possible, whether in terms of typology - neither civil wars nor low-intensity wars are excluded from the reflection - or geography. By varying the scales, it will be possible to combine reflections on European, colonial and non-European spaces, as well as to shift the focus between the different spaces of societies at war: front, rear, metropole, colonies, peripheral fronts.

Lastly, this approach aims to be interdisciplinary, drawing on contributions from history – like the social history of war, whose objects of study go beyond the military sphere alone – as well as from economics and political economy. The focus on the ordinary actors of conflicts invites us also to engage with the sociology of labor. Furthermore, since the world of work during conflicts is the subject of innovations designed to include individuals in exceptional statuses, our discussions will include issues studied by legal science to provide a better legal framework to understand their participation in the war effort. 

Four questions will be explored during this symposium

Optimizing manpower in wartime

The first theme will examine the allocation of human resources to meet the respective, and potentially competing, needs of the civilian and military spheres. Studying the optimization of “human capital” leads us to consider labor in terms of manpower mobilization, which may involve withdrawing manpower from the conscript army, under specific legal regimes, but can also involve the mobilization of other categories of workers: foreigners, colonials, prisoners, women, etc.

Issues of labor mobilization take on a particular significance outside Europe, where colonial methods are applied, often diverging from the legal frameworks and practices in force in the metropoles.

Work in transitions from peace to war and from war to peace

The second theme will focus on labor in times of transition from peace to war and from war to peace. These pivotal moments, bringing societal reconfigurations, provide an opportunity to question the continuities and transformations of labor in the extraordinary context of war. While post-war reconfiguration of professional sectors has already been explored, an alternative perspective could be even more insightful – asking how world of labor may have been prepared - or not - for war. Thus, the continuity of labor between times of war and peace will be examined. Studies “from below” also enable us to put into perspective any transformations in professional identities brought about by war, whether positively through the reuse of skills and knowledge acquired under in military service, or negatively through the problematic vocational retraining of soldiers, particularly the wounded.

Social mobilization, work and conflict

The third theme will address the impact of war on social mobilization and labor struggles, whether accelerating or neutralizing them. Assessing the role of workers and peasants in revolutionary processes that take the form of civil wars (Russia, Spain) allows us to question the intersection between social mobilization and armed struggle. On the other hand, modern wars, insofar as they mobilize labor on massive scale, prompt diverse attitudes from workers' organizations, ranging from participation in “sacred unions” to opposition to wars perceived as contrary to workers' interests. The war's impact on the cohesion and social mobilization of the working class was an issue that ran through the entire period in focus, with constantly renewed logics. Additionally, we will be looking at the repression of social movements during armed conflicts. 

Gender and work during conflict

The fourth theme will explore the wars’ impact on gender norms in the workplace. Often presented as moments of feminization of the workforce to “replace” men away at the front, wars also reinforced gender stereotypes in the workplace. While the absence of men gave women access to new types of employment, new professional spaces and new activities, they often had to give them up in the post-war period. Furthermore, during these conflicts women continued work in traditionally feminine spheres, and even reinforced certain social imaginaries linked to women's work. Looking at the reconfiguration of the world of labor, this workshop aims to highlight the new forms of masculinity and femininity created by armed conflict, as well as the new realities of women's work in wartime.

Participation

The symposium will take place on November 27 and 28, 2025 at the University of Tours. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by the organization.

Papers of up to 50,000 characters (with spaces and including footnotes) will be pre-circulated in early November 2025, aiming at their subsequent submission to a peer-reviewed journal as part of a Special Issue.

Applicants are invited to send an abstract of their paper in French or in English (max. 1,000 characters) accompanied by a two-pages CV by Monday, March 31, 2025, to the following address: accoulon@univ-tours.fr

All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by the end of June 2025 at the latest.

Il y a plus de dix ans déjà, le philosophe Étienne Balibar estimait que la notion de peuple et ses usages constituaient « un sujet qu’on pourrait croire labouré en tous sens » [Balibar, 2013]. La thématique était cependant revenue sur le devant de la scène après la vague révolutionnaire du « Printemps arabe », comme le révéla la succession de publications scientifiques qui lui ont été  consacrées dans les années 2010 [Berns et Carré, 2013 ; Moreau, 2015 ; Goin et Provenzano, 2016 et 2017]. Quelques années plus tôt, un imposant dossier de la revue Hermès évoquait pourtant un « temps d’éclipse » en constatant : « le mot ‘peuple’ ne se monnaie plus guère dans la communication politique ou médiatique ordinaire » [Durand et Lits, 2005].
Après les mouvements protestataires postérieurs à la crise financière de 2007-2008 (jusqu’aux « Gilets jaunes » en France), l’affirmation politique de courants désignés comme «populistes » et la globalisation d’une culture « populaire » ou « de masse » ont durablement ancré la catégorie de « peuple » et tous ses dérivés dans le débat public et la recherche, à l’échelle internationale. Nul besoin, aujourd’hui, de déconstruire des notions qui l’ont déjà été depuis longtemps [Bourdieu, 1983 et 1987 ; Grignon et Passeron, 1989 ; Badiou et al., 2013 ; Bras, 2018], jusqu’à considérer le « peuple » ou le « populisme » comme  « introuvables » [Rosanvallon, 1998 ; Rancière, 2013], voire à postuler une « adémie » (absence de peuple) au fondement de l’État moderne [Agamben, 2015]. Il est évident que le « peuple » est une construction sociale, produite par des acteurs aux intérêts divergents [Cohen, 2010], et qu’à ce titre le « peuple » est toujours à réinventer [Cohen, 2019].
Malgré sa plasticité, la catégorie continue à irriguer la recherche, au-delà de la vogue éditoriale des « histoires populaires » initiée par les travaux d’Howard Zinn [Zinn, 2002 ; Conner, 2011 ; Harman, 2015 ; Zancarini-Fournel, 2016 ; Noiriel, 2019 ; Tran, 2023], qui a elle-même fait l’objet d’une réflexion collective [Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 2020]. Plusieurs thèses ou publications récentes montrent que le « peuple » est toujours au cœur des réflexions, sous une forme ou une autre, qu’il s’agisse de droit [Fernandez Andujar, 2024 ; Megahed, 2024], de science politique [Cucchetti, Dézé et Reungoat, 2021 ; Benedetti et Dupuy, 2023], d’histoire ancienne [Bernini, 2023], médiévale [Gauvard, 2024], moderne [Boulant, 2023] ou contemporaine [Pereira, 2023 ; Safronova, 2023 ; Tartakowsky, 2024], avec un questionnement particulier en matière d’histoire de l’éducation [Christen et Besse, 2017 ; Cabanel, 2023 ; Christen, 2023]. La notion fait même l’objet de renouvellements ou de prolongements audacieux. Le sociologue Abdou Maliqalim Simone, par exemple, a forgé le concept de « peuple comme infrastructure » (people as infrastructure), pour analyser la manière dont les réseaux interpersonnels pallient certaines déficiences techniques à Johannesburg [Simone, 2004]. Les études sur le métissage ont, quant à elle, suscité des travaux concernant le processus d’accession au « statut de peuple » (peoplehood) [Adese et Andersen, 2021], tandis les études sur le genre s’efforcent d’intégrer à l’analyse les catégories de « peuple » et de « populaire »  [Conway, 2021 ; Brugère et Le Blanc, 2022]. Loin des campus et des centres de recherche occidentaux, le gouvernement chinois promeut, quant à lui, le concept de politique « orientée vers le peuple » (people oriented), qui trouve un écho dans les sciences humaines et sociales [Chen, Gong, Lu et Ye, 2019]. D'une façon générale, les travaux de sciences sociales interrogeant les catégories de « peuple » ou de « population » percolent jusque dans le champ politique - il n'est qu'à voir la fortune politique du « populisme de gauche » tel qu'envisagé par Chantal Mouffe [Mouffe, 2018 ; Cevera-Marzal, 2021].
L’importance de la production scientifique actuelle mobilisant les catégories de « peuple », «populaire » et « populisme » justifie un retour réflexif sur la manière dont elles sont utilisées par les historiennes et les historiens. Comment peut-on parler de « peuple » sans tomber dans les écueils de l’essentialisme ou du nominalisme ? Comment saisir une réalité sociale au-delà des discours véhiculés par les sources ? Quelle valeur heuristique conservent la notion de « peuple » et ses dérivés en histoire sociale ?
Ce dossier de la Revue d’histoire sociale accueillera des articles interrogeant l’utilisation de la catégorie de « peuple » et de ses dérivés dans des travaux d’histoire portant sur toutes les périodes, quel que soit le type de « peuple » considéré – qu’il s’agisse d’une acception socialement restrictive (au sens de « classes populaires ») ou d’approches plus larges s’étendant aux « populations ». Ne seront retenus que les articles comportant une réflexion historiographique et/ou épistémologique.

Date de remise des articles : 15 juin 2025

Articles à envoyer à : Dominique Pinsolle (Dominique.Pinsolle@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr), David Hamelin (david.hamelin@le-centre.pro) et Jérôme Lamy (jerome.lamy@laposte.net)

Bibliographie :
·       Jennifer Adese, Chris Andersen (ed.), A People and a Nation. New Directions in Contemporary Métis Studies, Toronto, UBC Press, 2021
·       Giorgio Agamben, La Guerre civile. Pour une théorie politique de la stasis, Paris, Points, 2015.
·       Alain Badiou, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Georges Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari, Jacques Rancière, Qu’est-ce qu’un peuple ?, Paris, La Fabrique, 2013.
·       Étienne Balibar, « Son Nom est Légion », Tumultes n°40, juin 2013, p. 7-15.
·       Arnaud Benedetti et Vincent Dupuy (dir.), dossier « Le savant, le politique et le peuple : l’enjeu du siècle ? », Revue politique et parlementaire, n°1107, juillet-septembre 2023.
·       Julie Bernini, « Plaise au peuple ». Pratiques et lieux de la décision démocratique en Ionie et en Carie hellénistiques, Bordeaux, Ausonius éditions, 2023.
·       Thomas Berns et Louis Carré (dir.), « Noms du peuple », Tumultes n°40, juin 2013.
·       Laurent Besse et Carole Christen (dir.), Histoire de l’éducation populaire, 1815-1945, Lille, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2017.
·       Pierre Bourdieu, « Vous avez dit “populaire” ? », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 46, 1983, p. 98-105.
·       Pierre Bourdieu, « Les usages du peuple », dans Choses dites, Paris, Minuit, 1987, p. 178-184.
·       Antoine Boulant, La journée révolutionnaire. Le peuple à l’assaut du pouvoir, 1789-1795, Paris, Passés Composés, 2023.
·       Gérard Bras, Les voies du peuple. Éléments d’une histoire conceptuelle, Paris, Amsterdam, 2018.
·       Fabienne Brugère et Guillaume Le Blanc, Le peuple des femmes. Un tour du monde féministe, Paris, Flammarion, 2022.
·       Patrick Cabanel, L’école du peuple ? Histoire d’une hypocrisie sociale, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2023.
.    Manuel Cervera-Marzal, Le populisme de gauche. Sociologie de la France Insoumise, Paris, La Découverte, 2021.·       
.    Mingxing Chen, Yinghua Gong, Dadao Lu et Chao Ye, « Build a people-oriented urbanization : China’s new-type urbanization dream and Anhui model », Land Use Policy, vol. 80 (C), 2019, p. 1-9.
·    Carole Christen, À l’école du soir. L’éducation du peuple à l’ère des révolutions (1815-1870), Paris, Champ Vallon, 2023.
·       Déborah Cohen, La nature du peuple. Les formes de l’imaginaire social (XVIIIe-XXIe siècles), Paris, Champ Vallon, 2010.
·       Déborah Cohen, Peuple, Paris, Anamosa, 2019.
·       Clifford D. Conner, Histoire populaire des sciences, Paris, L’Échappée, 2011.
·       Janet M. Conway, « Popular Feminism: Considering a Concept in Feminist Politics and Theory », Latin American Perspectives, vol. 48, no. 4, 2021, p. 25-48.
·       Humberto Cucchetti, Alexandre Dézé et Emmanuelle Reungoat, Au nom du peuple ? Idées reçues sur le populisme, Paris, Le Cavalier bleu, 2021.
·       Pascal Durand et Marc Lits, « Introduction : Peuple, populaire, populisme », Hermès, La Revue, 2005/2 n° 42, 2005. p. 11-15.
·   « Faire une ‘Histoire populaire’ », dossier de la Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, n°67-2, 2020/2.
·       Miguel Fernandez Andujar, La participation du peuple à l’élaboration des normes, thèse de doctorat de droit public, sous la direction de Hubert Alcaraz et Susana Sanchez Ferro, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour/Universidad autonóma de Madrid, 2024.
·       Claude Gauvard, Passionnément Moyen Âge. Éloge du petit peuple, Paris, Tallandier, 2024.
·       Émilie Goin et François Provenzano (dir.), dossier « Les rhétoriques du peuple », Exercices de rhétorique, 7, 2016.
·       Émilie Goin et François Provenzano (dir.), Usages du peuple. Savoirs, discours, politiques, Liège, Presses universitaires de Liège, 2017.
·       Claude Grignon et Jean-Claude Passeron, Le Savant et le Populaire. Misérabilisme et populisme en sociologie et en littérature, Paris, Seuil, 1989.
·       Chris Harman, Une histoire populaire de l’humanité. De l’âge de pierre au nouveau millénaire, Paris, La Découverte, 2015.
·       Jean-Luc Moreau (dir.), « À quoi bon le peuple ? », La Sœur de l’Ange n°14, Printemps 2015.
·       Victor Pereira, C’est le peuple qui commande. La Révolution des Œillets, 1974-1976, Bordeaux, éditions du Détour, 2023.
·       Jacques Rancière, « L’introuvable populisme », dans Alain Badiou et al., Qu’est-ce qu’un peuple ?, Paris, La Fabrique, 2013, p. 137-143.
·       Pierre Rosanvallon, Le peuple introuvable. Histoire de la représentation démocratique en France, Paris, Gallimard, 1998.
·       Anna Safronova, Histoire des coopératives russes et soviétiques (1860-1930). Moderniser le peuple, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2023.
·       Danièle Tartakowsky, Les syndicats en leurs murs : bourses du travail, maisons du peuple, maisons des syndicats, Paris, Champ Vallon, 2024.
·  Abdou Maliqalim Simone, « People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg », Public Culture, vol. 16 no. 3, 2004, p. 407-429.
·       Lina Megahed, Le contre-pouvoir populaire : recherche sur le pouvoir du peuple en corps à partir du cas français, thèse de doctorat de droit public, sous la direction de Frédérique Rueda, Université de Bordeaux, 2024.
.    Chantal Mouffe, Le populisme de gauche, Paris, Albin Michel, 2018
·       Gérard Noiriel, Une histoire populaire de la France. De la Guerre de Cent ans à nos jours, Marseille, Agone, 2019.
·       Nicolas Tran, La Plèbe. Une histoire populaire de Rome, Paris, Passés Composés, 2023.
·       Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, Les luttes et les rêves. Une histoire populaire de la France, de 1685 à nos jours, Paris, La Découverte, 2016.
·       Howard Zinn, Une histoire populaire des États-Unis. De 1492 à nos jours, Marseille, Agone, 2002.

Panel in Barcelona/Spain from 28 to 30 January 2026

I want to invite you to participate in the Cruïlles / Crossroads conference, which will take place in Barcelona on January 28, 29, and 30, 2026. I (Daniel Canales, Universitat de Girona) and Jordi Sancho (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) coordinate the panel "Youth of the World, Unite: International Solidarities and Internationalism among Youth in the Second Half of the 20th Century (1945-2003)". Attached is the complete information for the panel, and you can find further details in the second circular of the conference: Segunda circular - Congreso Cruïlles / CrossroPanel in Barcelona/Spain from 28 to 30 January 2026

Youth of the World, Unite: International Solidarities and Internationalism among Youth (1945-2003)

Proposals should be sent by the deadline (May 1st 2025) to the following addresses: daniel.canales@udg.edu and jordisanchogalan@gmail.com

Recent mobilisations on an international scale in protest oflsrael's aggression towards Palestine have drawn attention to the agency of youth-driven solidarity. The Palestinian reference, far from being a recent phenomenon, is in fact linked to the longstanding tradition of dissent among the youth, which played a significant role in the establishment of networks, practices and internationalist imaginaries during the second half of the 20th century. In this regard, this panel aims to deepen the understanding of the set of experiences that shaped the phenomena of internationalist solidarity through three main directions. Firstly, the relationships, influences, and cross-experiences among different actors who contributed to the cultures of internationalist militancy will be emphasised. Secondly, the agency of transnational solidarities as a mobilising force intertwined with local claims and with the potential to imagine a fairer and more equitable world will be assessed historically. Finally, the analysis will be extended to encompass other strategies and resources, including cinema, the press, and music, in the construction of aesthetic codes, sensibilities, and values that facilitated identification with imagined networks and global structures of feeling. In this regard, and recognising the need to engage in dialogue with other disciplines, we invite the submission of papers that explore the interactions and synergies among sectors, ideological currents, and cultural resources in internationalist youth activism throughout the period 1945-2003. In a similar vein, we are interested in fostering dialogue with other geographical areas and phenomena beyond the European continent. The aim is to decentralise approaches that have generally prioritised the contexts of democratic Europe. Ultimately, the objective is to analyse how these intersections were articulated and how they transformed the strategies, discourses, and practices of youth political activism in the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century.

The overarching objective of this panel is to enhance our comprehension of the social and political movements of this period by investigating the diverse political, social, and ideological intersections that influenced their internationalist dimensions, as well as the long­term repercussions they exerted on contemporary politics and culture. Proposals for consideration will be accepted in any of the three official languages of the conference: Catalan, Spanish, and English.

We are at your disposal for any questions or clarifications.

Daniel Canales Ciudad, Departament d'Història i d'Història de l'Art, Universitat de Girona

The Study Group for Minority History is pleased to invite interested scholars to submit their abstracts for the international conference “Life under the Red Banner: Minorities in Socialist Europe“, to be held on 11-12 September 2025 at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Deadline for applications is 1 April 2025.

CfP: Life under the Red Banner: Minorities in Socialist Europe, 11-12 September 2025, University of Basel, Switzerland

About the conference
Socialist regimes have built their ideology around the concept of equality. Committed to a communist classless society, those regimes – established under the banner of “Marxist-Leninist” or other socialist traditions – devised and introduced policies based on the belief that the quest for economic equality would gradually eliminate social divisions based on nationality, religion, and/or gender. On the other hand, diverse minorities were often drawn to socialism, as it held the promise of doing away with the discrimination and persecution they experienced under imperial rule or nationalist regimes in Europe.

In practice, however, socialist states closely engaged with their minorities and implemented a wide arsenal of policies that were directed towards their minorities, ranging from promotion, protection and accommodation to forced assimilation, repression and exclusion. Thus, the lived experiences of minorities under socialism exposed numerous tensions between the ideology of a classless society and the persistence of ethnic, religious, and social distinctions.

This conference aims to critically examine the discrepancies between the ideology, theory, and practice of minority policies in socialist countries, and discuss the everyday experiences of minority life under socialism through a comparative and transnational lens. Drawing on examples from different Soviet republics, countries of the socialist bloc, as well as non-aligned socialist states, such as Yugoslavia and Albania, this conference aims to draw scholarly attention to how various socialist regimes came to shape the status, rights, and experiences of different, and often marginalized, ethnolinguistic, religious, sexual, and social groups.

By underscoring intersectionality among this diversity of experience, the conference aims to encourage dialogue between scholars working on different aspects of minority history and the history of marginalized groups under socialism, and foster new perspectives on the divergence between socialist ideology, political practices, and minority life in the modern period, contributing to a better understanding of everyday life under the “red banner”.

Key Themes
- The conference organisers welcome papers that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- The role of ethnolinguistic, religious, and gender differences in a socialist society
- Minorities’ temptation for socialism and its consequences for minority politics
- Divergence and discrepancies between socialism, minority protection, and minority rights;
- Socialist policies on language, religion, and culture of the minority communities;
- Intersectionality of experiences of ethnolinguistic, religious, and sexual minorities in socialist states;
- The position of GSRM/LGBTQI+ communities under socialist rule;
- Case studies of minority resistance, collaboration, or adaptation under socialism;
- (Post-)socialist transitions and their effects on minority populations.

Conference Organizing Committee
Olena Palko (University of Basel), Julia Elena Grieder (University of Basel) with the support of the BASEES Study Group for Minority History

Submission Guidelines
The conference organisers particularly welcome PhD students and early career scholars to apply. To apply, please submit an abstract of 250-300 words, along with a short bio (150 words) to juliaelena.grieder@unibas.ch by 1 April 2025.

Notification of acceptance by 1 May 2025.

Selected papers will be considered for publication as a themed section in the peer-reviewed online open-access academic journal, “Euxeinos. Journal of the Swiss Academic Association for East European Studies.”

The organisers also aim to cover accommodation (up to max. two nights) and travel costs for accepted participants, travelling within Europe.

The latest issue of Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques has published! This is a special issue entitled, “Forum on Modernization in France and Africa”. 

Please visit the Berghahn website for more information about the journal: www.berghahnjournals.com/historical-reflections  

Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques  
Volume 51, Issue 1: Forum on Modernization in France and Africa.  
Edited by Amelia H. Lyons and W. Brian Newsome 
Table of Contents  

Articles 
Agents of Modernity in Late Imperial France and Africa 
Amelia H. Lyons and W. Brian Newsome 

A Technocratic Ideal: The Jeune Cadre and the Limits of Modernization in Postwar France 
Drew Fedorka 

Interns of Empire: Shaping Elite Opinions at the Height of the Algerian War of Independence 
Brooke Durham 

Expertise in the Age of Development: Gender, Race, and French Social Programs in Newly Independent Francophone West Africa 
Amelia H. Lyons 

Fiduciary-Republican Property: From the Ancient Dominium to Modern Constitutionalism 
Bru Laín 

“Jewish Algeria today is English Algeria tomorrow”: British Protestant Missionaries in Fin-de-Siècle Algeria, 1883–1901 
Rachel Eva Schley 

Book Reviews 
Enrico Beltramini, Radu Sava, and Elisabeth C. Macknight 

Journées d'études à l'Université de Tours, les jeudi 27 et vendredi 28 novembre 2025

L'industrialisation des sociétés a transformé en profondeur les mondes du travail et des armées. Les guerres elles-mêmes se sont industrialisées et ont, par à-coups successifs, changé d'échelle depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle. Les guerres de Crimée (1853-1856) puis de Sécession (1861-1865) ont été les premiers conflits à reposer sur l'action d'armées mécanisées : canonnières plus puissantes, pièces d'artillerie d'un calibre plus conséquent, locomotives plus performantes sont autant de produits industriels qui ont permis ce changement d'échelle.

Dans ce contexte d'industrialisation à la fois des sociétés, de leurs économies et des guerres, il devient alors nécessaire de comprendre comment les conflits armés bouleversent les mondes du travail. La mobilisation des travailleurs a toujours occupé une place centrale dans l'histoire des conflits contemporains, en particulier dans les études de la Première et de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cette histoire est depuis plusieurs décennies sortie du simple récit de la mise au service de l'appareil productif et industriel en vue d'un effort de guerre et a laissé place, notamment à partir des années 1980 et 1990 à une histoire sociale et politique prêtant attention aux mouvements syndicaux, au travail à l'arrière comme au travail en contexte d'occupation, et aux recompositions sociales qui en ont découlé. 

Sous l'effet des approches transnationales, des travaux sur les empires coloniaux et des études de genre, de nouvelles perspectives se sont ouvertes dans ce champ d'études. Une attention nouvelle a été portée aux acteurs (main-d'œuvre féminine, mais aussi travailleurs racisés sur les fronts européens, contribution des travailleurs coloniaux à l'économie de guerre globale, etc.) et leur agentivité, explorant tant les stratégies individuelles que collectives. Si l'étude du travail forcé a été centrale dans l'approche des régimes nazis et soviétiques en guerre (Bonwetsch, 1993; Plato, Leh & Thonfeld, 2010; Westerhoff, 2012), des mises en lumière du travail contraint dans les empires coloniaux ont permis - avec profit - de dresser des ponts entre les théâtres européens et les empires coloniaux français et britanniques, sortant ainsi du seul cadre occidental (Tiquet, 2019; Stanziani, 2020). Cette extension des horizons pourrait être appliquée à d'autres espaces et conflits, comme l'ont esquissé de premiers travaux sur la guerre de Sécession américaine (Lause, 2015; Zonderman, 2021) ou la guerre du Vietnam (Foner, 1989; Sears, 2010).

Les renouvellements historiographiques récents ont également invité à considérer que le travail en temps de guerre ne saurait se réduire à la production directement liée à l'économie de guerre, pas plus qu'aux seules formes rémunérées d'activités productives. Le travail industriel ne peut de fait exister sans le travail agricole, le travail domestique et reproductif, ou encore les activités administratives, essentielles à la conduite des guerres modernes. 

Cette définition large du travail en temps de guerre est d'autant plus cruciale que les armées de la fin du XIXe et du XXe siècle sont pour beaucoup des armées de conscription. La mobilisation large d'une grande partie des hommes de la population active, y compris dans les armées qui reposent sur le volontariat, perturbe fortement les mondes du travail des nations belligérantes et oblige les gouvernements à répartir les hommes autant que les moyens. 

Pour mieux saisir la complexité des liens entre travail et guerres, il est donc nécessaire d'adopter une vision la plus englobante possible, que ce soit du point de vue de la typologie des guerres, puisque ni les guerres civiles, ni les guerres de basse intensité ne sont exclues de la réflexion, ou de l'espace géographique. En variant les échelles, il sera ainsi possible de mêler les réflexions portant sur les espaces européens, coloniaux, non européens, ainsi que de déplacer la focale entre les différents espaces d'une société en guerre : front, arrière, métropole, colonies, théâtres périphériques.

Enfin, cette approche vise à s'inscrire dans une démarche interdisciplinaire, faisant appel aux apports de l'histoire – en particulier d'une histoire sociale de la guerre dont les objets d'étude excèdent la seule sphère militaire – mais aussi de l'économie et de l'économie politique. La volonté de s'intéresser aux acteurs ordinaires de ces conflits implique de mobiliser les apports de la sociologie du travail. En outre, les réflexions incluront des enjeux étudiés par la science juridique, tant le monde du travail durant les conflits fait l'objet d'innovations afin d'inclure les individus dans des statuts exceptionnels pour mieux encadrer en droit leur participation à l'effort de guerre.

 

4 axes problématiques seront proposés afin de structurer le déroulement des journées d'études

Optimiser la main-d'œuvre en temps de guerre

Un premier axe entend inscrire les réflexions sur le travail en temps de guerre sous l'angle de l'allocation des ressources humaines en fonction des besoins respectifs, et potentiellement concurrents, des sphères civile et militaire. Cette étude de l'optimisation du "capital humain" conduit à interroger le travail sous l'angle d'une mobilisation de la main-d'œuvre, qui peut alors être soustraite à l'armée de conscription, sous des régimes juridiques particuliers, mais aussi passer par la mobilisation d'autres catégories de travailleurs : étrangers, coloniaux, prisonniers, femmes, etc. 

Les questions de mobilisation de la main-d'œuvre prennent une dimension particulière dans les espaces dits périphériques, notamment extra-européens, où elles s'effectuent selon des méthodes coloniales, en décalage avec les cadres et les pratiques en vigueur dans les métropoles. 

Le travail lors des transitions de la paix vers la guerre et de la guerre vers la paix 

Un deuxième axe portera une attention renforcée au monde du travail dans les temps de transition de la paix vers la guerre et de la guerre vers la paix. Ces moments charnières, par les reconfigurations et ajustements qu'ils supposent, permettent d'interroger les permanences du travail et ses transformations dans le contexte extra-ordinaire de la guerre. Si les recompositions des secteurs professionnels après les guerres ont commencé à être interrogées, renverser la perspective pourrait être d'autant plus fructueux en se demandant comment les mondes du travail ont pu être préparés - ou pas - aux conflits. Les continuités du travail entre les temps de guerre et de paix seront ainsi interrogées. Des études "par en-bas" permettraient aussi de mettre en perspective les éventuelles transformations dans les identités professionnelles apportées par les conflits, que ce soit positivement par le réemploi de compétences et savoirs acquis sous statut militaire, ou négativement par le problématique reclassement des soldats, notamment des blessés.

Mobilisations sociales, travail et conflits 

Un troisième axe sera consacré aux effets qu'ont les conflits sur les mobilisations et les luttes sociales, qu'ils en soient les accélérateurs ou qu'ils aient au contraire pour effet de les neutraliser. L'évaluation du rôle des ouvriers et paysans dans des processus révolutionnaires qui prennent la forme de guerres civiles (Russie, Espagne) permet d'interroger la porosité entre mobilisation sociale et lutte armée. D'autre part, les guerres modernes, en ce qu'elles mobilisent massivement les mondes du travail, suscitent des attitudes diverses des organisations ouvrières, entre participation à de temporaires « unions sacrées » et opposition à des conflits perçus comme contraires aux intérêts des travailleurs. En particulier, ce que la guerre fait à la cohésion des mondes du travail et à leur mobilisation sociale est une problématique qui traverse l'ensemble de la période, selon des logiques sans cesse recomposées. Plus globalement, on s'intéressera à la question de la répression des mouvements sociaux durant les conflits armés.

 Genre et travail durant les conflits 

Un quatrième axe proposera de s'intéresser à ce que les guerres font aux normes de genre telles qu'elles s'expriment dans le travail. Souvent présentées comme des moments de féminisation de la main-d'œuvre pour "remplacer" les hommes partis au front, les guerres ont également été des moments de renforcement des stéréotypes de genre dans le monde du travail. Si du fait de l'absence des hommes, les femmes ont pu accéder à de nouveaux types d'emploi, de nouveaux espaces professionnels et de nouvelles activités, elles ont souvent dû les rendre dans les après-guerres. De plus, le travail des femmes durant les conflits s'est également effectué au sein d'espaces traditionnellement féminins et a même renforcé certains imaginaires sociaux liés au travail des femmes. Il s'agira donc, au travers des reconfigurations des mondes du travail, de mettre en évidence les formes nouvelles de masculinités et de féminités que créent les conflits armés ainsi que les réalités, nouvelles ou non, du travail des femmes en temps de guerre.

Modalités de participation

Les journées d'études se tiendront les jeudi 27 et vendredi 28 novembre 2025 à l'université de Tours. Les frais de déplacement et d'hébergement seront couverts par l'organisation.

Ces journées mettront en dialogue des articles d'un maximum de 50 000 signes (notes et espaces compris) partagés au préalable avec les participant·e·s (début novembre 2025), en vue de leur soumission ultérieure à une revue à comité de lecture dans le cadre d'un dossier thématique.

Nous invitons les personnes désireuses d'y contribuer à faire parvenir un résumé de l'article projeté (1 000 signes max.) ainsi qu'un court curriculum vitae d'ici le lundi 31 mars 2025 à l'adresse suivante : accoulon@univ-tours.fr

L'acceptation ou non des propositions sera notifiée au plus tard fin juin 2025.

Comité d'organisation

• Damien Accoulon (Université de Tours), accoulon@univ-tours.fr
• Clément Collard (Sciences Po Paris), clement.collard@sciencespo.fr 
• Candice Grelaud (Université Lumière Lyon 2), candice.grelaud@ens-lyon.fr 
• Gwendal Piégais (University College Dublin), gwendal.piegais@ucd.ie 

Comité scientifique

• Jérôme Bocquet (Université de Tours)
• Emmanuelle Cronier (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
• John Horne (Trinity College Dublin)
• Julie Le Gac (Université Paris Nanterre)
• Elisa Marcobelli (Université de Rouen Normandie)
• Stéphanie Sauget (Université de Tours)
• Xavier Vigna (Université Paris Nanterre)

Bibliographie indicative

Bieber Hans-Joachim, Gewerkschaften in Krieg und Revolution: Arbeiterbewegung, Industrie, Staat und Militär in Deutschland: 1914-1920, Hamburg, Christians, 1981, 1248 p.

Bonwetsch Bernd, « Sowjetische Zwangsarbeiter vor und nach 1945: Ein doppelter Leidensweg », Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 1993, vol. 41, no 4, p. 532‑546.

Culleton Claire A., Working Class Culture, Women, and Britain, 1914-1921, New York, St. Martin's Press, 2000, 221 p.

Daniel Ute, The War from Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War, Oxford, Berg (coll. « The Legacy of the Great War »), 1997, 343 p.

Fauroux Camille, Produire la guerre, produire le genre : des Françaises au travail dans l'Allemagne nationale-socialiste (1940-1945), Paris, Éditions EHESS, 2020, 310 p.

Feldman Gerald, Army, Industry and Labour in Germany, 1914-1918, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014 [1966], 586 p.

Foner Philip Sheldon, U.S. Labor and the Viet-Nam War, New York, International Publishers, 1989, 180 p.

Haimson Leopold H. et Tilly Charles (eds.), Strikes, Wars and Revolutions in an International Perspective: Strike Waves in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 536 p.

Horne John, « Labor and Labor Movements in World War I » dans Jay M. Winter, Geoffrey Parker et Mary R. Habeck (eds.), The Great War and the Twentieth Century, New Haven, CT, Yale University, 2000, p. 187‑228.

Lause Mark A., Free Labor: The Civil War and the Making of an American Working Class, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2015, 296 p.

Marcobelli Elisa, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists, Cham, Springer International Publishing, 2021.

Peschanski Denis et Robert Jean-Louis (eds.), Les ouvriers en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale : actes du colloque, Paris-CNRS, 22-24 octobre 1992, Paris, Institut d'histoire du temps présent, 1992, 511 p.

Plato Alexander von, Leh Almut et Thonfeld Christoph (eds.), Hitler's Slaves: Life Stories of Forced Labourers in Nazi-Occupied Europe, New York, Berghahn Books, 2010, 552 p.

Procacci Giovanna (ed.), State e classe operaia in Italia durante la prima guerra mondiale, Milan, Franco Angeli, 1983, 340 p.

Robert Jean-Louis (ed.), Le syndicalisme à l'épreuve de la Première Guerre mondiale, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 392 p.

Sears John Bennett, « Peace Work: The Antiwar Tradition in American Labor from the Cold War to the Iraq War », Diplomatic History, 2010, vol. 34, no 4, p. 699‑720.

Stanziani Alessandro, Les métamorphoses du travail contraint : une histoire globale (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles), Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2020, 328 p.

Tiquet Romain, Travail forcé et mobilisation de la main-d'œuvre au Sénégal (Années 1920 - 1960), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019, 282 p.

Westerhoff Christian, Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg: deutsche Arbeitskräftepolitik im besetzten Polen und Litauen 1914-1918, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, 377 p.

Xu Guo Qi, Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2011, 366 p.

 

--

Grelaud Candice
Doctorante en histoire contemporaine - Université Lumière Lyon 2
Laboratoire d'Etudes Rurales

Editors: Carlotta Sorba (Università di Padova / European University Institute), Michele Magri (Università di Padova).

In recent decades, the ‘material turn’ in the social sciences and historiography has highlighted how material culture shaped individuals' past social experiences, worldviews, and political spheres. This approach has contributed to the renewal of political history by focusing on its most tangible aspects. It is particularly crucial for the long 19th century, a key period in the development of modern politics. Artifacts of common and everyday use, clothing, and personal accessories – such as cockades, rosettes, medals, pins, etc. – along with various gadgets, technical and scientific instruments, and natural relics, were imbued with political meanings and messages, playing a central role in this process. Research has shown how these objects, operating on multiple dimensions – communicative, emotional, and performative – made political ideas tangible, aroused support and promoted mobilisation.

A fundamental yet relatively unexplored characteristic of these objects is their intrinsic mobility – both in time and space. Whether handcrafted or more widely manufactured as consumer goods, political objects circulated through domestic and public spaces, often crossing national borders via local and global networks of production and trade. Nineteenth-century activism, driven by diverse demands across various contexts and shaped by transnational and imperial dynamics of mobility, dialogue, and exchange, further facilitated and accelerated their movement. These objects circulated both physically – often evading censorship and restrictions – and through the symbols and figurative languages, iconography, and imagery they conveyed. In different contexts, objects and symbols could also be reworked, adapted, and reinterpreted for new uses and practices, which gave their mobility both a spatial and a temporal dimension. They thus became instruments capable of connecting different insurrectional centres across Europe, reaching peripheral areas, and fostering interaction between revolutionary cultures in the Euro-Atlantic space and globally, while also connecting national and transnational counter-revolutionary movements. They played a significant role in shaping movements for nation-building, colonial and imperial expansion and their oppositions, debates around slavery and abolitionism, liberal, constitutional, and democratic movements and their opponents, as well as social and women’s rights activism.

This special issue of Contemporanea aims to reflect on the mobility of political material culture, analysing how its circulation and transformation, both physical and symbolic, generated connections between contexts and movements, disseminated and popularised images and imagination, and redefined and influenced political sensibilities and practices during the long 19th century. Contemporanea invites proposals that explore, but are not limited to the following themes:

• Itineraries of moving political objects across local, transnational, imperial, and global scales, and their role in connecting different political spaces;
•  Circuits of production, trade and consumption;
•  Re-appropriation, re-use, and reinterpretation in new contexts, meanings, and practices;
•  Obstacles to the mobility of objects: censorship, borders, and confiscations;
•  Objects as instruments of transnational mobilisation and the construction of political networks.

Proposals of approximately 500 words, written in either Italian or English and accompanied by a brief curriculum vitae of the author, must be sent by March 17, 2025, to the editors, Carlotta Sorba (carlotta.sorba@unipd.it) and Michele Magri (michele.magri@unipd.it), copying the journal’s editorial office (contemporanea@mulino.it). Selected essays must be submitted in their final form by October 4, 2025, and will be subject to a double-blind peer review process. The special issue is scheduled for publication in spring/summer 2026.

For more information about the journal, see: https://www.mulino.it/riviste/issn/1127-3070.

Contemporanea is indexed by: Web of Science (AHCI), Scopus Bibliographic Database, Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, ERIH Plus, Articoli italiani di periodici accademici (AIDA), JournalSeek, Essper, Bibliografia storica nazionale, Analecta-Spoglio dei periodici italiani, Dialnet, Catalogo italiano dei periodici (ACNP), Google Scholar, Primo Central (ex Libris), EDS (EBSCO).

Conference in Berlin from 17-19 September 2025

Has the Second World War ever truly ended? While the battles ceased decades ago, the war’s legacy endures − etched into the fabric of Europe’s landscapes, inscribed onto human bodies, and anchored as a cultural memory. The ruins of war persist both materially and symbolically − in the architectural remnants of destruction, in the physical and psychological scars carried across generations, and in the ruptures within language and representation. As we move into an era where the last living witnesses are disappearing, the question arises: what remains of the war, and how does it continue to shape historical consciousness?
This memory studies conference examines the material, cultural, and memorial afterlives of WWII, interrogating the role of broadly defined ruins and materiality in post-war and contemporary memory cultures and historical narratives. By bringing together scholars from various disciplines, the conference will critically engage with not only what is left of the war, but also how these remnants continue to mediate the past and shape its understanding. The academic event will finally engage in a reflection on European memory cultures of the post-war era contextualizing them within contemporary socio-political challenges.

The conference will centre on three main aspects:

1. Theoretical reflection on the materiality of memory: How does the past persist in the present through physical remnants? This theme will explore the theoretical foundations of how memory is embedded in material traces and how these remnants continue to shape contemporary perceptions of history. 2. Rethinking post-war memory cultures from the present: This section explores the constantly moving, changing nature of memory in terms of contemporary challenges. It investigates how new geopolitical and civilizational changes, as well as new forms of violence particularly Russia’s war against Ukraine—, have affected the memory of World War II. How have these developments reshaped or corrected cultural patterns and perceptions of the “other”? Furthermore, how do emerging digital technologies and unregulated social media influence the ways in which WWII is remembered and commemorated? 3. Case studies linking theory and memory practices: Presentations in this section will delve into specific examples of symbolic and literal ruins of World War II, contested narratives about war, the intergenerational transmission of complex memories and trauma etc., and the influence of the war on culture and language. What new approaches have emerged for processing and coming to terms with 1945 and the post-war era? How has WWII’s legacy remained tangible across various domains of life?
 

By integrating theoretical perspectives with empirical case studies, the conference aims to provide a comprehensive exploration of what remains of WWII in contemporary memory cultures, and what challenges memory cultures face in present times. It is directed to scholars of various disciplines, including history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, linguistics, literature, art history, political science, law, etc. Comparative and interdisciplinary studies are particularly welcome.

We propose the following specific thematic blocks for presentations, yet other proposals are welcome as well:

• The materiality of memory – theoretical perspectives
• History of traces, ruins and remnants of war
• Destruction of artworks and cultural heritage
• Body and representation
• Transgenerational and cultural transmission of trauma
• Narratives, textbooks, and memory cultures
• Oral history, testimony, literature
• Digital technologies and new challenges

  To apply, please, send the following documents by email to the address: genealogies@enrs.eu
The application deadline is 11 May 2025

• Abstract (maximum 300 words)
• Brief biographical note (up to 200 words)
• Scan/photo of the signed Consent Clause

Applicants will be notified of the results in early June 2025. Written draft papers (2.000–2.500 words) should be submitted by 25 August 2025.

The conference language is English. The organisers provide accommodation for the participants. There is no conference fee.

  https://enrs.eu/edition/genealogies-of-memory-2025

by Colm Murphy

The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, the book explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/futures-of-socialism/7EBE9FB7D4BFD…