Social and Labour History News

Organizan:

● Programa “Estudios del trabajo, movimiento sindical y organización industrial” del Área de Economía y Tecnología de FLACSO Argentina

● Grupo de Historia Social y Género-Sección experiencia, trabajo y protesta del Instituto de Investigaciones de Estudios de Género de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (IIEGE-UBA)

Fecha: jueves 6 y viernes 7 de julio de 2023, de 10 a 18 hs. con modalidad híbrida.

Sede: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO Argentina). Tucumán 1966, CABA.

Agradecemos el apoyo de la Asociación Latinoamericana e Ibérica de Historia Social (ALIHS)

Términos de la convocatoria:

Estas jornadas están dirigidas a tesistas de Maestría y Doctorado que se encuentren trabajando, con sede en diversas instituciones académicas del país y del exterior, en temas de historia social del trabajo, trabajadores/as y movimiento sindical de Argentina y América Latina en los siglos XX y XXI. Apuntan a abrir un espacio de intercambio y debate, cuyo objetivo central será discutir avances de investigaciones de posgrado en tres claves principales:

1) Desafíos de fuentes, archivos y metodología

2) Discusiones historiográficas en determinados campos o ejes

3) Abordajes conceptuales y teóricos que contribuyan a pensar problemas históricos

Dinámica de funcionamiento:

Las jornadas abrirán un espacio de presentación de las comunicaciones por parte de las y los tesistas, comentarios por parte de investigadores/as especializados/as, y debate con las y los asistentes. La actividad será abierta y gratuita, y se entregarán certificados de exposición y participación.

Fechas importantes:

Envío de resúmenes: hasta el 31 de mayo de 2023

Los resúmenes deberán presentarse en versión Word, con una extensión máxima de 300 palabras en letra Times New Roman tamaño 12, con interlineado sencillo. El resumen deberá incluir el título de la tesis y el eje/clave que proponen abordar. Los/as autores/as deberán consignar: nombre y apellido, pertenencia institucional y correo electrónico, así como un breve CV de una página como máximo.

Envío de ponencias: hasta el 22 de junio de 2023

Las ponencias deberán presentarse en versión Word, con una extensión mínima de 5 páginas y una máxima de 10 páginas incluyendo bibliografía y notas al pie, en letra Times New Roman tamaño 12, con interlineado sencillo. Cada ponencia deberá incluir una presentación del proyecto de tesis y su estructura básica, con indicación de directores/as y equipo o grupo de trabajo, fuentes y archivos utilizados, y objetivos principales de la investigación. 

Los envíos deberán dirigirse a las coordinadoras:

Andrea Andújar: andreaandujar@gmail.com

Victoria Basualdo: basuvic@yahoo.com.ar

 

11 June 2023, 16.00 h

Zoom link: https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/65814624437

 

In 1920, a second communist party was founded in Germany alongside the well-known KPD: The Communist Workers’ Party of Germany (Kommunistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, KAPD), which was almost as large as its counterpart. The KAPD considered itself as a marxist and internationalist party and relied on councils as the central means for and after the proletarian revolution. This strong German left communist movement emerged primarily from the development of the KPD in the early 1920s: For the KPD, the bolshevik system became the model for the revolution in Western Europe, while the KAPD rejected the growing authoritarianism of the Soviet Union. The left communism of the 1920s, however, had its roots in earlier times: By reflecting on the power of workers at their workplace, it developed a theory of revolution that focused the masses – and not the revolutionary party. And even after the KAPD’s decline in the mid-1920s, some of its members continued left communism politics. Through the biographies of four members of the KAPD, I examine the roots, conditions, and further consequences of their political activities beyond the 1920s.

Rhena Stürmer, M.A., born in 1989, studied history, cultural studies and cultural history at the Free University of Berlin and the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and has been working on her doctorate at the Viadrina since 2018 on the topic „Weimar Left Communists between Party and Social Movement. A cultural-historical Collective Biography“(supervisor: Prof. Werner Benecke). 2018 to 2022, she was a fellow of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and since October 2022 she is a research assistant at the Chair of 19th-21st Century History (Prof. Dirk van Laak) at the Leipzig University.

Recent publication: Political Education Work in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. Change and continuity in the educational understanding of the left communist educator Dr. Karl Schröder [in German], in: Andreas Braune/Sebastian Elsbach/Ronny Noak (eds.), Bildung und Demokratie in der Weimarer Republik,. Series „Weimarer Schriften zur Republik“, vol. 19, Stuttgart 2022, pp. 273-288.

 

Giovedì 11 maggio, alle ore 18 presso il Polo del '900 (Corso Valdocco 4/A, Sala Conferenze) la Fondazione Nocentini partecipa all’organizzazione della presentazione del libro Traditori. Come fango e depistaggio hanno segnato la storia italiana (2023, Solferino Libri) di Paolo Borrometi, a cura di Fondazione Polo del ‘900, in collaborazione con l’Ordine dei Giornalisti del Piemonte.

Insieme all'autore dialogano Carlo Bartoli, Marcella Filippa, Alberto Sinigaglia, Stefano Tallia

 

Scopri di più

 

Cerimonia di scoprimento della targa a ricordo dei
"Giusti tra le Nazioni"

 

Venerdì 12 maggio alle ore 12 presso il giardino Francesca Laura Morvillo (compreso tra Via Ricaldone e Via Tripoli int. 10) viene scoperta la targa a memoria dei Giusti tra le Nazioni, i cittadini di origine non ebraica che sono ricordati per le loro azioni eroiche a difesa della dignità umana e dell'onore delle comunità ebraiche durante la Shoah, opponendosi ai regimi fascisti.

Francesca Laura Morvillo è stata vittima, insieme al marito Giovanni Falcone e alcune persone della scorta, nell'attentato di Capaci.
 

 

 

Liebe Leserinnen und Leser

 

 

 

 

 

 

Am 10. Mai 1933 wurden in Deutschland im Rahmen der sog. «Aktion wider den undeutschen Geist» Bücher vor allem jüdischer und linker Autoren und Autorinnen verbrannt. Um daran zu erinnern, wird in den nächsten Tagen bundesweit «gegen das Vergessen» gelesen. Auch wir beteiligen uns daran, unter anderem mit einer Lesung in Kooperation mit der Bundestagsfraktion DIE LINKE am Berliner Bebelplatz. Eine interaktive Karte zu den vielen Orten der nationalsozialistischen Bücherverbrennungen gibt es online.
Zudem möchten wir gerne schon jetzt auf ein Symposium aufmerksam machen, in dem am 14. Juni 175 Jahre nach 1848 unter anderem gefragt wird, welchen Ort Revolutionen in der Demokratiegeschichte haben (sollten).

Viel Spaß beim Stöbern in den Ankündigungen und Angeboten in dieser Ausgabe unseres Newsletters wünscht das

Team rls_history

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medien

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mythen und Fakten zur Entstehung der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft 1948/49

Hartnäckig hält sich die Vorstellung, dass die «Soziale Marktwirtschaft» ein wohltätiges Geschenk zu Beginn der Bundesrepublik war. Sie ist aber Ergebnis heftiger gesellschaftlicher Kämpfe, bei denen vor mehr als 75 Jahren Millionen von Menschen auf die Straße gingen (zum Zeitstrahl).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Der Osten kann keine Demokratie?

Mandy Tröger untersucht, wie nach 1989/90 der Medienaufbruch «von unten» ausgebremst wurde. Bis heute ist der ostdeutsche Pressemarkt fest in der Hand westdeutscher VerlegerInnen.

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Westlicher Marxismus

Perry Andersons Buch schlug nach seinem ersten Erscheinen 1987 hohe Wellen. Lange vergriffen, ist es nun im Karl Dietz Verlag als aktualisierte Neuausgabe wieder lieferbar.

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ManyPod zu den Schweizer «Secondos»

Die neue Folge behandelt mit Paola De Martin traumatische Geschichten langjähriger struktureller Gewalt an (illegalisierten) Arbeitsmigrant*innen in der Schweiz.

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feministische Wohnutopien

Entwürfe eines besseren Zusammenlebens: Der Band knüpft an das Erbe un/verwirklichter Wohnutopien der sowjetischen 1920er, des Roten Wiens und der Kommunen der 1960er Jahre an.

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 Jahre nach dem US-Angriff auf den Irak

Am 1. Mai 2003 verkündete George W. Bush vollmundig: «Mission accomplished». Miriam Younes beleuchtet damalige und heutige Sichtweisen auf und aus dem Irak.

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zum Friedensprozess in Nordirland

Vor 25 Jahren begründete das Karfreitagsabkommen in Nordirland einen kalten Frieden und war – trotz aller Mängel – Teil einer Erfolgsgeschichte, so Florian Weis.

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eine Übersicht über die letzten Neuerwerbungen der Bibliothek findet sich hier.

 

 

 

Online-Katalog unserer Bibliothek: library.rosalux.de
Findbücher unseres Archivs: www.rosalux.de/stiftung/historisches-zentrum/archiv/bestaende-findbuecher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Veranstaltungen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

08

 

Berlin / Livestream , 08.05.2023   |  19:00   |   Diskussion/Vortrag
Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestr. 125

 

Anita Prestes über Olga Benario Prestes

 

Eine biografische Annäherung

 

Im Gespräch mit Caroline Kim von der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung wird die brasilianische Historikerin Anita Leocádia Prestes den politischen Kampf ihrer Mutter Olga Benario Prestes beschreiben.
Mit Livestream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10

 

Berlin , 10.05.2023   |   Lesung/Gespräch
Bebelplatz, Unter den Linden 9

 

Lesen gegen das Vergessen

 

Zur Erinnerung an die Bücherverbrennungen vor 90 Jahren

 

#GegenDasVergessen. Anlässlich der Bücherverbrennung vor 90 Jahren wird am 10. Mai am Berliner Bebelplatz erneut gelesen - und u.a. daran erinnert, dass auch nach 1933 noch Bücher verbrannt wurden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12

 

Tübingen , 12.05.2023   |   Lesung/Gespräch
Club Voltaire, Haaggasse 26b

 

Kämpfen, wo das Leben ist

 

Eine Theaterperformance

 

«Seien Sie gespannt, wenn Clara Zetkin Sie mitnimmt in eine Welt, als Frauen noch nicht wählen durften, als Gefahr und Revolution in der Luft lagen und dennoch mutige Frauen entschlossen ihren eigenen Weg gingen.»

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15

 

Köln , 15.05.2023   |  19:30   |   Diskussion/Vortrag
Friedensbildungswerk, Obenmarspforten 7-11

 

30 Jahre nach dem Brandanschlag in Solingen

 

Mit Gamze Kubaşık und Edith Lunnebach

 

Efsun Kizilay spricht mit den beiden Gästen über mangelnden staatlichen Aufklärungswillen, Wege der Aufarbeitung neofaschistischer Anschläge und die Bedeutung von Erinnerungskultur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17

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07

 

Ilmenau , 17.05. - 07.06.2023   |   Ausstellung/Kultur
Volshochschule, Bahnhofstraße 6

 

Karl Korsch und die Erneuerung des Marxismus

 

Ausstellung

 

Die Ausstellung zum undogmatischen Marxisten Korsch (1886-1961), dessen Wirkungsfeld auch lebensgeschichtlich eng mit Thüringen verknüpft war, ist nun in Ilmenau zu sehen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26

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29

 

Frankfurt/Main , 26.05. - 29.05.2023   |   Tagung/Konferenz

 

Unhaltbare Zustände

 

Zweite Marxistische Arbeitswoche

 

Anlässlich seines 100-jährigen Bestehens lädt das Institut für Sozialforschung zur Zweiten Marxistischen Arbeitswoche ein. Sie soll in Vorträgen und Workshops eines der Themen der Ersten Arbeitswoche, die «Behandlungsarten des gegenwärtigen Krisenproblems», aktualisierend aufnehmen – mit Unterstützung u.a. der RLS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13

 

Saarbrücken , 13.06.2023   |  18:00
Altes Rathaus, Am Schlossplatz 2

 

Generalstreik an der Saar 1919

 

Das Saarland als Montanland

 

Zusammen mit der Volkshochschule Saarbrücken wird eine Reihe zu industrie- und sozialpolitischen Themen gestartet. Im Vortrag geht es um Ursachen, Umstände und Auswirkungen des ersten Generalstreiks an der Saar im Jahr 1919.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weitere Veranstaltungen in Ihrer Nähe finden Sie in unserem Veranstaltungskalender: www.rosalux.de/themen/geschichte/veranstaltungen

Audioaufzeichnungen zu Geschichtsthemen finden Sie in unserer Soundcloud-Playlist: soundcloud.com/rosaluxstiftung/sets/history

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weitere Hinweise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 Jahre nach Solingen

Der Band thematisiert Rassismus, extrem rechte Gewalt und ebenso die Narben einer vernachlässigten Aufarbeitung des rassistischen Brandanschlags in Solingen 1993. Auch Open Access.

 

           

La Fondazione Gramsci Emilia-Romagna presenta il seminario metodologico Le fonti biografiche e autobiografiche indirizzato prevalentemente a studenti e studentesse della Laurea magistrale in Scienze storiche.

Si tratta di 4 incontri dal 9 al 18 maggio 2023 sempre alle ore 18.00 nella Biblioteca della Fondazione Gramsci Emilia-Romagna (Via Mentana, 2)

Il seminario sarà dedicato all’approfondimento metodologico sull’uso dei diversi tipi di fonti biografiche e autobiografiche per la ricostruzione storiografica. Ciascun incontro prevede la presentazione, da parte dei relatori, di fonti primarie originali tratte dagli archivi della Fondazione Gramsci Emilia-Romagna, tutte legate alla ricostruzione biografica e autobiografica di figure note e meno note del Novecento: documenti cartacei, audiovisivi, fonti iconografiche, interviste registrate.

I partecipanti saranno messi in diretto contatto con fonti variegate che potranno toccare, confrontare e interpretare sotto la guida di specialisti di differenti discipline, sperimentando dunque al termine del seminario una pluralità di punti di vista e di approcci alle fonti storiche.

Il seminario rientra all’interno della rassegna  Quante storie nella Storia 2023. Settimana della didattica e dell’educazione al patrimonio in archivio del Settore Patrimonio culturale della Regione Emilia-Romagna.

 

 

La partecipazione è a numero chiuso. Iscriviti qui. (Ti contatteremo via mail per confermare l’iscrizione).

 

Il calendario

Martedì 9 maggio 2023 – ore 18

Paolo Capuzzo | Università di Bologna

Introduzione al seminario e focus sulle autobiografie dei militanti comunisti

 

Giovedì 11 maggio 2023 – ore 18

Salvatore Alongi | Archivio di Stato di Venezia

Le fonti biografiche e autobiografiche in archivio

 

Martedì 16 maggio 2023 – ore 18

Caterina di Pasquale | Università di Pisa

La memoria e le fonti del sé: uno sguardo antropologico

 

Giovedì 18 maggio 2023 – ore 18

Riccardo Stracuzzi | Università di Bologna

Le fonti letterarie e la ricostruzione storica

Call for contributions for a book

Strikes in the twenty-first century: Revisiting old theories, exploring new research avenues

Edited by Agnes Akkerman (University of Amsterdam, AIAS), Bernd Brandl (Durham University), Alex Lehr (Radboud University) and Kurt Vandaele (ETUI, Brussels)

 

(See PDF attached)

 

Call for Abstracts

 

The Cost of Life

Oppression, Exploitation and Struggle in the Time of Monsters

 

9–12 November 2023,

SOAS, Russell Square, Central London

Deadline for abstracts: Monday 12 June 2023

 

 

Whether the discussion is about reforming pension systems, overhauling health care or the sources of inflation, we are constantly reminded that life has a cost, a price to pay, a burden to bear. At the same time, we are also periodically reminded that not all lives are valued or priced in the same manner; some lives are cheaper and more expendable than others: from over-work and deteriorating living conditions for billions of ‘essential workers’ to police violence and incarceration; from sexual abuse and the denial of bodily autonomy to the socially determined vulnerability and ‘susceptibility’ during the pandemic; from the persistence of racialised exploitation and oppression to the many faces of neocolonialism; from militarised borders turned into kill zones to the ongoing climate disaster.

But there is also the struggle of life (and the struggle for a decent life). As the impressive UK strike wave, the French insurrection against Macron’s aggressive neoliberalism, mass protests in Greece, farmers’ strikes in India, the new wave of struggles in the Americas, and the continuous youth rebellion against a future of extinction show us, there is a multitude of resistances to exploitation, racism, systemic violence and ecological degradation;  resistances that are facing the increasingly authoritarian mutation of contemporary capitalist states trying to cope with the hegemonic crisis of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’.

These recent struggles pose important practical and theoretical questions. How can we articulate a reading of the conjuncture that can bring forward the common thread running through all these attacks on life, the common thread of capitalist social-property relations in their articulation with patriarchy, racialisation and imperialism? How can we bring together the collective aspirations, demands and desires in a manner that leads to a coherent strategy for emancipation? What can we learn from these struggles and how can we treat them as experimental terrains for new political practices? And how can critical Marxist theory, in all its necessary and welcome polyphony, contribute to such an endeavour, bridging the gap between radical theory and collective praxis? These are some of the questions we want to be discussed at the twentieth annual Historical Materialism Conference.

We still believe that this particular format of the in-person conference offers a unique and irreplaceable form that brings together comrades, enables discussion, helps the dissemination of new and original research, creates research networks and communities, and builds solidarity. This is why we will not accept online presentations, except in very rare and specific cases. We would also note that we do engage in online broadcasts and podcasts all year round for such sessions.

As in the past, the conference ethos is strictly egalitarian. This means everyone is invited to contribute in a comradely spirit, the conference is open to all currents of critical Marxist theory and we expect all presenters to attend the entire conference, not just their own session (with no ‘cameo appearances’). We also expect all speakers to make themselves available for the whole period of the conference for their sessions (with only completely immutable circumstances constituting exceptions), as tailoring a conference of this size around individuals’ preferences and desires is not feasible or desirable. The conference is an important part of the broader Historical Materialism project – including the journal, the book series, and the global network of HM conferences – and we want to encourage all conference participants to get involved with these different elements, for example by subscribing to the journal and submitting their conference paper to us for consideration.

In line with the central theme of this year’s conference, we particularly want to invite contributions on the following non-exclusive questions:

·         Marxist perspectives on the capitalist economic conjuncture and the signs of an emerging crisis;

·         Contemporary imperialism, the shift towards a more divided and polarised world, and all these fuelling war;

·         The tendency towards hegemonic crises in advanced capitalist formations;

·         Racism and processes of racialisation.

·         The new wave of struggles and their strategic significance;

·         The social conditioning of pandemic and health threats and the social production of vulnerability;

·         Authoritarianism and restrictions over the conditions of life;

·         Ecology, the ongoing climate disaster and the movements against extinction;

·         The new and old forms of collective politics emerging within struggles and how they might help or hinder the renewal of radical politics.

Whilst we encourage papers and panels that address these themes, as always, the Historical Materialism conference seeks to provide a space for critical Marxist theory and research across the globe and a range of disciplines and interests, so submissions on other themes are welcome.

The following streams will each be issuing individual CFPs:

·         Workers’ Inquiry Stream

·         Marxist Feminist Stream

·         Sexuality and Political Economy Stream

·         Race and Capital Stream

·         Culture Stream

·         Marxism and Technology Stream

·         Ecology and Climate Change Stream

Individual proposals for papers and panels must include: i) Names of participants with e-mails and institutional affiliations. Where there is more than one participant, we require a clear indication of a corresponding author. ii) Title and abstract of the paper or panel. In the case of a paper, please submit an abstract of no longer than 300 words. In the case of a panel, please submit an overarching description of 300 words, names and details of each participant and abstracts for individual papers.

The deadline for submissions is Monday 12 June 2023. Partial submissions may be rejected.

To submit a paper or panel proposal visit:

https://conference.historicalmaterialism.org/e/hm2023

For all enquiries, please contact: info@historicalmaterialism.org

Annual Conference of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI)

Brussels, Belgium, 23th-24th November 2023.

In the framework of the 50th anniversary (1973-2023) of the creation of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the ETUI (European Trade Union Institute) has launched a history project in 2022 and 2023. To carry out this task the ETUI is promoting a series of activities related to the history and memory of European trade unionism. One of the major aims is to profit from this anniversary to enhance the public knowledge about the history and memory of the ETUC with the creation of a network of researchers working in these topics. To that aim, the ETUI and the European Labor History Network (ELHN)-Working Group on history of European trade unionism are bringing together in a regular manner those scholars from various disciplines who are currently researching about the distant or recent history of European trade unionism in the context of European integration.

We would like, therefore, to invite scholars who would like to contribute to this project with papers derived from their past or present research on this topic. We would like to receive abstracts in English (500 words) for papers (5,000- 8,000 words) which would deal in any aspect of the history of the European Trade Union Confederation. We particularly encourage submissions which deal with the action of the ETUC in the context of European integration, but also papers focusing on ETUC’s members (national federations or industry federations) in their relationship to the ETUC.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is until 30th May 2023. You will receive an answer as soon as possible after your submission and an invitation to present (in presential or on-line depending on your choice) a first draft paper at the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels. Based on these first versions of the papers, we will be able to organize the panels, suggest potential changes, and decide whether we had a complementary set of papers for a potential publication in this framework. The acceptance of these papers would depend on the scientific originality of the papers and their capacity to unveil novel aspects or periods of the history of the ETUC.

For specific questions about the project or the conference you can contact the two coordinators of this ETUI project. In case of need, the ETUI can contribute to the expenses associated with your participation in the panels dedicated to this project.

Claude Roccati (Historical research coordinator of the ETUC 50th Anniversary, European Labor History Network (ELHN)- Working Group History of European Trade Unionism) claude.roccati@orange.fr

Christophe Degryse (Internal coordinator of the ETUC 50th Anniversary, European Trade Union Institute) CDegryse@etui.org

This is a call for abstracts for the Military Labour History Working Group panels at the ELHN Conference, to be held at Uppsala University, Sweden, 11-13 June 2024. See the following link for further information on the conference: https://socialhistoryportal.org/elhn/conference-2024. This will be a hybrid event.

Please send 300-word abstracts to the MLHWG coordinators by 31 July 2023. We will advise you of the outcome by the end of August.

At the ELHN 2024 Conference, the Military Labour History Working Group will have the following panel sessions:

• Visual sources, material artefacts and military labour – how do we tell stories about military labour history with visual sources and artefacts, and what might they tell us that other text-based sources cannot?
• Military labour in the early modern era – c. 1400-1800.
• Recruiting military labour - for example, conscription, recruitment marketing campaigns, coercion.
• Gendering military labour - for example, gendered division(s) of military labour.

Please send the following information to the WG coordinators:

1. Your name and any institutional affiliation
2. The name of the panel for which you are nominating your paper.
3. The title of your presentation.
4. An abstract of 300 words.
5. Whether you intend to present in person or online.
6. A short bio of up to 200 words and, optionally, a web or ORCID link.

Send your queries and abstracts to the Working Group Coordinators at militarylabourhistory@gmail.com by 31 July 2023.

Regards,

Olli Siitonen, Jeongmin Kim, Alexandros Touloumtzidis and Christine de Matos

The next issue of Archiv of Sozialgeschichte will pertain to the history of migration, a research field that has fundamentally changed in recent years. Its struggle for recognition was initially marked by the need to emphasise the potential ‘achievements’ of migrants and migrant receiving countries. It evolved into an area of research rich in different methodological debates and epochal approaches. The issue aims to consider current research trends and invites contributors from different (social-) historical disciplines to reflect on the future of the history of migration, both empirically and theoretically. The issue focuses on the time from the 18th century onwards, without excluding contributions on earlier periods.

Migration systems

The term migration system, which in our understanding implies no more than stable connections between (world) regions through mobility over the course of long periods of time, has long been established in research. Since the 15th century the movement of Europeans to the Americas and to colonies in other regions of the world has formed a pattern well into the 1950s. Likewise, the centuries-long deportation of Africans to Latin America and the South of the (later) USA until the second half of the 19th century referred to as the ‘Black Atlantic’ describes a similar process. Systems of migration do not only apply to the voluntary movement of migrants. Rather, it would be desirable to include indenture and contract labor (peonage) relationships, which have been the focus of much recent research and which affect numerous migrants from Asia. The nature of these relationships, which was de jure but not always de facto limited in time, alludes to the temporary dimension of migration, which is not necessarily permanent. We are interested in return migration movements as well as seasonal patterns, regardless of whether they were controlled by harvest cycles or residence regulations, the importance of which is obvious, for example, for care workers from Eastern Europe working in Germany. On the one hand, the search for patterns requires the inclusion of the demo-economic situation in the regions of origin and the differently organised labour market in the target regions. This puts emphasis on the state as an important steering body that must be taken into account, without migration policy being the primary interest of the volume. On the other hand, it is important to take into account the actors who organise the movement between the region of origin and the target region, formally or informally, legally, semi-legally or illegally. Only by bringing both sides together will we be able to understand, for example, the long-term and stable recruitment of care workers from the South East Asian island countries to work in Europe and North America.

Routes, means of transportation, networks

The actors mentioned above consequently raise the questions of the means of transportation available to migrants, the routes they used and the networks they were supported by or remained trapped in. Footpaths are still important today (and the knowledge about them is a key to illegal border crossing), but shipping, rail and air links have fundamentally changed the infrastructure of migration. Ports, railway stations and airports have become central relay stations that do not only serve as interfaces between different sections of migration but also often block the latter because epidemic regulations enforce quarantines or entail forced accommodation in sometimes extraterritorial shelters under asylum law. The volume particularly addresses this tension between mobility and immobility, emphasising that regions of origin and target regions are not clear-cut starting and ending points of migration, which in some cases– such as migrant labour – remained closely linked.

Experiences, knowledge and conflicts

Above all, on arrival it is often uncertain whether a place – usually a city – will or even should become the final destination. Timeframes, largely determined by the potential wish to return, also shape migrants’ strategies. It is no coincidence that they often try to find employment in trade and gastronomy. Such strategies need to be examined more systematically, also taking the importance of ethnic or religious networks into account. Last but not least, we are interested in these participation rights, including the right to vote, are claimed and when, and what reactions can be observed in the majority society. Local workers have often denied migrants participation in the labour market – a constant challenge for trade union organisations, especially as employers have often used ethnically or racially discriminated groups as strike breakers. In addition to the labour market, the housing market is particularly prone to conflict, but occasionally also showing that migration does not invariably equate to poverty. The Russians who have fled to Georgia are sometimes viewed with suspicion because their above-average professional qualifications enable them to pay very high rents. While the volume will not be able to systematically analyse all of these fields of conflict, we do hope for conceptual and empirically rich contributions.

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation will host a conference, expected to take place in October 2023, to discuss ideas, themes and questions for contributions on the subject of AfS 64 as outlined above. We invite scholars to submit proposals of no more than 3,000 characters by 5 June 2023. Abstracts, conference papers and subsequent contributions may be submitted in German or English. Subsequently, the editors of the Archiv für Sozialgeschichte will select contributions, which should be approximately 60,000 characters (including footnotes). The submission deadline for contributions is 31 January 2024.

The Archiv für Sozialgeschichte is edited by Claudia Gatzka, Kirsten Heinsohn, Thomas Kroll, Anja Kruke, Philipp Kufferath (managing director), Friedrich Lenger, Ute Planert, Dietmar Süß and Meik Woyke.

For further information and all articles in open access up to 2021, see: https://www.fes.de/afs/

Mining mobility and knowledge circulation have played a pivotal role in extractive industries worldwide. The movement of workers, technologies, and knowledge has been mediated by state authorities, corporations, and subcontractors through alluring and forced forms of recruitment. Alongside these trajectories, men and women from neighbouring and distant territories moved to newly reopened mines to search for new deposits and improve their social and economic conditions.

When following mediated and non-mediated trajectories, workers produced new techniques and used various systems of knowledge about nature and the environment which were often adopted and/or expropriated from local and Indigenous experts. This renewed attention on mobility and circulation has shed new light on the importance of global history in the study of mining activities. At the same time, a micro-historical approach -which focuses on moving actors and the techniques employed in multiple places - provides new and cross-disciplinary avenues of research on the complex world of mining.

In recent decades, the growing demand for renewable energy has renewed attention to the study of mobility and knowledge circulation in contemporary and past societies across the world. By situating present issues in longer historical trajectories, the history of mining mobilities is a promising field for interdisciplinary inquiry that seeks to offer new analytical tools to deal with our present. This panel aims to start this conversation by bringing together ECRs and scholars from various disciplines such as history, anthropology, archeology, sociology, geography and science and technology studies with a particular focus on the period spanning from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to): the forced and non-mediated recruitment of labourers across mining regions; the relationship between labour networks and subcontracting; the gendered dimension of knowledge production in mining activities; the role of Indigenous knowledge in the development of mining capitalism. In general, priority will be given to submissions that intertwine analysis of mobility and knowledge circulation with examinations of the socio-economic impacts on communities and labour conditions. 

We invite colleagues working on mining mobilities from various regions in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas and different time periods to submit abstracts that addresses one or more of the following themes:

● Forced/voluntary im/mobilities
● Technology and knowledge circulation
● Mobility networks
● Anthropology of mobility
● Labour and community buildings
● Indigenous and local knowledge
● Skilled artisans, technicians, and engineers

The Labour in Mining (LiM) Working Group is a cross-disciplinary network of ECRs and scholars that aims to explore the historical understanding of extractive activities from a long-term perspective. This panel will provide an opportunity to colleagues to discuss their research in an engaging, inclusive, and respectful environment. Interested scholars are invited to submit a 400-words abstract and a brief biography (max 250 words) before May 31st 2023. Please send the abstract to labourinmining@gmail.com with the title “Mining Mobility_ELHN2024_Proposal”. Abstracts will be reviewed by the panel organisers and successful applicants will be notified by the end of June 2023.

If you need any further information, please write to labourinmining@gmail.com.

Location
The 5th Conference of the European Labour History Network (ELHN) will take place in Uppsala (11-13 June
2024).

Coordinators
Francesca Sanna (University of Reims)
Gabriele Marcon (Durham University)
José Joaquin Garcia Gomez (University of Almeria)

2023 PhD Global History of Empires Conference

 

Overview

The revitalisation of colonial and imperial studies has arguably been one of the most interesting outcomes of the rise of global and transnational historical frameworks. From new discussions about European empires in the Americas to Afro-Asian anti-colonial collaboration, it seems that scholars are more interested than ever in imperial formations, their infrastructures, and the lives of the people ruled by them (as well as the lives of those who ruled). The breadth of such topics calls for an ongoing engagement, as comparisons and discussion among experts of different geographical areas and time-frames help strengthen a more global understanding of each individual case.

The need to create more varied platforms for engagement and discussion is the main drive behind this conference organised by the participants in the Global History of Empires PhD program at the University of Turin. We want to bring together doctoral students and early career scholars from a very diverse range of geographical areas, historical periods and methodologies. Diversity is not just an academic whim, it is a necessary step to ensure that our discussions show the complexity of theory and practices of empire without recurring to the usual worn-out tropes. A more varied base will also enable us to make better use of comparisons and highlight lesser-known case studies.

Themes

This hybrid conference aims at bringing together diverse contributions to jointly reflect on empires from theoretical and empirical perspectives. First, we are interested in addressing questions regarding what qualifies a political entity into an empire, trying to approximate a wider working definition of it. A central matter is the real or perceived “otherness” between rulers and ruled, and this constitutive difference might enter into working definitions of empire. What does government mean in different spatio-temporal frameworks? How does the constitutive difference of imperial settings play a role in supporting or resisting governmental practices?

Second, we want to integrate theoretical contributions with empirical ones. Therefore, we welcome proposals dealing with concrete case studies of practices of governance of the political, economic and social lives of empires. In this way, it will be possible to unpack theory with empirical case studies. Indeed, the role of individuals in the construction and governance of empires is central. In which ways individuals did contribute to the functioning of empires? Are they mere objects of governance or can individuals be considered as the main “agents of empire”, being the subjects which create empires with their everyday actions?

Since this is a student-led initiative 'we recommend you apply for travel funding to your respective departments.* For those who will be able to travel to Turin, accommodation in student residences and meals will be provided. We also offer the chance to present your papers and to participate online.

Some recommended topics:

- Imperial legacies and compensations.
- Empires, environment and capitalism.
- Empires and nation-states: the revival of supranational polities and the crisis of national sovereignty.
- Empires and human taxonomy: migration and population control.
- Gendering Empires: tracing the evolution of masculinity and femininity across imperial borders.
- Imperial formations and trans-imperial comparison: recuperate the histories of other empires beyond the West.

To apply, please email a 300 words abstract and an academic CV to ghempires.conf@gmail.com. Participants would be expected to submit a working paper (max. 5000 words) around August in order to facilitate discussion. Each participant will have 20 min. for their presentation followed by a comment and a general discussion. Since this is a student-led initiative we recommend you apply for travel funding to your respective departments. For those who will be able to travel to Turin, accommodation in student residences and meals will be provided. We also offer the chance to present your papers and to participate online.

Contact (announcement)

ghempires.conf@gmail.com

Proposals for essays in English and Russian (c. 8000-10000 words) are welcome on the topic of Buryat national intelligentsia in the Russian imperial and early Soviet periods (mid-19th century to the late 1930s).

This edited volume, Buddhists, Marxists, and Nationalists: Buryat-Mongol Intellectuals in History, will examine the role of Buryat leading intellectuals. In particular, the editors are seeking studies of individual Buryats who were political, cultural, and/or religious leaders in the late Russian Empire and early Soviet Union. This period was unique as Buryat intellectuals offered diverse, and sometimes competing, visions for the future of their society and lands. By intellectuals, we understand not only those Buryats who were educated in Russian and later Soviet schools, but also those educated in religious institutions, as well as self-educated individuals. We are not necessarily seeking biographic papers. The essays may be focused on specific cases centered around moments/events/work/ideas in the lives of Buryat intellectuals that give insights into the nature of relationships within certain communities and/or with the Russian or Qing imperial states, Soviet Union, theocratic Tibet, and/or Mongolia.

The book aims to touch upon the following topics:

- Buryat intellectuals in the exchange of knowledge between Europe and Asia;
- Buryats’ contribution to the critique of Russian imperialism and colonialism;
- Belonging to intersecting networks of imperial scholars and indigenous literati
- Buryat anti-colonial and national narratives
- National political activism of the Buryat intelligentsia
- Buryat versions of Buddhist modernism
- Buryat contributions to Soviet nationalities policies

Accepted chapters will be due on December 15, 2023.

Interested contributors should send a 300-500 word abstract and a short bio by May 15, 2023 to Melissa Chakars mchakars@sju.edu

 

 

The American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark proudly exhibits The Still Family Saga:  Seeking Freedom by Mark Priest from Monday, May 1st through Saturday, August 19th, 2023.  The general public is cordially invited to attend the Museum’s Annual May Day Festival, also on May 1st, 2023 and beginning at 7PM.

      Mark Priest's exhibition focuses on the Underground Railroad. William Still, well-known abolitionist and writer of firsthand narratives of freedom seekers, was in his office writing the account of a man named Peter.  This man purchased his freedom after enduring 49 years as a slave.  As he told his story, William Still realized, to his amazement, that they were brothers. This body of work contains drawings and paintings that depict the arduous journey to freedom for Peter Still and his family.

In one exhibited painting entitled Sydney's Choice, an enslaved woman named Sydney Still is depicted.  She was forced by the owner of Edmonson's Reserve to escape to freedom.  She had to choose between saving from enslavement either her two young sons or her two little daughters.

Mark Priest is a narrative painter and draughtsman who has developed multiple series of bold, vivid, and dramatic works of art. He has exhibited widely and currently teaches fine art at the University of Louisville.  Learn more about Mark Priest’s art work by visiting:  https://markapriest.org.   

     This program is made possible in part by a grant administered by the Passaic County Cultural and Heritage Council from funds granted by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

      The Botto House National Landmark, headquarters of the American Labor Museum, is located at 83 Norwood Street in Haledon, NJ.  It was the meeting place for over 20,000 silk mill workers during the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike.  The Museum offers a free lending library, restored period rooms, changing exhibits, museum store, Old World Gardens, educational programs and special events.  The Museum's hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 9AM-5PM.  Visitors are welcome Wednesday through Saturday from 1PM-4PM and at other times by appointment.  For further information about the Museum, visit www.labormuseum.net.

 

The lives of the citizens of the Soviet bloc countries were largely determined by imposed isolation from the rapidly modernising democratic Western world and radical restrictions on the free circulation of cultural goods and other commodities, as well as foreign travel. This was motivated, above all, by the ideological, economic and cultural divide symbolised by the Iron Curtain and the fear on the part of the communist authorities that the escalation of differences between their countries could compromise the unity of the entire Soviet empire.

No wonder that in contrast to the title of a lecture given by the Romanian writer Mihail Sadoveanu in 1945 – The Light Comes from the East – which predicted Soviet political dominance in Eastern Europe, in the decades of the Cold War many citizens felt that the light came rather from the West. One way of fulfilling this desire was migration, motivated first of all by the repressive nature of communist dictatorships, political or religious discrimination and economic hardship. In addition to the very many individual cases of migration, the Cold War was also marked by several major migration waves, such as the ones following the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the Prague Spring of 1968 or the Polish migration in the 1980s in the aftermath of martial law.

The actors and institutions of Western diasporas and émigré milieus played a major role in reducing the isolation of the Soviet bloc, to some extent ensuring the cross-border flow of information, knowledge and some cultural products between East and West, while also representing citizens who suffered discrimination in their home countries, amplifying the voices of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and keeping Eastern regimes under political pressure. At the same time, the communist authorities sought to extend their control and influence beyond the Iron Curtain, with the intention of weakening the role of émigré actors and institutions.

The aim of the planned conference is to revisit the broadly defined politics of migration in the light of new archival materials and considering recent research approaches, with a particular focus on the following issues:

• foreign travel and passport policies of the communist regimes (social conditioning of outward mobility [mobility of elite groups and intellectuals vs. immobility of the masses]; legal migration and the criminalisation of migration; migration as a political weapon, etc.);
• influencing and diversifying diaspora and émigré actors and institutions by socialist countries (undercover agents, state security operations, diplomacy, etc.);
• politicisation and political power of Western diasporas and émigré circles (émigré political actors and institutions and their role; the impact of new migrants on Western diasporas; tensions and cooperation between East-European diasporas in the West; networks between dissidents and Western émigré milieus; human rights discourses, actions and their impact on various political levels);
• the problem of migration in Eastern-Western relations (tensions, ideological wars, common interests; interstate relations and treaties; policy on migration of specific nationalities; political aspects of economic migration and unofficial commercial exchange in the Soviet bloc, etc.);
• comparative and transnational approaches (comparative analysis of the diasporas, émigré groups or policies of socialist countries; transnational case studies on cross-border political cooperation and exchanges).

Date: 10–12 October 2023
Venue: Romanian Academy Library, Bucharest, Romania
Deadline for sending proposals: 31 May 2023

The title and abstract of your paper of maximum 300 words accompanied by a short bio (also of maximum 300 words, including your current affiliation), should be sent to secretariat@totalitarism.ro by 31 May 2023.

There is no conference fee.
The organisers are planning to publish the papers delivered at the conference.

Organisers:
• European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS, Warsaw)
• National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism (NIST, Bucharest)
• National University of Political Studies and Public Administration/College of Communication and Public Relations (NUPSPA, Bucharest)

 

Coordinator: Konrad Bielecki
E-mail: secretariat@totalitarism.ro, konrad.bielecki@enrs.eu

Marxism & Sciences: A Symposium of Nature, Culture, Human and Society

September 14-17

2023

MARXISM IN THE AGE OF THE TOTAL CRISIS

BİLİMLER KÖYÜ (Village of Sciences) Foça, İzmir, Turkey

Announcement: 24 February 2023
Deadline: 15 June 2023 

It is said that we live in an era of total crisis. Not only on a cultural, but social, economic, ecological level the term  seems ubiquitously used with ever more urgency and on a global scale. In this respect the term crisis today seems to replace the concept of history as a concrete generality in a generic singular form of multi-temporalities. The anamnesis of crisis also pertains to the sciences and the ideal of science in exactly the general sense of a plural unity which encompasses all kinds of organized attempts of knowledge making. If the institutions of knowledge production and mediation are in a crisis the consequences of the deep ruptures in collective praxis become graspable. A Marxist approach cannot remain just negative as a mere critique in face of the commodification of knowledge and manipulation of feelings and consciousness. Rather, the task is to seize the means of production even on the level of mental labour and iconic engineering. In this way the possibilities of a common use and a social orientation of the sciences, technology and all kinds of collective praxis can be opened up beyond extractivist exploitation and for the common good.

In a wider sense, the term “crisis” signifies a situation that is simultaneously indeterminate as much as it is over determinate. Looked at negatively, and in the light of the not-yet-over pandemic, local conflicts and confrontations, from the proxy war in Syria to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which carries the potential of transmuting into a full-scale global confrontation, food crisis, global economic stagnation, and environmental catastrophes, that crisis appears as a threat that may completely wipe out civilization and (human) life of the planet. However, true to the etymological roots of the term, a crisis also signifies possibilities of anticipating and building a radically different future from within the existing uncertainties.

That ongoing crisis seems to be a multifaceted totality; the  multitude of crises humanity experiences are forms of existence of the crisisridden essence of capitalism. Capitalism seems to be a factor of the crisis on different levels.

The global economic stagnation, “negative economic growth”, the rise of poverty and the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor on worldwide scale and high inflation, which allegedly has been caused by the pandemic evidence the fragility of the capitalist economy that follows its contradictory inner structure.

At the political sphere, we  witness the erosion of the state and political institutions, which is manifest in the rise of ultra-rightwing movements, the undermining of the law and constitution by those in power, and the subordination of the will of the state to that of the so-called “leading elites” and “charismatic leaders”. Hence, the transubstantiation of the state from the instrument of maintaining the order and suppressing the class struggle to a means of destabilizing the order and creating and deepening the perception of crisis.

At the social level, the rise of authoritarianism is accompanied by suspension and repression of the rights of citizens, particularly those of minorities and marginalized groups, and the attack on social securities and the gains of, the working people, and the rise of racism, nationalism, ethnicism, sexism and patriarchy, and xenophobia. Furthermore, the prevalence of conspiracy theories as new forms of superstition and the distrust toward knowledge producing institutes and institutionally produced knowledge point toward a “spiritual” crisis on a social scale.

At the ecological level, the insatiable urge of capital for valorization, the plunder of natural resources, and land grabbing, sea grabbing and forest grabbing for the sake of profit making and rent acquisition have amounted to an environmental crisis, the forms of manifestation of which are global warming, extreme weather conditions, loss of agricultural resources and the consequent food crisis. The response of the bourgeois technocratic institutions to the imminent total ecological catastrophe does not transcend the boundaries of a managerial approach and suggesting “fixes” to these problems taken in isolation from the totality of crisis while the capitalist state and bourgeois politicians refrain from taking serious action or even agreeing on the measures to be taken.

The aforementioned poses significant theoretical and political challenges and urgently calls for a Marxist response putting forth an encompassing view and methods to guide both theoretical analysis and political action. As stated above, the crisis does not only point to mere negativity, but it also signifies a positive ambivalence that bears the potential for realizing radical change. In order to forge a robust answer we need to critically revise as well as affirm of Marxist categories of analysis and methodological tools. Actualizing this positive potentiality requires a dialectical approach which takes different interrelations and perspectives seriously to cope with complexity and change on a global level. One important aspect of such an approach would be to consider the subject matter of analysis not as a finalized, static entity but as a developing process and seek for the dynamics of its radical change within the system itself through identifying the future in the present in the form of potentialities.

To that end we have to explicate the role of knowledge and the sciences as expression of the present societal context as well as tools for change. Not only do we have to analyze the mechanisms of how we reached the above-mentioned crises, but even more important is to try and define ways to break out of the current hegemony of capitalism. A Marxist  approach to the sciences is the understanding how conscious collective human activity can foster a better future.

We invite contributions that facilitate approaching the crises holistically and analyzing them as forms of manifestation of the total capitalist crisis. Such an approach transcends the limitations of conventional, symptomatic representations and enhances the dialectical grasp of the crisis pointing toward prospects of its overcoming and building a better world.

The themes to be addressed are, but not limited to:

• The crisis and the capitalist state; the capitalist state in/as crisis
• The crisis in academia and its relation to capitalization of sciences and commodification of knowledge
• Environmental crisis and climate change
• Forms of class struggle in the face of total crisis
• The self-organization of people, including the decline of tradeunions and traditional political parties
• Gender-based oppression in late capitalism
• The straight jacked of formal logic and its final destination in binary digitalization leading to algorithmic approaches such as the so-called Artificial Intelligence. The need for exploring dialectics as a counter tool for human progress.
• The crisis of value
• The refugee crisis
• The crisis of radical left and the rise/fall of identity politics
• Alternative conceptions of the crisis and their critique, e.g., anthropocene, capitalocene, etc.
• (a critique of) non-Marxist responses to the crisis, e.g., new materialism, post-humanism, etc.
•The role of music, film, theater, and literature as expression of resistance.
• The rise of ultra-right-wing movements and its expression of fear, poverty, and ‘the other’

Please submit your extended abstracts (400 to 500 words long with 5 to 7 bibliographic entries), prepared for blind reading, and a separate title page that includes the title of your submission, affiliation, and contact information to marxismandsciences@gmail.com (subject of the email should be 1st symposium of the M&S). Selected papers from the symposium will be invited for evaluation to be published in Marxism & Sciences Volume 3 Issue 1, Summer 2024.

For more information on the symposium organisation, venue, registration and accomodation please see here!

CfP Precarious Labour
Fifth ELHN Conference
Uppsala, 11-13 June 2024

The Precarious Labour Working Group will participate in the Fifth ELHN Conference with thematic sessions. We invite members of the Working Group, and all other interested colleagues, to come up with paper and session proposals under the following open call:

Open Call for Proposals – Deadline: September 1, 2023

We hope to receive session and paper proposals on the history of precarious labour from all over the world. We encourage the participation of researchers at all stages of their work life as well as researchers without institutional affiliation, and we welcome researchers anchored in various disciplines and investigating different historical periods.

The Working Group Precarious Labour explores a broad range of themes and concepts on precarity. Guiding research questions might address but are not limited to some of the following problems:

• First, the working group is interested in conceptual debates on precarity. How can the concept of precarious labour prove useful as a historical category? What has been perceived as precarious labour in different regions around the world and how have perceptions of precarity changed over time? What has been, in the Global South and the Global North, the normative employment standard against which precarious labour falls back? Can we benefit from understanding precarity as processes and social relations rather than a categorization?
• Second, the working group is interested in examining social groups that work under precarious conditions. In which economic sectors has precarious labour been most prevalent? How do different social factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, migration, age, education, and language, relate to precarity?
• Third, the working group is interested in studying the workers’ manifold responses within and outside workplaces to precarious labour and precarious conditions. What kind of collective responses from workers, both within and beyond traditional trade union frameworks, have emerged in order to fight precarious labour? What is the relationship between precarity and organized or non-organized labour? How do formal and informal collective actions interact?

Information on the Working Group Precarious Labour can be found here.

Meeting of the Working Group Precarious Labour

All scholars with an interest in precarious labour history around the world are invited to join a discussion that will be held during the ELHC 2024 about ideas and themes for future research and collaboration within and beyond the Working Group.

How to submit proposals

Please send an abstract (max 300 words) and a short bio (max 100 words, including contact details and an indication of whether you plan to participate onsite or online) to the WG coordinators, by September 1, 2023.

If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact the coordinators:

• Nina Trige Andersen, nina.trige.andersen@gmail.com
• María Fernanda Arellanes, maria.fernanda.arellanes@gmail.com
• Rosa Kösters, rosa.kosters@iisg.nl
• Sibylle Marti, sibylle.marti@unibe.ch

We will try to respond to these proposals before the end of October 2023. If accepted, the deadline for the conference paper is May 17, 2024.

Time and Location

The Fifth Conference of the European Labour History Network (ELHN) will take place from 11 to 13 June 2024 at Uppsala University and in a hybrid setting. Local organizer: Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek | Swedish Labour Movement’s Archives and Library

More info on the upcoming conference can be found here.

ANTI imperialism fascism  war

The 21st century is marked by a series of wars, military conflicts, neocolonial and imperialist advancements. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the transformation of Syria into a military landing site for hegemonic forces in the past twelve years and Erdogan’s military incursions into Rojava; the unrests against the reactionaries in Brazil and indigenous peoples’ struggles against neocolonial economic engines; the Bulgarian sabotage of North Macedonia on its path to joining the EU, betraying a desire for colonial domination and many more processes inevitably raise questions about the state of imperialism, colonialism, reaction and militarization nowadays. Although the past decades have been ripe with various military conflicts, the Russian invasion of Ukraine drew leftist movements in Central and Eastern Europe out of their thirty-year-long hiatus and posed with a renewed force questions regarding the history, legacy, and future of the anti-war, anti-colonial, anti-fascist, and anti-imperialist resistances.

Simultaneously, in 2023 we mark the 100th anniversary of the September Uprising in Bulgaria. The intention to deal with the anti-fascist roots of the uprising, its complex legacy, as well as the necessity to engage anew with the concept of ‘anti-fascism’ in the contemporary context are among the motivations for dVERSIA journal’s forthcoming issue. The confrontation between the peasantry, leftists and communists on the one side, and reactionary and conservative forces on the other, is of course not a local phenomenon. These conflicts were fundamental for the interwar history of Europe but also had lasting consequences for the subsequent years during the so-called ‘Cold War’ and our own contemporaneity. It appears that the Russian invasion of Ukraine challenges with utmost urgency the left forces in Central and Eastern Europe and globally to rethink the meaning of anti-fascism and anti-imperialism today. Who are carriers of anti-fascism and anti-imperialism today? Are there social, historical and epistemological contexts that are capable of facilitating a reversal of the meaning of fascism and anti-fascism today? How have the forms, strategies and tactics of  anti-fascism and anti-imperialism changed in the past century?

Anti-fascism, anti-imperialism and anti-war struggles in the past and today: these are the three axes around which we see the need for an urgent ideological discussion. Recent events on the left in the Balkans and around the world concerning the divisions over the war in Ukraine and Russian imperialism make this discussion particularly urgent. These processes highlight not simply the lack of spaces to hold such conversations, or diverging understandings of basic concepts on the left, but also often reveal deep contradictions within the theoretical knowledge-production of actors on the left.

For us, there is no question that every ‘anti’-movement includes the path to more just and solidary societies. We see ‘anti’ as the simultaneity of destruction and creation. Tracing the conceptual boundaries, knowledge developments, and historical legacies of anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and anti-war struggles and ideas, our forthcoming ‘Anti’ issue aims not just to delve into the destructive power of empires, wars, and rising neo-fascist waves, but also to seek their urgent alternatives.

dВЕРСИЯ’s 6th collection of texts would like to engage with the following questions:

• Anti-fascism: What is the role and meaning of anti-fascism today, in particular in the context of the war in Ukraine? Is it necessary – and, if so, then how –  to draw from the historical experience of organised anti-fascist movements for present-day struggles in the Balkans and across the world – and if so, then how? What strategic and conceptual continuities and ruptures can we chart out through 20th century anti-fascist struggles on the Balkans and in Europe? What is the role of anti-fascism for the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles of the past and where can we today find their conceptual intersections?
• Anti-imperialism: How should we regard the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the opposition between the West and Russia through an anti-imperialist lens in today’s highly charged context? What meaning does the “right to self-determination” acquire in the context of contemporary military conflicts? What can we learn from the experience of anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles of the 20th century across the globe, as well as from the theoretical engagements with these topics by communist, national liberation, workers’ and progressive movements of the past?
• Anti-war struggles: How should we construct an anti-war position and build a movement in the current militarised context, which polarises positions and obliterates the spaces for dialogue – even amongst comrades, who have until recently shared common goals and struggles? How is such a movement possible when everyone is against the war, but wars keep being waged? What can we draw from the experience of anti-war movements in Bulgaria and across the world from the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century – in particular such movements that intersect with anti-fascist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles? How can we keep maintaining an anti-fascist and an anti-imperialist line, which is at the same time also against the war? And where can we find the sites of conflict on the left – in terms of ideas, positions and strategy? What does ‘peace’ mean today?

We are looking forward to receiving your abstracts (ca. 400-800 words) by May 21st 2023 at info@dversia.net. Articles will be published online (Bulgarian and English) and in print (only Bulgarian) by the end of 2023. In case you want to submit a text, which is already published elsewhere, please get in touch with the editors at the above address. Their volume should not exceed 8,000 words. 

Day Symposium

 

Organized and Hosted by the Institute of Working-Class History/ Chicago, Socialist History journal/ UK, with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation/ Berlin 

 

Symposium Time & Location: Friday July 21st 2023, at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Berlin Headquarters, Strasse der Pariser Kommune 8a

 

Symposium Languages: German & English

 

Symposium Format: In-person with possibility of online presentations in exceptional circumstances. Presenters are asked to submit a draft of their papers in advance for circulation to participants, and to present a summary of the main arguments at the symposium. We intend to publish some of the papers in a special themed issue of Socialist History.

 

Symposium Theme: Liberalism grew from often contradictory ideas of individual liberty, representative government, and economic freedom that challenged feudal and hereditary power. It facilitated the development of capitalism and the rise of a new capitalist ruling class. While proclaiming universal human and civil rights, most liberals historically excluded large swaths of the population as unworthy or incapable of exercising them. To extents varying with time and place, designated ethnicities, women, people of color, indigenous peoples, as well as impoverished and working people were excluded.    

Liberalism became the main legitimizing ideology of capitalism.  It has allowed for some adjustments within the larger framework; however, it promotes and defends capitalism, and opposes all efforts that call the system itself into question. Capitalism not only exploits labor with the extraction of surplus value but required the dispossession of European peasants as well as Indigenous peoples in the Americas and throughout Africa as well as Asia. This makes liberalism complicit in racism, colonialism, and genocide.  Since liberalism is not a monolithic tradition, it can accommodate variations, from laissez-faire economics to social libertarianism.   

Through the twentieth century, liberalism’s once hegemonic status was severely discredited and contested, as liberalism, much like capitalism itself, became associated with imperialist warfare and the global division and redivision of the world. Anticolonial revolts and the persistence of revolutionary Marxism have offered hopes for a different world, one based on solidarity, participatory political, and economic democracy, as well as substantive equality.  The concerns of institutional liberalism to save and stabilize capitalism has aligned it with militant nationalism and Fascism. All three shared the policies of austerity and “pure economics” – what today would be summarized as the neo-liberal paradigm. This meant the breaking of working-class organizations and the privatizations and corporatizations of ever larger spheres of society, in the name of efficiency and rationality.    

 

 

 

We would particularly welcome proposals for papers on the following general areas:

 

·         What specific contributions have leftist and Marxist scholars made to understanding the contradictions of Liberalism more fully? 

·         ‘Big tent’ liberalism’s fragmentation and its relations with socialist movements  

·          Classical Liberalism and its relationships to both right-wing laissez-faire Liberalism and left-wing civil-liberties Liberalism (human rights, civil liberties, political pluralism) 

·         Classical Liberalism, social reformism, Keynesian economics, and the rise of Neo-Liberalism  

·         The impact and legacies of the Great War and Russian, German, and Austrian/Hungarian Revolutions  

• Liberalism’s role in the rise of right-wing authoritarianism & Fascism 
• Liberalism and capitalism, racism, colonialism, and settler states 
• Liberalism, Illiberalism, and Fascism 
• Capitalism and Fascism
• 1923: the final defeat of the German Revolution and the first major Conservative-Nazi alliance in Germany

We are looking for papers of between 5000 to 7000 words. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of Socialist History. Attendance at the symposium is free of charge, but donations are highly appreciated. We ask that anyone attending the symposium register in advance.

 

Tour of Revolutionary Berlin: For those interested, there will be the option to participate in a tour of sites related to working-class and labor-movement history, as well as the histories of strikes, uprisings, revolutions, and counterrevolutions. More detailed information forthcoming.  

 

Instructions for Proposals:

          Length of Abstract: 1-2 paragraphs

          Application Deadline for presenters: June 15th, 2023

          Submission of Paper Deadline: July 10th, 2023

 

 How to Apply: Submit paper title, abstract, and brief c.v. Proposals for papers and any enquires should be directed to Axel Fair-Schulz. Email: fairsca@potsdam.edu

                        There will also be space for a limited number of non-presenters at the event, and details of how to register will be circulated later.

 

For further details and updates: http://liberal-contradictions.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/

 

How individuals cope with the memory of traumatic large-scale events (such as wars, famines, pandemics, natural or industrial disasters) is of great interest to social sciences such as psychology, psychotraumatology or sociology. Since the Great War and what was then described as ’shell shock’, i.e. an individual’s bodily response to trauma – better known today as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – the study of trauma has developed significantly. But how are the memory and reality of dramatic past events experienced and worked through at a collective level, including those that are direct consequences of armed conflicts or violent revolutions? 

The repression, silencing and forgetting of unpredictable yet present threats was part of the phenomenon of tabooisation in pre-industrial societies, as the anthropologist Mary Douglas pointed out years ago. It is aimed at protecting communities and societies from excessive fear and chaos (disorder) resulting from the unpredictability of the world. In the 21st century, societies with highly specialised medical and technological knowledge ceded responsibility for managing the safety (and health) of the population to the state (biopolitics) in situations of large-scale disasters and pandemic phenomena – as we have seen in 2020 – and have repeatedly proved almost completely helpless at the level of social practice. 

Yet epidemics and pandemics such as the medieval plague, eighteenth-century smallpox, twentieth-century polio, tuberculosis or AIDS are experiences embedded in the collective memory of many generations worldwide. Similarly, famines, whether caused by armed conflicts (as after the Great War), natural disasters or by oppressive state policy (e.g. Holodomor) – have been, at the level of everyday life, particular generational and collective experiences.

Do protective (security) strategies generated by the experience or, on the contrary, the defence mechanisms created (such as denial, forgetting or tabooisation) also influence our contemporary memory of these events and historical phenomena? Might they also be the main explanation why in Central Europe – in contrast to Western Europe and North America – it is so difficult to find memorials to the victims of the Great Influenza pandemic or polio?   

Why do the societies of most post-communist countries, which in the second half of the 20th century were an area of regular regional – though concealed in public discourse (censorship) – industrial catastrophes resulting in ecological degradation perceive today the problems of contemporary environmental threats and global warming in such an ambivalent way?  

Why do many narratives concerning these past phenomena still divide European societies (an excellent example of which is the Chernobyl disaster, which in popular memory, if only due to film productions, is still identified with a massive biological calamity, while in expert discourses, years later, the threat was assessed as minimal)? 

The aim of the conference – carried out as part of the 13th edition of the Genealogies of Memory project – will be an attempt at drawing attention to the discourses of memory and non-remembrance of large-scale natural and human induced disasters in 20th-century Europe. We want to bring to the fore the perspective of diverse social actors – both individual and collective, thus thematising the presence of such events in both individual (family), regional and collective memory, for which an important area of expression were changing public narratives (of both authoritarian and communist, as well as democratic governments of 20th-century Europe) as well as popular ones, present particularly in cultural texts (film, literature, etc.). We are also interested in reflecting on the presence of this issue in the contemporary public space – material and artistic (monuments, memorials, exhibitions, etc.) as well as discursive. 

To what extent is/has been the memory of these population-threatening phenomena influenced by the political and social transformations of the 20th century in East-Central Europe? And how does this region differ from Western European countries? – this is also one of the important questions we will try to answer. 
In the discussions, we would like to focus on four main areas of selected aspects of 20th-century natural and man-made disasters: 

1.    Epidemics: Spanish flu in East-Central Europe and other inter-war and post-war epidemics of infectious diseases (polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis and other ‘social diseases’, AIDS) and contemporary discourses of memory and their visual and textual representations. 
2.    Famines – crop failures – food rationing – memory/commemoration of victims and humanitarian aid, food distribution and class/social inequalities, nationalisms/imperialism – how does the memory of famines and food crises in East-Central and Western Europe function – in grassroots (private, family) and public memory. 
3.    Human-induced industrial disasters – ecology – fear versus ideology of progress – modernity (industrialisation) – communist censorship vs. discourses of memory – industrial disasters in people’s democracies vs. practices of tabooing (and censorship); environmental activism in EastCentral Europe (especially in anti-communist opposition circles vs. contemporary memory and public discussions of environmental threats). 
4.    Practices of constructing memory of man-made/natural disasters – changing memories, shifting agencies, human and non-human aspects of memory (as objects, industrial landscapes, etc.), 20th century memory patterns vs. the discourse of the Anthropocene, the discourse of the apocalypse and the future of memory. 
 
However, we are also open to other approaches to the above-described issues, going beyond the framework outlined here. 
The conference language is English. The organisers provide accommodation for the participants. There is no conference fee. 
 

Organisational information

The conference will take place in Warsaw on 22-24 Novemver 2023 in a hybrid format with possible online participation. 

Call for Papers

To apply please send the following documents to: genealogies@enrs.eu by 26 May 2023:

• • 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 by 30 June 2023. Written draft papers (2,000–2,500 words) should be submitted by 15 October 2023.
Selected authors will be invited to submit their paper to an edited volume to be published with a leading academic publisher, most likely in the European Remembrance and Solidarity book series developed by ENRS and Routledge.

Download and sign the Consent Clause
 

  Scientific Council of the Conference:

•    Dr. Konrad Bielecki (ENRS) 
•    Dr. Ian Miller (Society for the Social History of Medicine) 
•    Dr. Martin Moore (Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health University of Exeter)  
•    Prof. Małgorzata Praczyk (European Society for Environmental History) 
•    Dr. Marcin Stasiak (Institute of History, Jagiellonian University, Krakow) 
•    Prof. Ewelina Szpak (ENRS / The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences) 
•    Prof. Joanna Wawrzyniak (Faculty of Sociology Warsaw University) 

Partners

• • European Society for Environmental History
  • Faculty of Sociology Warsaw University
  • Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Marburg 
  • Institute of History, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Society for the Social History of Medicine
  • The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences
  • Welcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health University of Exeter