This international conference aims to contribute to renew the interest and improve the knowledge of the League of Nations (LoN) and its impact in this last century marked by strong waves of internationalism and globalization, but also of crisis and nationalist reactions.
A multilateral institution such as the LoN is the ideal object for a truly global and connected history that goes beyond national historiographical traditions. That is what we intend to do with this conference, through presentations on these themes by 65 speakers affiliated with 60 institutions from 18 different countries.
The death toll of millions in World War I (1914-1918) led to an effort at the 1919 Paris peace conference to design a new international order with new norms and institutions. The creation in 1920 of the first permanent multilateral organization in the form of the League of Nations, the direct predecessor of the UN, was the most ambitious and controversial result of this effort. Although the LoN eventually failed to achieve its main goal of preventing a World War II, it did imprint, and does help to better understand the multiple dimensions of global life in the two decades of its existence. Many of these issues, which will be dealt with in the different panels of this conference, continued to be of great relevance up to today: from refugees to gender issues, from empires to their complex legacies, from territorial conflicts to terrorism, from workers' rights to global financial system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
18 September - National Library of Portugal
14:30-15:00 Welcome remarks
Maria Inês Cordeiro, Director of the National Library of Portugal.
Representative from the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Pedro Aires Oliveira, Institute of Contemporary History of the
Universidade NOVA de Lisboa - IHC-NOVA FCSH (on behalf of the organizing
committee)
15:00-17:15 Round table: The League of Nations: history and legacies
Patricia Clavin (University of Oxford), Patrick Finney (Aberystwyth
University)
Philippe Rygiel (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Rui Tavares*
(CEI-ISCTE-IUL)
17:30-18:15 Presentation of LoN archival projects
Colin Wells (United Nations Library at Geneva): The League of Nations
Goes Digital: New Opportunities for Research in the League of Nations
Archives
Margarida Lages (Archive and Library of the Diplomatic Institute of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal - IDI-MNE) & Helena Pinto
Janeiro (Diplomatic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Portugal - IDI-MNE and Institute of Contemporary History of the
Universidade NOVA de Lisboa - IHC- NOVA FCSH): Mapping out the League of
Nations in Portugal
18:30 Port wine tasting (to be confirmed)
19 September - ISCTE-IUL
09:00-09:40 Keynote address
Nicholas Werth (CNRS): L'URSS à Genève, 1934-1939
09:40-11:20 Parallel sessions
Session 1 The LoN: institutional dimensions
Katja Naumann (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern
Europe - GWZO & Leipzig University): Empowering the League of Nations:
Postimperial Transformations in Eastern Europe and Trans-national Agency
in The League's Secretariat
Karen Gram-Skjoldager (Aarhus University): An Institution in the Making.
A Sociological Exploration of the League of Nations Secretariat 1919-46
Torsten Kahlert (Aarhus University & Humboldt University of Berlin):
Inventors of International Bureaucracy. Prosopography of International
Civil Servants of the League of Nations Secretariat
Session 2 The LoN and technical cooperation
Paul Weinbaum (Duquesne University Pittsburgh): Epidemics, Politics and
Public Health, Ludwik Rajchman MD, The League of Nations Health
Organization and the Creation of a Transnational Health Organization
Quintino Lopes (Institute of Contemporary History of the University of
Évora - IHC- University of Évora): Science and Diplomacy in the 1930s:
the [Portuguese] National Education Board and the League of Nations
David Petruccelli (Dartmouth College): The League of Nations and the
Making of the Illiberal International Order
Session 3 LoN, refugees and the minorities question
The League of Nations and the Congress of European Nationalities: A Tale
of Mutual Disappointment
David J. Smith (University of Glasgow): Talking Past Each Other.
Minority Rights and the Differing Statehood Conceptions of the ENC and
the League'
Marina Germane (University of Glasgow): 'The Two Great Minorities of
1918': Germans and Jews at the Congress of European Nationalities
(1925-1933)
Oskar Mulej (Austrian Academy of Sciences): The German Nationalist
Subversion of the ENC, 1933-1938
Timo Aava (Austrian Academy of Sciences & University of Vienna): Mikhail
Kurchinskii's International Minority Activism in the ENC, 1925-1939
11:20-11:40 Coffee-break
11:40-13:00 Parallel sessions
Session 1 Women and the LoN
Dagmar Wernitznig (University of Ljubljana): 'In the Antechambers of
Power': Women and Women's Roles in the League of Nations
Sara Ercolani (University of Bologna): The Fight against the Traffic of
Women and Minors before and within the League of Nations: A Path to
Legitimacy for the European Civil Society
Nova Robinson (Seattle University): The Committee of Experts on the
Legal Status of Women and Measuring the Status of "All the World's
Women"
Session 2 The LoN and international security
Joseph A. Maiolo (King's College London): The League of Nations, the
Problem of Raw Materials and the Crisis of World Order in the 1930s
David Ekbladh (Tufts University): Plowshares into Swords: The League as
an Instrument of War
13:00-14:30 Lunch
14:30-15:10 | Keynote address
Philippe Rygiel (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon): Dreaming of a forum?
International legal conversations on the society of nations in the
pre-1914 world
15:10-16:30 Parallel sessions
Session 1 The US and LoN
Geert Van Goethem (Institute of Social History & Ghent University):
Sidelined: International Social Policy and the American Architects of a
New World Order (1941-1943)
Ross A. Kennedy (Illinois State University): A Commitment to Judge:
Woodrow Wilson's Conception of Collective Security under the League of
Nations
Session 2 Regional perspectives on the LoN
Carolin Liebish-Gümüs (Kiel University): Turkish Nation Building Through
the Lens of the League of Nations
Jesús Manuel Bermejo Roldán (Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia - Madrid): Comparative analysis of the integration and
performance of the two of the two small Iberian powers in the League of
Nations (1919-1939)
Andrei Mamolea (SSHRC Fellow at McGill University's Faculty of Law):
Escaping Washington's Tutelage: Latin America at the League of Nations
16:30-16:50 Coffee-break
16:50-18:30 Parallel sessions
Session 1 Social issues and the LoN
Natali Stegmann (Universität Regensburg): Social Rights and Conceptions
of Peace in an East Central European Perceptive
Lorella Tosone & Angela Villani (University of Perugia & University of
Messina): Food and Population: Legacies of the international Debate on
Global Issues from the League of Nations to the UN
Tommaso Milani (Balliol College): The Politics of Membership: Harold B.
Butler, the United States, Italy, and the Transformation of the ILO,
1932-1939 ca.
Session 2 Cultural approaches
Carolyn Biltoft (Graduate Institute of International and Development
Studies, Switzerland): Decoding the Balance Sheet: Material Objects,
Symbolic Capital and the Liquidation of the League of Nations
Sebastian M. Spitra (University of Vienna & University of Michigan Law
School, Ann Arbor): Constructing International Community within the
League of Nations: The Ambivalent Case of Cultural Heritage
Ilaria Scaglia (Aston University): Feeling the League of Nations: A
Perspective from the History of Emotions
20 September - ISCTE-IUL
09:00-09:40 Keynote address
Patricia Clavin (University of Oxford): Britain, Security, and the
League of Nations
09:40-11:20 Parallel sessions
Session 1 The Mandate system and Empires
Thomas Gidney (Institute of International and Development Studies,
Switzerland): 'An Anomaly Among Anomalies': Colonial Member States at
the League of Nations
Kate Burlingham (California State University): From Hearing to Heresy:
Angola, The Ross Report, and the League of Nations' Temporary Slavery
Commission
Jelmer Vos (University of Glasgow): The League of Nations and the
Discourse of 'New Slaveries' in Africa, 1900-2000
Gavan Duffy (National University of Ireland - Galway): "The Obligation
to Work [is] Recognised in all Civilised Nations" [1] The Permanent
Mandates Commission and Labour Issues in the British Empire C mandates
1920-1926
Session 2 Women and the LoN
Rebecca Shriver (Missouri Southern State University): Europe's Threat to
the League: WILPF's Debate over European Integration and Protecting the
League of Nations, 1923- 1933
Marie-Michèle Doucet (Royal Military College of Canada): The Women of
the World Want to Disarm: The League of Nation and the Disarmament
Questions in the early 1930s
Andrew M. Johnston (Carleton University): "A little child, born of
dissipated parents": The Women's International League for Peace and
Freedom's Feminist Critique of the League of Nations, 1919-1924
Session 3 The LoN: institutional dimensions
Martin Bemmann (University of Freiburg): The League and the World. How
and Why the League's Economic Intelligence Service Shaped the
Statistical Image of the World Economy
Hannah Tyler (University of Lausanne): Show Me The Money: The Financial
Structure of The League of Nations Between 1920 and 1933
11:20-11:40 Coffee-break
11:40-13:00 Parallel sessions
Session 1 The LoN and international security
Charlotte Lydia Riley (University of Southampton): No Peace Apart from
International Security: British Pacifist Thinking and the League of
Nations
Thomas W. Bottelier & Nicholas Mulder (Erasmus University Rotterdam &
King's College London & Columbia University): Not Appeasement but
Internationalism: A New Look at Non-Intervention in the Spanish Civil
War
Rob Konkel (Princeton University): The League's Raw Materials Problem:
Metallic Minerals, Trading Blocs, and the Limits of Internationalism in
the Age of Disequilibrium
Session 2 Refugees and Humanitarianism
Tomás Irish (Swansea University): The "Moral Basis" of Reconstruction:
The League of Nations and Intellectual Relief in the Aftermath of the
Great War
Hazuki Tate (Musashi University): Cooperation and Competition between
the League of Nations and the Red Cross Movement in their First
Humanitarian Activities in the Post-War World
13:00-14:30 Lunch
14:30-15:10 Keynote address
Patrick Finney (Aberystwyth University): Aberystwyth and the League
Experiment
15:10-16:30 Parallel sessions
Session 1 The LoN and anti-imperialism/anti-imperialist movements
Michele L. Louro (Salem State University): The Search for a "Real"
League of Nations: The League against Imperialism and Alternative
Histories of Interwar Internationalism
Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus (Free University Berlin): Betraying Asia:
Criticisms of the League of Nations in Colonial East Asia, 1919 - 1926
Reem Bailony (Agnes Scott College): Competing Internationalisms and the
Syrian Revolt of 1925
Session 2 LoN and the "New Diplomacy"/Open or Public Diplomacy
Erik Koenen, Arne L. Gellrich & Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz (University of
Bremen): The League of Nations "Open Diplomacy"-Strategy for a New
Information Order
Pelle Van Dijk (European University Institute): Influencing Indian
Public Opinion: The League of Nations' Bombay Office
Michael Auwers (University of Antwerp): "Ces dangereux moyens de
pacifier l'Europe". On the Strained Relationship between Professional
Diplomats and the League of Nations
16:30-16:50 Coffee-break
16:50-18:20 Parallel sessions
Session 1 The LoN and Non-State Actors
Sarah Shields (University of North Carolina): The League of Nations,
Non-State Actors, and the Challenges of Intervention
Anne-Isabelle Richard (Leiden University): The International Federation
of League of Nations Societies
Jan Stöckmann (University of Oxford): The Architects of International
Relations: Academia and Diplomacy at the League of Nations
Session 2 The LoN and the Clash of Ideologies
Marco Moraes (Oxford University): Competing Internationalisms at the
League of Nations Secretariat: Liberals and Fascists Creating and
Challenging the International, 1919-1946
João Arsénio Nunes (ISCTE-IUL): The Comintern and the League of Nations
Martin Beddeleem & Hagen Schulz-Forberg (Aarhus University):
Intellectual Cooperation at the League of Nations: A Cradle for
Neoliberalism?
18:20 Closing session