Editors

Nessim ZNAIEN and Philippe BOURMAUD

University of Warsaw, October 22-23, 2020*

*COVID-19: Given the changing circumstances, we will consider moving the conference to online remote presentations if need be.

Prof. Erica Lehrer (Concordia University, Montreal)

Versions in French and Spanish available here: https://calenda.org/767181

We dedicate the next issue of Amérika magazine to "Central America: Spaces, cartographies and representations". This publication is an extension of the international colloquium of the European Research Network on Central America (RedISCA https://rediscablog.wordpress.com/) organized at the University of Nantes (CRINI laboratory) on November 14, 15 and 16, 2019.

The University of Heidelberg invites chapter proposals for the edited volume “The Vanguard of Class and Nation: Parties as Governments in Eurasia, 1920s–1990s.” The book workshop for the invited authors is scheduled to take place in Heidelberg on April 22–23, 2021.

Epidemic illnesses—not only a product of biology, but also social and cultural phenomena—are as old as cities themselves. The recent pandemic of COVID-19 has put into perspective the impact of epidemic illness on urban life, and exposed the vulnerabilities of the societies it ravages as much as the bodies it infects. How can epidemics help us understand urban environments? What insights from the outbreak, experience, and response to previous urban epidemics might inform our understanding of COVID-19?

William H. McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples is often considered a foundational work in the field of World History. At this moment, the term pandemic, usually with reference to the plague in Renaissance Italy and the “Spanish” influenza outbreak near the end of First World War, is now familiar to millions of sequestered families across the globe.

Dear Members and Friends of the ITH,

we are writing today to inform you that, with reference to a proposal put forward by the President, the ITH Board has decided, after intense deliberation, to postpone the ITH Conference 2020 by one year to September 2021.

Washing hands, mouth caps,, campaigns against infectuous diseases and for health and hygiene in general: all this can be found in the large collection of Chinese propaganda posters of the IISH and Stefan Landsberger. From the ‘Patriotic Health Campaign’ (1952) to the campaign against SARS and Avian Flu (2003), the images are online at https://chineseposters.net and https://www.flickr.com/photos/chinesepostersnet/

Historical narratives are foundational for most collective identities. The way any group relates to its history has implications for its political and social imaginaries and what is politically feasible. Given that importance, the political or social elite of a group tends to invest significant resources into the kind of historical narratives that are being cultivated. These narratives often suggest an appropriate behaviour that qualifies a person as a member of the respective group, be that a nation, a region or an ethnicity.