Category Archives: Conferences

Call for Proposal for Posters (RMA students and PhD candidates) – Political History Today: Exploring New Themes

One week left to submit your proposal for posters for the international conference, ‘Political History Today: Exploring New Themes’.

Five years after successfully taking stock of the “State of the Art in the History of Politics” (The Hague, 2017), next Summer, the Association for Political History (APH) and the Dutch national Research School Political History (RSPH/OPG) organize a two-day follow-up conference in Amsterdam to revisit the field and explore new themes in the history of politics.

Aims of the conference

For one, we urge all historians in the field to join us in a reflection on the concepts, methods, and sources for political history. What is it that we do when we study political history? What is the timeframe and the spatial dimension of histories of the political? What theories, concepts, and examples from the subdisciplines of history, the social and other sciences help us explain continuity and change in political history? How do old and new methods of inquiry and older and newer types of sources affect our work? What changes do we see in the fields of collaboration, funding and publishing our research? How will articles and books relate to newer forms, such as websites, podcasts, blogs, documentaries, and even plays or movies? This reflection will be triggered by three internationally reputed speakers and related roundtables.

Next to that, we aim to highlight new and urgent themes that have been introduced to the field over the last couple of years. These include new perspectives on the histories of decolonization, as well as the rise of the global in Cold War studies. Research projects on global activism, on climate change and the environment, poverty, or migration, and its impact on local, regional, national, and international politics seem to beg for attention too. In addition, as a last example, histories of democracy, freedom, and parliamentarianism have certainly tried to help us understand, and maybe even overcome, the challenges of populism and authoritarian leadership. In other words, what do we have to contribute, not only to the academic debate on things political, but also to the political issues of our time and how can we try to impact todays, and tomorrows, crucial societal debates. The conference will stage these new themes in eight panels.

Call for Posters

As part of the conference, Research Master students and PhD candidates have the opportunity to present their research and to receive feedback on their work. The format we suggest is to make a poster presentation which can be discussed during the conference with (international) experts. If you are interested to present your work on a poster, please submit your proposal to the organizing committee of the conference, with your name, email, institutional affiliation, and description of your research topic in 50-100 words.

Please note that we will organize the conference in line with Dutch corona regulations.

You can direct your questions and send your proposals to: bureau@onderzoekschoolpolitiekegeschiedenis.nl

Deadline: 1 April 2022

Organizing committee:

Prof. Dr. Jacco Pekelder (chair), Dr. Marijke van Faassen, Prof. Dr.  Ido de Haan, Dr. Carla Hoetink, Dr. Margit van der Steen, Prof. Dr. Henk te Velde.

Call for Panels – Political History Today: Exploring New Themes.

Just one week left to submit your proposal for panels on new and urgent themes in political history.

Five years after successfully taking stock of the “State of the Art in the History of Politics” (The Hague, 2017), next Summer, the Association for Political History (APH) and the Dutch national Research School Political History (RSPH/OPG) organize a two-day follow-up conference in Amsterdam to revisit the field and explore new themes in the history of politics.

Aims

For one, we urge all historians in the field to join us in a reflection on the concepts, methods, and sources for political history. What is it that we do when we study political history? What is the timeframe and the spatial dimension of histories of the political? What theories, concepts, and examples from the subdisciplines of history, the social and other sciences help us explain continuity and change in political history? How do old and new methods of inquiry and older and newer types of sources affect our work? What changes do we see in the fields of collaboration, funding and publishing our research? How will articles and books relate to newer forms, such as websites, podcasts, blogs, documentaries, and even plays or movies? This reflection will be triggered by three internationally reputed speakers and related roundtables.

Next to that, we aim to highlight new and urgent themes that have been introduced to the field over the last couple of years. These include new perspectives on the histories of decolonization, as well as the rise of the global in Cold War studies. Research projects on global activism, on climate change and the environment, poverty, or migration, and its impact on local, regional, national, and international politics seem to beg for attention too. In addition, as a last example, histories of democracy, freedom, and parliamentarianism have certainly tried to help us understand, and maybe even overcome, the challenges of populism and authoritarian leadership. In other words, what do we have to contribute, not only to the academic debate on things political, but also to the political issues of our time and how can we try to impact todays, and tomorrows, crucial societal debates. The conference will stage these new themes in eight panels.

Call for Panels

We invite proposals for panels that discuss new and urgent themes in the history of the political. These can be either proposals for a single panel of two hours (3-4 panelists), or a pair of interconnected panels (6-8 panelists). Each panel has a chair and a commentator.

Proposals for sessions contain:

  • Description of the topic, main puzzle, and its relevance for the study of political history (maximum 500 words);
  • A list of proposed panelists (preferably a mix of junior (graduate, PhD) and more advanced scholars), a short biographical note on each of them, and a brief description of their papers;
  • The name of both the chair and the commentator and their affiliation.

Please note that we will organize the conference in line with Dutch corona regulations.

You can direct your questions and send your proposals to: bureau@onderzoekschoolpolitiekegeschiedenis.nl

Deadline: 1 March 2022

Organizing committee:

Prof. Dr. Jacco Pekelder (chair), Dr. Marijke van Faassen, Prof. Dr.  Ido de Haan, Dr. Carla Hoetink, Dr. Margit van der Steen, Prof. Dr. Henk te Velde.

International PhD Conference | 2019 | Programme

History in the Light of Brexit

5-7 June 2019, London, United Kingdom

The Association of Political History | King’s Contemporary British History
The Strand Group | The History of Parliament Trust

Conference Programme
brexit

Wednesday June 5th

Registration, 8th Floor Open Space, History Department, King’s College London – 15:00-16:30

16:30-18:00 | Roundtable: ‘History in Light of Brexit’
With Sir Stephen Wall, Professor Robert Tombs and Professor Helen Parr, chaired by Professor Henk te Velde
This round table functions as an introduction to the theme of the conference.

18:00-18:30 | Walk to Parliament

18:30-20:00 | Reception in Jubilee Room, Westminster Hall

20:00-20:30 | Walk from Parliament to The Strand Continental

20:30-22:00 | Conference Dinner at The Strand Continental

Thursday June 6th

King’s College London, Bush House, Room 1.01

9:00-10:30 | Session 1: Identifying ‘Europeanness’
Chair: Professor Ido de Haan – Universiteit Utrecht
Discussant: Pasi Ihalainen – University of Jyväskylä

Stuart Smedley – King’s College London – The Historical Will of the People: The Value of Public Opinion Polls and Surveys for Contemporary Political Historians after Brexit

Jean-Francois Delangre – University of Geneva, Switzerland – “I Beg Your Pardon, But WE Suffered The Most!”  Contested Memories And Victimhood Competition In The EU, The Baltic States From Restauration Of Their Independences Until Nowadays

Martin Johansson – Södertörn University – Imagining neighbours: Norden at the Winter Olympics, 1936 to 1998

10:30-11:00 | Break

11:00-12:30 | Session 2: Battling identities
Chair: Professor Giovanni Orsina – LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome
Discussant: Professor Henk te Velde – Leiden University

Talitha Ilacqua – King’s College London – The Case of a ‘Soft’ Border in Nineteenth-Century France

Miel Groten – Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam – Victorian Glasgow, Unionism, and the Empire in the light of Scottish Nationalism

Wiivi-Maria Jouttijarvi – University of Jyväskylä, Finland – National identity in and after a multinational imperium: the case of Estonia

12:30-14:00 | Lunch

14:00-15:30 | Session 3: Comparative histories
Chair: discussant from Södertörn University
Discussant: Professor Irène Herrmann – Université de Genève

Tom Kelsey – King’s College London – ‘High technology’ in post-war Britain and France

Lauri Niemisto – University of Jyväskylä, Finland – Violent and illegitimate protest: visual representations of British suffragettes’ and German socialists’ campaigns for franchise reform in national cartoons, 1905 – 1914

Risto-Matti Matero – University of Jyväskylä, Finland – From human-nature companionship to green consumerism: How sustainable development and ecological modernism changed Green parties’ perception of human nature in Germany and Finland in the 1990s

15:30-15:45 | Break

15:45-17:00 | Roundtable: England and Brexit
Chair: professor David Edgerton
Speakers include Patrick Wright

Circa 18.00: In conversation with Rt. Hon. Ed Balls at the Guild Hall followed by dinner

Friday June 7th

King’s College London, Bush House, Room 1.01

9:00-10:00 | Session 4: The military, society and exceptionalism
Chair: Dr. Margit van der Steen – Leiden University
Discussant: Professor Richard Vinen – King’s College London

George Evans – King’s College London – Militarism, British exceptionalism and Anglo-Indian Officers

Guilia Letizia Melideo – LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome – The “associated” country: Greece and the EEC during the military regime (1967-1974)

10:00-11:30 | Session 5: Histories beyond Europe
Chair: Marc Lazar – Sciences Po
Discussant: Professor Richard Vinen – King’s College London

Lasse Lassen – Universität Bielefeld, Germany – The Tricontinental Conference of Havana: Cuba Creating the Internationalist Isle

François Courvoisier – University of Geneva, Switzerland – Northern universalisms vs. African solidarity: What are the unmet needs for an African Charter for Human and People’s Right in 1981?

Björn Reynir Halldórsson – University of Iceland – Within or without Europe: Existential crises of two island states in the Atlantic 2009-2019

11:30-13.00 | Board Meeting Association Political History

11:30-13.00 | PhD Workshop
PhD candidates prepare the round table on History in Light of Brexit

13:00-14:00 | Lunch
With a group photograph at 13:45

14:00-15:00 | PhD Roundtable on ‘History in Light of Brexit’
PhD candidates reflect on the results of the questions asked at the beginning of the conference. These questions are: What is the role of borders in modern European history and historiography? What is the nature of Europe’s political identity and how has it changed? What does Brexit mean for our historiographical understanding of national identity and nationalism? The reflection by the PhD candidates is followed by a discussion with all participants

15:00-16:00 | Careers Workshop
In this workshop, post docs will reflect upon the next step in their careers after having finished the PhD thesis

International PhD Conference | 2019 | Call for papers (extended deadline)

Graduate Student Call for Papers | 5-7th June 2019, London, UK

‘History in Light of Brexit’

The Association of Political History, King’s Contemporary British History, The Strand Group, The History of Parliament Trust

Keynote Speaker: Rt. Hon. Ed Balls

There have been, and will be, numerous conferences about the causes and consequences of Britain’s departure from the European Union. This conference is not one of them. Rather, we want to think about history in light of Brexit. One odd feature of recent discussion of British exceptionalism has been the absence of attention to any European model from which Britain is held to diverge and the lack of recognition that European countries might have their own senses of national peculiarity. And yet modern European history is far from being the history of one Europe. Brexit then prompts historical reflections on the nature of European identity, collective and individual, continental and intercontinental, recent and in the longue durée.

Approaches

We are seeking abstracts from graduate students that tackle this question as imaginatively and broadly as possible. Takes on the topic include, but are by no means restricted to:

  • The direct take: What is the history of the relationship between Britain and the European Union?
  • The exceptionalism take: Is British history best understood as an ‘island story’ set apart from that of other nations? Or is every nation’s history exceptional? Is a nation’s history different from its state’s history in the context of political exceptionalism?
  • The Irish take: How does the history of Britain’s relations with the EU inform the history of Ireland? And how does the history of Ireland inform Britain’s future relations with the EU?
  • The border take: Borders divide states. Do they also divide nations?
  • The European take: What is the nature of European political identity in relation to its past? Is the history of modern Europe, after all, a unitary one or is it a history in fragments?
  • The historiographical take: What does Britain’s departure from the European Union say about classic works on national identity and nationalism? (We are thinking, for example, of Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Linda Colley’s Britons, Eugen Weber’s Peasants into Frenchmen and Alan Milward’s The European Rescue of the Nation State).
  • The international take: How can the history of non-European nations inform the debate surrounding Britain’s departure from the European Union? How is recent British history perceived by nations of the former British Empire? How do notions of national peculiarity apply to world history? How do notions of federations influence how Britain conceives its role in international bodies?

Application

Proposals should be no longer than 250 words for individual papers and 1,000 words for three-person panels, and they should be sent to historyinlightofbrexit@gmail.com by 1 March 2019 (extended deadline).

The abstract should be submitted as a Word document and include: 1) the title of the presentation; 2) your institutional affiliation; 3) your email address. Please note that only PhD candidates from universities participating in the Association of Political History can apply.

Applicants will be informed of the outcome the week beginning on 4 March 2019. An accepted paper of no more than 6,000 words must then be submitted to the conference organizers by 13 May 2019 at the latest. The paper will be made available to the other participants during the following week on a closed website.

Costs

There will be no registration fee for this conference and we will at least partially subsidise accommodation and travel for participating doctoral students.

International PhD Conference | 2019 | Call for Papers

Graduate Student Call for Papers | 5-7th June 2019, London, UK

‘History in Light of Brexit’

The Association of Political History, King’s Contemporary British History, The Strand Group, The History of Parliament Trust

Keynote Speaker: Rt. Hon. Ed Balls

There have been, and will be, numerous conferences about the causes and consequences of Britain’s departure from the European Union. This conference is not one of them. Rather, we want to think about history in light of Brexit. Indeed, to ask what does Brexit mean for the recent political history of Europe and Britain?

We are seeking abstracts from graduate students. Some participants may choose to address the issue by directly talking about the relationship between Britain and the European Union, others may adopt more tangential approaches. We welcome all takes on the question.

Some may want, for example, to talk about British notions of exceptionality and how far back those notions can be traced. Is British history best understood as an ‘island story’ set apart from that of other nations?

Perhaps even more importantly, participants who specialize in the history of continental Europe are invited to ask whether there is a specifically European political identity. One odd feature of recent discussion of British exceptionalism has been the absence of attention to any European model from which Britain is held to diverge and the lack of recognition that European countries might have their own senses of national peculiarity.

Approaches

We should stress that there is no expectation that all papers will be about purely British or European history. Historians of other parts of the world may well see links between their works have with Brexit. To take two obvious examples, scholars of Chinese history may have things to say about notions of national peculiarity; scholars of India may well feel that there are things to say about notions of federations and indeed that such notions may have had a considerable influence of how the British conceive their role in international bodies.

What does Brexit mean for the relationship between academic history and the outside world? Does our historical research need to speak more clearly to present-day political concerns?

Another approach might be to review classic works on national identity and nationalism, asking how we might revisit the arguments of, say, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Linda Colley’s Britons, Eugene Weber’s Peasants into Frenchman or Alan Milward’s The European Rescue of the Nation State considering Britain’s departure from the European Union and rise of populism across the continent.

None of these ideas are more than suggestions. It should be stressed, though, that we are looking for something slightly different from a typical conference paper. Participants are not to be required to address particular themes but rather invited to talk about their own research in the light of broader reflections about the political history of Britain and Europe. This is, of course, quite daunting, but the conference should be seen as an opportunity for graduate students to be intellectually ambitious and as way for them to get to grips with the broader historiographical significance of their research. If any graduate students have any questions about submitting an abstract, please contact Tom Kelsey (historyinlightofbrexit@gmail.com).

Papers

We will be using pre-circulated papers. At the conference itself, presentations will be limited to 10 minutes. The purpose of these talks is to summarise the big arguments being put forward. After these presentations, panels of three speakers will receive in depth feedback on their pre-circulated up to 6,000-word papers from an academic in the Association of Political History Network. This will be followed by a broader conversation with the conference audience.

Application

It should be stressed that only PhD candidates from universities participating in the Association of Political History can apply. Proposals should be no longer than 250 words for individual papers, and 1,000 words for three-person panels. They should be sent to historyinlightofbrexit@gmail.com by 15 February 2019. The abstract should be submitted as a Word document and include: 1) the title of the presentation; 2) institutional affiliation; 3) your email address. Applicants will be informed of the outcome the week beginning 4 March 2019.

An accepted paper of no more than 6,000 words must then be submitted to the conference organizers by 13 May 2019 at the latest. The paper will be made available to the other participants during the following week on a closed website.

Costs

There will be no registration fee for this conference and we will at least partially subsidise accommodation and travel for participating doctoral students.

International PhD Conference | 2018 | Practical Information

Practical information

An accepted paper of no more than 6,000 words must then be submitted to the conference organizers by 3 June 2018 at the latest. The paper will be made available to the other participants during the following week on a closed website. Kindly include in your paper a brief introduction for those who may be unfamiliar with the period, country, organization or theme of study. The oral presentation of the papers during the conference must not exceed 10 minutes, the rest of the time being reserved for comments and general discussion.

Membership

Paper presenters should be PhD students in the APH member universities. As a way to expand the network we invite doctoral students from universities that are not yet members of the APH to also propose papers. The final acceptance of the paper then depends on the student’s home institution agreeing to pay the annual institutional membership fee of the APH (currently EUR 300) which provides an entrance to the conferences for both the senior academic staff and PhD students. Consult the head of your department on the readiness of your home institution to participate before submitting your proposal. If you are interested in an individual membership instead, contact APH coordinator Margit van der Steen (margit.van.der.steen@huygens.knaw.nl) for further information.

Costs

The participating institutions will have to cover the travel and accommodation costs of their doctoral students but we aim at providing all meals and social programme. There will be no registration fee for this conference.

International PhD Conference | 2018 | Call for Papers

6th International PhD Conference | Sciences Po, Paris, 20–22 June 2018

Call for Papers
Deadline 12 March 2018 (extended)

The Association for Political History (APH) has been created in September 2014 for promoting Political History, broadly defined as the history of institutions, parties, public policies, as well as the history of ideas, political cultures, identities, behaviours, passions or emotions. APH welcomes historians working from different perspectives, including the most recent and innovative ones, such as transnational history. One of the main goals of APH is to strengthen international cooperation in the field of education and research, thus promoting the quality of research. Furthermore, APH will provide high-quality training opportunities for PhD candidates and advanced masters students in Political History.

The institutions currently attached to APH are: Research School Political History (The Netherlands-Flanders), Sciences Po, Jyväskylä University, Luiss University Roma, King’s College London, Bielefeld University, Aarhus University. The University of Antwerp, University of Geneva, Södertörn University and European University Institute have recently joined the network. APH also supports the international group for PhD candidates in Political History.

6th International PhD Conference

The sixth annual conference of APH will be organized at Sciences Po, Paris, France from Wednesday June 20th to Friday afternoon June 22th 2018. APH invites PhD students from the participating institutions to apply to introduce their dissertation for comments from their peers and senior scholars from the member universities as well as by external commentators and keynote speakers.

Besides the panels during which PhD student will be able to introduce their papers which will be discussed by a senior researcher and another PhD, several events will take place: a lecture by Professor Jenny Andersson (Sciences Po) and two round tables. The schedule will be detailed soon.

Papers

Papers will be examined by a committee composed of professors of history from Sciences Po as for instance Claire Andrieu, Alain Chatriot, Nicolas Delalande, Mario Del Pero, Michele Di Donato, Mathieu Fulla, Gerd-Rainer Horn, Guido Panvini.

Each paper presenter should have 1–3 years experience in doctoral studies by the time of the conference. Your abstract and paper could start with a formulation of a particular scholarly point that you want to make and/or problem to which advice from the commentators and other participants is sought.

Paper proposals can focus on institutional political history, conceptual, social, cultural, of gender or anthropological in a national, transnational, compared or connected perspective. The concerned periods will mostly be the XVIIIth, XIXth, XXth and XXIst centuries, with no geographical boundaries. Yet, one or two sessions will specifically focus on political parties, institutions, States and political behaviors. Paper proposals on these topics will be carefully examined.

Deadline

The deadline for applications including an abstract of 250–500 words, university affiliation and an explanation of the relation of the paper to the PhD project is 12 March 2018 (extended). The applications will be sent by e-mail to aph2018paris@gmail.com. The acceptance of the proposed papers will be confirmed by the first days of March 2018.

Practical information

An accepted paper of no more than 6,000 words must then be submitted to the conference organizers by 3 June 2018 at the latest. The paper will be made available to the other participants during the following week on a closed website. Kindly include in your paper a brief introduction for those who may be unfamiliar with the period, country, organization or theme of study. The oral presentation of the papers during the conference must not exceed 10 minutes, the rest of the time being reserved for comments and general discussion.

Membership

Paper presenters should be PhD students in the APH member universities. As a way to expand the network we invite doctoral students from universities that are not yet members of the APH to also propose papers. The final acceptance of the paper then depends on the student’s home institution agreeing to pay the annual institutional membership fee of the APH (currently EUR 300) which provides an entrance to the conferences for both the senior academic staff and PhD students. Consult the head of your department on the readiness of your home institution to participate before submitting your proposal. If you are interested in an individual membership instead, contact APH coordinator Margit van der Steen (margit.van.der.steen@huygens.knaw.nl) for further information.

Costs

The participating institutions will have to cover the travel and accommodation costs of their doctoral students but we aim at providing all meals and social programme. There will be no registration fee for this conference.