Europe between the world wars (1919-1939). A meeting in Lisbon (CfP)


Based in Lisbon, at the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas of the Universidade Nova, the Association “Europe in the World” focuses on the role of the "old Continent" as an international actor and it is now planning its second annual meeting on 3rd-4th April 2014. This time the organizers wish to discuss the political, social and cultural changes occurred during the interwar period, considering so once again the consequences of the Great War on the Continent and the intimate connection between the two World War. You can find below the Call for Paper.
Further information also here.


Call for papers

At 11a.m. November 18, 1918, Europe celebrated the end of the Great War.
Four years of war had left deep marks on the European continent, transforming the international political order. Europe and the world were then different from those that emerged from the rubble of the conflict: on the one hand, major European empires, which had entered the war - the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish-Ottoman -, had disappeared, paving the way for the birth of new independent states such as Austria, Hungary, Finland, Czechoslovakia and Poland; on the other hand, Europe had been indelibly transformed with cities destroyed, ruined crops, disrupted communications and millions of people homeless. 

Across the Atlantic, the United States of America emerged as financers of a wounded Europe, assuming themselves as the major economic and financial power and consolidating the conviction that the "Old Continent" was no longer the center of the world. 

The Treaty of Versailles, signed the following year, would embody an "artificial peace", and would thereafter be a living example that European unity and the attainment of political agreements were not always synonyms and that Europe's belle époque was gone forever. 

The right to sovereignty, on the other hand, was present in the 14 points presented by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1918, even though without any immediate and practical application, but would, nevertheless, end by being embedded in the discourse of the Third International, which saw in it from the beginning an ally in the struggle against the capitalist economic system. By that time Jamaican Marcus Garvey began publishing in Harlem, New York, the weekly newspaper Negro World (1918-1933), extolling pride of the black race and advocating the return to Africa. 

Meanwhile, the New York stock market crash and the Great Depression enveloped the biggest crisis in the capitalist world known by then, creating a territory where multiple authoritarianisms would lead Humanity to a new conflict on a planetary scale.

The 2nd Europe in the World Annual Meeting will be devoted to the analysis, discussion and interpretation of the political, economic, social and cultural changes occurred in Europe during the interwar period.

Within this general subject, paper proposals’ topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

- European reconstruction;
- Ideas of Europe and the first European integration projects;
- War refugees and migrations;
- The League of Nations and postwar period internationalism;
- The United States aid to Europe;
- The Great Depression and economic nationalism;
- Economic and social circles;
- Democracy and dictatorship;
- Intellectual elites and Europe: cultural representations and spaces - speeches and debates;
- War memories and European identities.

Proposals (including title and abstract with no more than 500 words in length) should be submitted, together with affiliation and a short CV (up to 250 words), to europebetweentheworldwars@gmail.com, by November 30, 2013. 

All proposals should be written either in Portuguese or in English.

If the proposal is accepted, there is a registration fee in the amount of 10€ for students or € 20 for academics and other researchers.

Organisers:
Maria Fernanda Rollo (IHC- FCSH)
Maria Manuela Tavares Ribeiro (CEIS20 e FLUC)
Ana Paula Pires (IHC-FCSH)
Alice Cunha (IHC-FCSH)
Isabel Valente (CEIS20)