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.
- 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@
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)
