Deadline for Submissions: August 15, 2017

Association for Borderlands Studies World Conference 2018 – Call for Papers

After the success of the ABS 1st World Conference in 2014, The Association for Borderlands Studies is most pleased to announce the second event in this truly international conference series. The ABS 2nd World Conference is organized by the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna and hosted in Vienna and Budapest, 10th to 14th July 2018. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, we invite proposals for individual papers, posters, complete panels, podium discussions and other interventions related to the interdisciplinary study of borders, border areas and cross-border interaction. The organizing theme for this Conference is:

Border-Making and its Consequences – interpreting evidence from the “post-Colonial” and “post-Imperial” 20th Century

Borders and borderlands are again at the centre of debate regarding global political, socio-cultural, economic and environmental tensions and conflicts – they also potentially offer spaces of negotiation and dialogue for their resolution. Global history however testifies to the fact that borderlands have frequently been a target of mistrust, precisely because they have been perceived as threatening – as ambiguous spaces of identity, allegiance, and historical memory. Attempts to eradicate borderlands have taken place through armed conflict, the ideological creation of the Cold War and other confrontational borders, the dismemberment of states, territorial shifts and, most drastically, ethnic cleansing.

The post-imperial experience of Europe, for example, raises numerous questions that relate to borders, identities and citizenship and, ultimately, migration. The dissolution of multinational empires such as the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman in the early 20th Century as well as the creation of new states and/or borders in Western Europe, such as Ireland, which inspired other subjects of colonial empires, were momentous historical events with far-reaching consequences far beyond Europe. However, one of the lessons that emerged from this experience is that nationalisms that insist on singular identities and cultural homogeneity are permanent sources of conflict. Whereas borders and the creation of new nation-states were considered a solution to war after WWI, subsequent events and the disaster of WWII have proved otherwise. Continue reading “CFP: Association for Borderlands Studies World Conference 2018 (U. of Vienna)”

Deadline for Submissions: September 30, 2017

Call for journal articles

The Hungarian Historical Review invites submissions for its third issue in 2018,
the theme of which will be

“An environmental history of wars in Central Europe”

The deadline for the submission of abstracts: September 30, 2017 The deadline for the accepted papers: January 31, 2018

The environmental changes of the last millennium in East Central Europe have been studied for decades, and historians, archaeologists, and natural scientists have made substantial contributions to a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between the environment on the one hand and cultural and political history on the other. Historical processes can hardly be grasped in their complexity without some understanding of the changes that have taken place in the natural environment, and yet for the most part environmental history has remained a marginal topic or perspective in the study of the history of East Central Europe. Indeed, in many countries of the region it is still regarded as an auxiliary discipline of importance primarily simply because it adds an interdisciplinary angle to more traditional historical inquiries.

Environmental history does not have a single agenda. It is neither a turn nor a paradigm in historiography. There are many ways to write environmental history. For their part, archaeologists, geologists, geographers, biologists, palynologists, climatologists etc. have made important contributions, but their work and methodologies have not yet been organized systematically to produce a holistic picture precisely because of the absence of a synthetic historical approach. Furthermore, sometimes these scientists have neglected one another’s work, and some of the different disciplines continue to arrive at contradictory findings. Continue reading “CFP: An environmental history of wars in Central Europe (Hungarian Historical Review)”

Deadline for Proposals: July 01, 2017

Call for Papers

The AATSEEL National Meeting is a forum for scholarly exchange of ideas in all areas of Slavic and East/Central European languages, literatures, linguistics, cultures, and pedagogy. The Program Committee invites scholars in these and related areas to form panels around specific topics, organize roundtable discussions, propose forums on instructional materials, and/or submit proposals for individual presentations for the 2018 Conference, which will be held on February 1-4, 2018 in Washington, DC.