Calibrating Narratives of Violence in 20th Century Europe: Liberal, Fascist, Communist, (Post-) Colonial

Organizers

Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague; Chair of History of Eastern Europe, University of Konstanz

Venue

Prague, Czech Republic

Conference

The conference aims to strengthen a pan-European view on the history of violence, one not predetermined by pigeon-holing research problems into specific ‘historical regions’ but driven by an interest in comparable historical phenomena which, while occurring in different places at different times, were essentially similar and therefore explicable. Such a view of European history does not consider phenomena as prisoners of ‘regions’ or ‘systems’, whether East and West, dictatorship and democracy, socialism, capitalism and colonialism, but as manifold variations of the path to and through modernity.

Seeking to create an environment for exchange between scholars working on similar subjects within the history of violence but in different regions, our conference intends to address (but is not limited to) the following themes:

• Processes of narrative othering through rendering certain forms of violence unique to specific systems, regions, and cultures; ethnicization of violence
• Claims of singularity of certain occurrences of violence and their impact on historical writing
• Interactions, overlaps and tensions between historical-analytical concepts and legal-normative categories (e.g. genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity)
• How the study of violence is shaped by Cold War dichotomies such as democracy and dictatorship, authoritarianism and liberalism, socialism and capitalism, empire and nation-state, colonialism and de-colonisation
• Strategies to overcome systemically or regionally based pigeon-holing in the histories of violence
• Provincialising Europe: Europe’s gradual loss of domination in the 20th century vs. endurance of ethnocentric narratives of violence
• Narrative capacity and political implications of binary concepts such as political vs. non-political, collective vs. individual, direct vs. indirect, physical vs. structural violence
• Conflicts and interactions of perspectives on violence ‘from above’ and ‘from below’, macro- and micro-histories of violence; everyday violence (e.g. criminal, police, domestic, sexual, medical violence) and political violence

Papers may deal with both overall conceptual issues and specific case studies. Of interest is the period from the late 19th to the early 21st century. The geographic focus of the conference is Europe as a whole as well as regions outside Europe where European powers perpetrated violence. Comparative papers crossing the East-West, North-South, colonial-non-colonial etc. divisions are particularly welcomed. It is our goal to publish selected papers in an edited volume of short essays.

Applications

Applications should be sent by 15 April 2024 to Pavel Kolář (pavel.kolar@uni-konstanz.de) and Maria Buko (maria.buko@uni-konstanz.de). Please send the application as a single word document with your surname in the file name. The document should contain:

1) An abstract (300 words)
2) A short biographical statement (150 words)
3) Contact details

Selected applicants will be notified by 25 April 2024.

The conference will start in the afternoon of Thursday 28 November 2024, and will conclude in the morning of Saturday 30 November.

Meals and accommodation in Prague for the duration of the conference (2 nights, 28-30 November 2024) will be provided for all accepted speakers. The organisers will cover travel costs within Europe.

Contact (announcement)

Prof. Pavel Kolář
Universitätsstraße 10
Fach 11
78464 Konstanz
Germany
pavel.kolar@uni-konstanz.de

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