Labnet: CFP: The Roots of Global Civil Society: From the Rise of the Press to the Fall of the Wall - Cambridge 2-3/10/09

[labnet at lists.labourhistory.net]

[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-Kult. AB]

From: Anne-Isabelle Richard-Picchi <aigcfr2 at cam.ac.uk> 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

University of Cambridge, Cambridge
02.10.2009-03.10.2009, University of Cambridge
Deadline: 10.05.2009

The Roots of Global Civil Society: From the Rise of the Press to the
Fall of the Wall 

The concept of global civil society has gained currency in recent years
among social scientists and public policy practitioners. However, it is
often seen as a contemporary phenomenon - a by-product of the wellspring
of popular sentiment leading to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, or of
the increasingly integrated global system which emerged in its wake. 

Yet, the roots of global civil society - like those of globalisation
itself - may be traced far further back. Ordinary citizens and subjects
have long pursued social and political aims through organisations which
spanned states and empires and crossed borders - and were often
explicitly ecumenical in purpose. From Buenos Aires to Beirut, Paris to
Penang, growing numbers of civil society institutions - cultural clubs,
philosophical and learned societies, charitable organisations and
reformist leagues - emerged throughout the nineteenth century. Their
members increasingly thought globally, using the printing press and the
telegraph to exchange ideas, and to put their claims before the world.
By the early 1900s, women's rights activists and socialists, anarchists
and Marxists, radical nationalists and religious revivalists had all
created movements which ran across, and sometimes undercut, borders.
Indeed, the twentieth century witnessed not only successive reforms to
international society, but also the growing prominence of organisations
which sought to mobilise citizens for a global purpose - from the peace
leagues of the 1920s and 1930s to the anti-globalisation movements of
the 1990s. 

Can we locate the roots of 'global civil society' in such events? How
did historical actors understand the ecumenical dimensions of their
activities at various locations and points in time? How were these
notions articulated in their writings and pronouncements? And how were
they embodied in the associations they created, and the friendships and
alliances they contracted? How might we, in turn, define and use the
concept of 'global civil society'? 

The Cambridge World History Workshop invites scholars working across a
broad range of time periods and geographical areas to help answer such
questions around the theme of 'global civil society'. 
  
Possible topics might include, but are not limited to: 
- The concept of global civil society, and its utility as a category of
world-historical analysis 
- Religious and secular conceptions of civic virtue in a global context
- Cosmopolitan / Trans-national models of association and articulation 
- Interwar globalism and the anti-colonial moment 
- Trade unions, NGOs, and the post-1945 consensus from below 
- Global Civil Society from the 1960s 

The conference will be held 2-3 October 2009 at the University of
Cambridge. Please check the website for further details:
http://www.worldhist.group.cam.ac.uk. 
We particularly welcome applications from graduate students and
early-career academics. 

Please send a 250 word abstract, including name, contact details, and
institutional affiliation as a .doc attachment to the conference
organisers: 

Su Lin Lewis sll53 at cam.ac.uk 
Andrew Arsan aka25 at cam.ac.uk 
Anne-Isabelle Richard aigcfr2 at cam.ac.uk 
The deadline for applications is 10th May 2009.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conference Organisers: 
Su Lin Lewis 
Email: sll53 at cam.ac.uk  

Andrew Arsan 
Email: aka25 at cam.ac.uk  

Anne-Isabelle Richard 
Email: aigcfr2 at cam.ac.uk 

Homepage <http://www.worldhist.group.cam.ac.uk> 

URL zur Zitation dieses Beitrages
<http://geschichte-transnational.clio-online.net/termine/id=10933>