The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum of debate for transnational and comparative approaches to the history of small European nations and Europe’s colonial peripheries in World War I in the context of the epochal changes brought by the collapse of large imperial states. Our aim to reach a more nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between the peripheral regions of Europe and her empires and Europe’s metropolitan core through the comparative and transnational analysis of the contribution of European, Asian and African peripheries to the war effort in World War I.
Prof. Michael S. Neiberg, an eminent scholar of World War I, will deliver the keynote address. Prof. Neiberg has written extensively on the multiple theatres and global reach of the War, most notably in Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Harvard, 2006) and Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I (2011).
Scholars are invited to submit papers on themes focusing on social, political or economic aspects of Europe’s small nations and colonial regions during World War I.
Themes covered may include the following:
- Colonial troops serving in Europe
- Troops of ethnic European minority populations serving in Europe
- Troops of ethnic European minority populations serving in overseas colonies
- Experiences of populations of independent small nations in Europe
- Experiences of populations of ethnic minorities within European multiethnic states
- Experiences of indigenous and settler populations of European overseas empires
- Official attempts to mobilise popular support across all ethnic groups in Europe and in the overseas colonies
- Support for or resistance to such mobilisation efforts and their different outcomes
Papers may address the following geographical regions:
- Peripheries of European multiethnic empires in Europe
- Peripheries of European belligerent powers to the east and south of Europe
- Europe’s overseas colonies
The workshop is an initiative of Róisín Healy, Enrico Dal Lago and Gearóid Barry at the History Department NUI Galway and will be held in June 2014 in order to mark the beginning of the commemorations for the hundredth anniversary of the start of World War I.
Prospective participants should send a paper title and a 300-word abstract, accompanied by a 1-page CV to enrico.dallago@nuigalway.ie by the deadline of 28 February 2014. They will be notified of acceptance by mid-March 2014.