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SUMMARY:Graduate Conference: The Roots of Global Civil Society - Speaker t
 o be confirmed
DTSTART:20091001T230000Z
DTEND:20091001T230000Z
UID:TALK17191@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Su Lin Lewis
DESCRIPTION:_Please note this is not a talk but a graduate conference.  We
  are currently updating the website - this note will be moved to the confe
 rence list_\n\nThe Roots of Global Civil Society\nFrom the Rise of the Pre
 ss to the Fall of the Wall\n\nThe concept of global civil society has gain
 ed currency in recent years among social scientists and public policy prac
 titioners. However\, it is often seen as a contemporary phenomenon – a b
 y-product of the wellspring of popular sentiment leading to the collapse o
 f the Berlin Wall\, or of the increasingly integrated global system which 
 emerged in its wake.\n\nYet\, the roots of global civil society – like t
 hose 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 – cult
 ural clubs\, philosophical and learned societies\, charitable organisation
 s and reformist leagues – emerged throughout the nineteenth century. The
 ir members increasingly thought globally\, using the printing press and th
 e telegraph to exchange ideas\, and to put their claims before the world. 
 By the early 1900s\, women’s rights activists and socialists\, anarchist
 s and Marxists\, radical nationalists and religious revivalists had all cr
 eated movements which ran across\, and sometimes undercut\, borders. Indee
 d\, the twentieth century witnessed not only successive reforms to interna
 tional society\, but also the growing prominence of organisations which so
 ught to mobilise citizens for a global purpose – from the peace leagues 
 of the 1920s and 1930s to the anti-globalisation movements of the 1990s.\n
 \nCan we locate the roots of ‘global civil society’ in such events? Ho
 w did historical actors understand the ecumenical dimensions of their acti
 vities at various locations and points in time? How were these notions art
 iculated 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 ‘glob
 al civil society’?\nThe Cambridge World History Workshop invites scholar
 s working across a broad range of time periods and geographical areas to h
 elp answer such questions around the theme of ‘global civil society’.\
 n \nPossible topics might include\, but are not limited to:\n- The concept
  of global civil society\, and its utility as a category of world-historic
 al analysis\n- Religious and secular conceptions of civic virtue in a glob
 al context\n- Cosmopolitan / Trans-national models of association and arti
 culation\n- Interwar globalism and the anti-colonial moment\n- Trade union
 s\, NGOs\, and the post-1945 consensus from below\n- Global Civil Society 
 from the 1960s\n\nThe conference will be held 2-3 October 2009 at the Univ
 ersity of Cambridge. Please check the website for further details: http://
 www.worldhist.group.cam.ac.uk.\nWe particularly welcome applications from 
 graduate students and early-career academics.  \n\nPlease send a 250 word 
 abstract\, including name\, contact details\, and institutional affiliatio
 n as a .doc attachment to the conference organisers:\nSu Lin Lewis sll53@c
 am.ac.uk\nAndrew Arsan aka25@cam.ac.uk\nAnne-Isabelle Richard aigcfr2@cam.
 ac.uk\n\nThe deadline for applications is 10th May 2009.
LOCATION:Undecided
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