2016 is an anniversary year that serves as a useful
marker for academics and activists to contemplate where we stand in our
understanding of peace and how to achieve it. June 2016 is the bicentenary of
the establishment of the (London) Peace Society. Alongside the formation of the
New York Peace Society, its appearance is widely seen as representing the
beginning of the modern peace movement. Similarly it marks the start of a year
of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the visit of Martin
Luther King Jr to Newcastle in 1967 to accept an honorary doctorate. His
impromptu address, which fused together the issues of poverty, war and racism,
inspired the research expertise in the city’s two universities, and national
work of the Martin Luther King Peace Committee to honour King’s legacy by
‘building cultures of peace’.
The conference will mark these anniversaries by
asking big questions about the direction and vitality of the peace movement
over 200 years, and the place of King’s philosophy of nonviolence within it. It
will be a forum for scholars and activists to critically reflect on our
activities and explore how to build future synergies. Between the bicentenary of the Peace Society, the centenary of Britain's enactment of
conscription during World War One, and the run-up to the 50th
anniversary of MLK’s visit, there is ample opportunity to reflect on this
history and stage a robust discussion on radical shifts in the
peace movement a hundred years ago, including issues such as conscientious
objection and the increased importance of feminist/women’s activist roles, the
geographical and historical coordinates and influence of the civil rights
movement, King’s distinctive nonviolence in global peace movements, and more.
Four keynote speakers have confirmed their participation in the event:
- Martin Ceadel (Oxford)
- David Cortright (Notre Dame)
- Kate Hudson (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament)
- Thomas F. Jackson (North Carolina)
We now invite proposals for papers that may deal with the following (or related) theme:
- the Peace Society in retrospect
- Martin Luther King Jr.’s concepts and practices of nonviolence – local settings and global networks
- locating the U.S. civil rights movement in historical and global peace and/or other activist movements
- exploring the relationship between violence, nonviolence and armed self-defence: from Gandhi and King to ‘colour revolutions’ and the ‘Arab Spring’
- histories of peace movements
- resisting war through conscientious objection, mutinies, desertions and ‘live and let live systems’
- women’s activism and feminist pacifism
- transnational peace activism
- theology and religion in peace and nonviolence
- peace ideas, analysis and practice
- local histories of peace activism and war opposition (in Tyneside and elsewhere).
Please submit abstracts of 200
words plus biographical line to twocenturiesofpeacemaking@gmail.com by 11 December 2015. We welcome submissions of proposals for
complete paper sessions. Please provide
panel title and name of convenor, as well as abstracts and biographical lines
for each panel member.
One plenary session will be a roundtable for peace
activists, educators and scholars to discuss the state of the peace movement
200 years on and the role of academics and activists within it.
A limited number of travel bursaries are available
for postgraduate students and peace activists/educators. If you would like to
request one, please indicate this to the organisers.
