Counter-Hegemonic Internationalisms: Perspectives from the Past

On 20 and 21 March 2025, diverse histories of activism will feature prominently at a conference hosted at Northumbria University: "Counter-Hegemonic Internationalisms: Perspectives from the Past". The programme for the event is available via this link.

The event is run within the framework of the "Rethinking Internationalism" project, which is funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council and run by a team comprising Jessica Reinisch (Birkbeck, University of London), Ria Kapoor (Queen Mary University of London), Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) and Margot Tudor (City-St George's, University of London).

"Histories of Activism" group member Daniel Laqua is serving as the local organiser of the "Counter-Hegemonic Internationalisms" conference. The event will also feature a walking tour on "Internationalism and Empire in Newcastle" which Laqua and fellow group member Ed Anderson developed on behalf of the "Histories of Activism" group.

Half-day workshop on student activism in British and US history

On Monday 8 July, the Histories of Activism Research Group at Northumbria University is running a small workshop to explore different histories of student activism in the UK and the US. The event is free, but guests are asked to register by emailing Daniel Laqua (daniel.laqua@northumbria.ac.uk) before 5 July. The programme is listed below.

 

10h30 – 11h30  Diversity and Difference in UK-Based Student Activism

Ed Anderson (Northumbria) – ‘Rajahs to Revolutionaries: The Politics of Indian Students in Late Colonial Britain’

Jodi Burkett (Portsmouth) – ‘Free Speech, “No Platform” and the Fight against Racism on UK Campuses, c. 1974–1986’

 

11h40 – 12h40 Ages of Radical Activism in the US

Jack Hodgson (Roehampton) – ‘Pupils’ Strikes and Trade Unionism in Chicago and Pittsburgh Grade Schools, 1900–1913’

Christopher Olewicz (De Montfort) – ‘New Left Intellectuals and Student Protest in the United States’

[Conference Programme] From Student Unions to Trade Unions: Campus-Based Activism and Beyond

 We are delighted to announce the programme for our event "From Student Unions to Trade Unions: Campus-Based Activism and Beyond". This conference is supported by the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH). It will take place over two days (12 and 13 January) in Newcastle upon Tyne, followed by some online sessions on 27 January. For further information, please contact Daniel Laqua (daniel.laqua@northumbria.ac.uk) or register via this link (individual sign-up for each day).

From Student Unions to Trade Unions: 

Campus-Based Activism and Beyond

 

 12–13 January 2023 (Newcastle upon Tyne) and 27 January 2023 (online)

 

 

Thursday 12 January

 

15h00 – Welcome Session

·       Daniel Laqua (Associate Professor of European History, Northumbria University) – Introduction

·       Georgina Brewis (Professor of Social History, University College London) – New research into archiving and record keeping practices in UK student union

15h20 – International Students (chair: Emily Sharp, PhD Candidate in History, Northumbria University)

·       Edward Anderson (Assistant Professor in History, Northumbria University) – Anti-Imperialism, Student Politics, and Memorialisation: Indian Students in Newcastle at the Twilight of the British Empire

·       Jodi Burkett (Senior Lecturer in History, Portsmouth University) – In Service of the Community or the State? Overseas Students and Language Provision [online]

16h20 – Coffee, Tea and Cake

 16h35 – Protest in the ‘Long 1970s’ (chair: Sam Blaxland, ‘Generation UCL’ Fellow, University College London)

·       Frederick Coombes (PhD Candidate in African History, University of Leeds) – ‘I Was Really Privileged’: The Ambiguities of Protest in the Face of Repression, Deportation and Incarceration around l’Université de Dakar, 1966–1973

·       Chris Perkins (Senior Lecturer in Japanese, University of Edinburgh) – Japan’s 1968 on Trial

·       Sarah Campbell (Senior Lecturer in Irish and British History, Newcastle University) – ‘The Lines Have Been Drawn’: The H-Block Protest and Student Activism in Northern Ireland, 1977–1981

 18h00 – End of Day 1

 

 

Friday 13 January

 9h20 – Arrival / Coffee and Tea

9h35 – Confronting Political Change (chair: Charlotte Alston, Professor of History, Northumbria University)

·       Rory Hanna (PhD Candidate in History, University of Sheffield) – Between Solidarity and Scepticism: West German Students and Afro-Asian Activism, 1956–1962

·       Emily Sharp (PhD Candidate in History, Northumbria University) – British Students and the Practice of Solidarity in the 1970s and 1980s

·       Anne HEFFERNAN (Assistant Professor in Southern African History, Durham University) – Students in (the) Transition: How Student Movements Navigated South Africa’s Political Transition into the Post-Apartheid Era

 11h00 – Coffee and Tea

11h15 Beyond University Students (chair: Georgina Brewis, Professor of Social History, University College London)

·       George Bodie (Lecturer in History, Goldsmiths College) – ‘A Terrible Blow to All National Liberation Movements’: The Cuban Missile Crisis through the Eyes of African Trade Unionist-Students in Berlin, 1962

·       Laura Tisdall (NUAcT Fellow in History, Newcastle University) – The National Union of School Students (NUSS) and Age-Based Activism in Cold War Britain

 12h15 – Lunch

13h10 – Protest and Subversion Today (chair: Linsey Robb, Associate Professor of British History, Northumbria University)

·       Jean-Thomas Martelli (Research Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University) – Can the Popular Disembody Populism? Students and the Re-appropriation of the Nationalist Floating Signifier in Contemporary Indian Politics

·       Heather McKnight (Magnetic Ideals Collective, Brighton) – Reimagining the University through Resistance: The Prefigurative Possibilities of Joint Working, Protest and Academic Freedom

 

14h10 – Coffee and Tea

 

14h30 – Personal and Political Trajectories (chair: James Koranyi, Associate Professor of History, Durham University)

·       Andreea Dahlquist (Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies) – Fascist Activism in the Interwar Years: From Student Movement to Political Militantism in the Shadow of the Romanian-Polish Alliance [co-authored paper, with Bogdan-Alexandru Schipor (Senior Researcher in Contemporary History, A.D. Xenopol History Institute of the Romanian Academy)]

·       Dan Hodgkinson (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Oxford) – Living with Ruins: Past Dreams and Their Personal Effects at the End of the Cold War in Zimbabwe

·       Safia Dahani (Postdoctoral Fellow, École des hautes études en sciences sociales / Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique, Paris) – A New Branch of Political Recruitment? The Recent Conversion of FAGE Leaders in the French Political Field

 

15h55 – End of Day 2 (closing words: Daniel Laqua, Associate Professor of European History, Northumbria University)

 

 

Friday 27 January

 10h40 – Online Panel 1: Students and Social Movements

·       Opening / Reflections on in-person events

·       Antonin Dubois (EHESS Paris / Université de Franche-Comté) – Should Students Unionise? Debates on Trade-Unionism among French Students, 1900–1946

·       Giuseppe Lipari (PhD Candidate, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence) – School Student Unions and Trade Unions in the Mobilisations of 2014–2015 in Italy

 11h50 – Lunch Break

 12h40 – Online Panel 2: Student Lives

·       Ellen R. Dixon (PhD Candidate in International Relations, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington / President, New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations), Jacqueline Watt (PhD Student in Social Anthropology

Massey University / Co-President, Massey @ Distance Students’ Association) and Gwen Palmer Steeds (Researcher and Equity Officer, Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association)  – In-Debted Lives: The Political Ecology of the Campaigns Against Student Debt in Aotearoa New Zealand

·       Sarah Crook (Senior Lecturer in British History, Swansea University) – Building the Healthy Campus: Students and Mental Health Activism in 1960s and 1970s Britain

·       Discussant: Heather Ellis (Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, School of Education, Sheffield University)

 13h50 – Break

 14h05 – Online Panel 3: Students and (Inter-)National Politics

·       Miroslav Vašík (PhD Candidate in History, Charles University Prague) – Czech Students in the 1848 Revolution: Connecting Prague and the Countryside?

·       Ana-Maria Stan (Senior Researcher in History, Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca) – La Petite Entente des Étudiants: An Example of Student Activism and Student Diplomacy in Interwar Eastern Europe

·       Nikhil Tiwari (Ph.D. Candidate, Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University) – Inquiry into the Role of Student Movements in Taiwan’s Democratisation and Democratic Consolidation

·       Discussant: Ljubica Spaskovska (Lecturer in European History, University of Exeter)

 

15h30 – Break

 

15h45 – Launch Event

·       Daniel Laqua (Associate Professor of European History, Northumbria University) and Nikolaos Papadogiannis (Lecturer in European History, Stirling University) – Youth and Internationalism in the Twentieth Century: Special Journal Issue of Social History

Call for Papers: From Student Unions to Trade Unions

 

Call for Papers

From Student Unions to Trade Unions: Campus-Based Activism and Beyond

13 January 2023

Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne

 

 

This workshop will explore the different ways in which campus-based activism linked to wider goals of social and political change as well as tracing the conflicts that emerged in such settings. It will bring together historians working on different countries and regions, with discussions that encourage comparative and transnational perspectives.

 

In 1922, student leaders from England and Wales established the National Union of Students (NUS) and, in doing so, connected local efforts to represent students with endeavours that were being waged within the national and international spheres. The formation of the NUS was part of a broader, international phenomenon – namely the creation of bodies that staked claims beyond individual college or university settings. From the very beginning, local and national student unions were subject to underlying tensions. On the one hand, some activists were keen to focus on matters that seemed to have a direct bearing on student concerns, from dealing with educational provision and student welfare to promoting sports or travel. On the other hand, a competing conception of student activism sought to link it to wider social and political visions. The latter variety manifested itself in different ways, for instance student involvement in anticolonial struggles, the rise of radical protest in 1968 and students’ involvement in international solidarity campaigns during the 1970s. In many ways, these dual foci, and the tensions that they often entail, have been consistent features of student politics.

 

We encourage papers that focus on different countries as well as contributions that explore international, transnational and methodological dimensions. Speakers may focus on different time periods. We are particularly interested in contributions that help to shed light on some of the following questions: 

 

·       In what ways and what contexts did student activists forge connections with other social and political actors, for instance trade unions, political parties and social movements?

·       How did participation in welfare provision and self-help relate to broader quests for social change?

·       How did students engage with industrial relations on campus (e. g. lecturers’ strikes)?

·       What roles did local or national student unions play in specific political campaigns? 

·       What were the manifestations and limitations of international solidarity (as articulated by student activists)?

·       How did officials and state agencies engage with student activists and their politics?

·       What are the sources and methods through which we can examine student activism, especially in terms of its relationship with social movements?

 

The event is hosted by the History of Activism research group at Northumbria University, with support from the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH). Thanks to funding from the SSLH, we can provide some partial travel subsidies to PhD students and early-career researchers who do not have access to institutional funds. If you would like to offer a paper for this event, please submit a brief abstract (150–200 words) and a biographical note to Daniel Laqua (daniel.laqua@northumbria.ac.uk) by 20 November 2022.

Online Symposia on 6 and 20 November: Non-Conformity, Critiques and Contention under Communist Rule in the 1970s and 1980s

With support from the Society for the Study of Labor History, Northumbria University's History of Activism research group is hosting two online symposia on different ways in which communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe was being critiqued and contested during the 1970s and 1970s. To register for these online symposia, please contact Daniel Laqua. 

Friday, 6 November 2020, 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm

• Charlotte Alston and Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Welcome

Challenging ‘Actually Existing Socialism'

• André Keil (Liverpool John Moores University) – ‘Instandbesetzen’? Squatting in the Late GDR between Social Protest, Youth Culture, and Conservation
• Richard Millington (University of Chester) – Challenging the State? Petty Thieves in the GDR, 1971–1989

Cultural Change and New Social Movements

• Aleksandra Gajowy (Newcastle University) – Polish Queer Homecomings: Filo, DIK Fagazine, and Unearthing Ryszard Kisiel’s Archive
• Alexandra Wedl (University of Basel) – Green Volunteers in Czechoslovakia: The Youth Newspaper Mladý svět and Its Environmental Campaign, 1970s –1980s

Critiques and Future Visions in the Late 1980s

• Dirk Dalberg (Slovak Academy of Sciences) – Self-Government as an Alternative Socialism: Czechoslovakia in the Late 1980s
• Anna Calori (University of Leipzig) – Between Reformism and Neoliberalism: Envisaging Alternative Socialisms in the Debates of Yugoslav Economists (1987–1991)

Friday 20 November, 1:30 to 5:00 pm

Opposition Movements

• Anselma Gallinat (Newcastle University) – Challenging the State on Pastoral and Theological Grounds: Church–State Engagements in East Germany
• James Koranyi (Durham University) – Romanian Skirmishes: Aktionsgruppe Banat, Trade Union Nostalgia, and Opposition to Ceaușescu
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Solidarity and Protest: East–West Responses to the Biermann Expatriation of 1976

Dissent in Transnational Perspective

• Irina Gordeeva (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam / St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute, Moscow) – Edward Palmer Thompson and the Soviet Independent Peace Movement
• Mark Hurst (Lancaster University) – ‘Conversations with Cannibals’: Misunderstood Activism across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War
• Kim Christiaens and Jos Claeys (KU Leuven) – Failures, Limits and Competition: Campaigns on behalf of Eastern European Dissidents in Cold War Belgium, 1960s–1980s

Concluding Discussion

• Charlotte Alston (Northumbria University) – Discussant Comments
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Next Steps

Call for Papers: conference on "Social Movements and the Challenges to State Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe"

Social Movements and the Challenges to 

State Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe

27 and 28 March 2020

Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne

Following the dramatic events of 1989, the political landscape looked significantly different and continued to be in flux throughout 1990. The German Democratic Republic held its first (and final) democratic election in March 1990, setting a path that ultimately led to reunification in October that year. In June 1990, the holding of parliamentary elections in Czechoslovakia confirmed the outcome of the previous year’s Velvet Revolution. And in Poland, the country’s political transformation was symbolised by the election of Solidarnośćfounder Lech Wałęsa to the presidency in December 1990. Throughout the year, challenges to the status quo in the Soviet Union came from a variety of national, political and environmental movements, extending into many aspects of everyday life.

Thirty years on from these seismic changes, our conference intends to offer a fresh assessment of the way in which communist rule was being contested before the collapse of state socialism. We are particularly interested in the ways that social movements and transnational actors challenged the existing systems and power relations. We invite proposals on different countries in the region, with a focus on movements and events in the 1970s and/or 1980s. Potential angles include the following:

o  The extent to which different activist currents – including pacifism and environmentalism – questioned the principles and practices of state socialism;

o  The responses of Western trade unionists, socialists and communists to dissident movements in the East;

o  The interactions between a new politics of human rights and traditional forms of social and political activism;

o  The ways in which particular modes of cultural expression represented and advanced political challenges; 

o  The envisaging of socialist alternatives – or alternative socialisms – within the countries in the Soviet bloc.

Alongside contributions from the discipline of History, we welcome papers that draw on examples from Literature, Music, Art and Film.

Please send your abstracts of up to 300 words as well as a short biographical note to Charlotte Alston (charlotte.alston@northumbria.ac.uk) and Daniel Laqua (daniel.laqua@northumbria.ac.uk) no later than 10 February 2020. We intend to publish a selection of papers that are presented at this event. 

The event is hosted by the ‘Histories of Activism’ research group at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, with support from the university’s Institute of Humanities and the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH).

'50 Years of Activism': day school in collaboration with North East Labour History Society

Venue: Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne

9:30am to 4:30pm, Saturday 16 September 2017

A collaboration between the Histories of Activism Group at Northumbria University and the North East Labour History Society.

This day school will reflect on the last fifty years in the North East, and especially the great changes that have occurred in politics, culture and society.
The workshops will focus on specific subjects such as Labour Activism and Music and we believe it will revive the spirit of the History Workshop conferences. The backgrounds of the participants will be mixed, including academics presenting their research, as well as activists and historians working outside of a formal academic framework.
To book your place in this Day School, please let us know at moderator@nelh.net. Attendance is free, and coffee and lunch will be provided.

Updates and new information will be posted on our day-school page: http://nelh.net/event/day-school-fifty-years-of-activism

Fifty Years of Activism

9:30 – 10:00 Coffee and Registration
10:00 – 11:00 Plenary, Keynote Speaker: John Charlton
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee
11:30 – 1:00 Three Parallel Workshops
Culture and Music: Workshop Leader, Dr Jude Murphy
Labour Activism: Workshop Leader, Ben Sellers
Women and the Women’s Movement: Workshop Leader, Dr Liz O’Donnell. During this session Dr Julie Scanlon will be talking about her research into the 1976 Women’s Liberation Conference held in Ponteland.
1:00 – 2:00 Lunch
2:00 – 3:00 Three Parallel Workshops
The Peace Movement: Workshop Leader, John Creaby
Politics: Workshop Leader, Nigel Todd
Cooperatives: Workshop Leader, Professor Tony Webster
3:00 – 4:00 Two Parallel Workshops
Trade Unions and the World of Work: Workshop Leader, John Stirling
Growth of Ethnic Diversity in the North East: Workshop Leader, Dr Avram Taylor
4:00 – 4:30 Plenary: Concluding Remarks: Dr Matt Perry

To book your place in this Day School, please let us know at moderator@nelh.net. Attendance is free, and coffee and lunch will be provided.