The Russian Revolution in Global Perspective

In January 2017, Northumbria University will host the annual conference of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution, which forms part of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES). Given the centenary of 1917, this will be a special event, evaluating the state of research on Russia's revolutionary year.

As part of the wider conference, the organisers are running a public session, entitled 'The Russian Revolution in Global Perspective'. It will take place on Friday 6 January at 5:30 pm in Newcastle's Mining Institute. Speakers will explore the global impact of, and responses to, the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as well as the role of ideas about world revolution in early Soviet politics and society.

Chair: Matthias Neumann (University of East Anglia)

Steven Marks (Clemson University) - 'The Global Impact of the Russian Revolution: Historical Comparisons

Alice Pate (Kennesaw State University) - Global Responses to the 1917 Revolutions

Gleb Albert (University of Zurich) - World Revolution and Early Soviet Society

Discussant: Chris Read (University of Warwick)

All are welcome and entrance is free. However, to guarantee a place, guests should sign up via our Eventbrite page. For further questions, feel free to contact the organiser, Charlotte Alston.

[Conference Programme] 'Revolutionary Pasts: Representing the Long Nineteenth Century's Radical Heritage'

How did activists remember, represent and reassess the revolutionary heritage of the ‘long nineteenth century’? On 4–5 November 2016, Northumbria University’s ‘Histories of Activism’research group will examine this question in association with the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH) and with the support of Durham’s Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies.

Attendance of this event is free, but all guests are asked to register via this link no later than 26 October. All registered participants will subsequently receive further information on the event. If you have any questions, you can contact the organisers (Daniel Laqua, Charlotte Alston and Laura O'Brien) via historiesofactivism@gmail.com.

PROGRAMME

Friday 4 November

14h00             Opening by the organisers

14h15             Radical histories of Ireland and Irishness

• Terence McBride (University of the West of Scotland) – The radical narrative and Irishness in post-1848 Glasgow: the role of the Glasgow Free Press
• Felix Larkin (Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland) – Riding the back of the tiger: Irish rebellions of the 19th century as portrayed in the Sunday Freeman newspaper
• Ultán Gillen (Teesside) – Rethinking Wolfe Tone, reimagining revolution in 1960s Ireland
• Chair: Peter O’Connor (Northumbria)

15h45             Coffee break

16h10             Echoes of 1848

• Abigail Green (Oxford) – Children of 1848: Jewish liberal activists and the revolutionary tradition
• Laura O’Brien (Northumbria) –  ‘These great ideas bestowed to us by the past’: education, commemoration and the 1948 centenary of the French revolution of 1848
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria) – Nationhood between reconstruction and reunification: commemorating the 1848 revolution in 20^th-century Germany
• Chair: Timothy Baycroft (Sheffield)

17h40             Spaces and traces of radicalism

• Joseph Hardwick (Northumbria) – Mapping Tyneside radicalism
• Nigel Todd (WEA) – Newcastle’s radical past: a walking tour

20h00             Conference dinner

Saturday 5 November

10h15             Images and imaginations of revolutionary change

• Ben Partridge (Newcastle) – Imagining revolutions:  radical heritage in the photography of May ‘68
• Laura Forster (King’s College London) – The battle for the Commune: Raspouteam and the remapping of Paris, 1871–2011
• Discussant: Timothy Baycroft (Sheffield)
• Chair: James Koranyi (Durham)

11h30             Coffee break

11h50             British activism and the construction of radical legacies

• Joe Cozens (Essex) – The memory of the Peterloo Massacre in the long nineteenth century, 1819–1919
• Mark Nixon (Edinburgh) – Political heritage in the 1884 franchise demonstrations in Scotland
• Discussant: Joan Allen (Newcastle)
• Chair: John Belchem (Liverpool)

13h05             Lunch break / AGM, Society for the Study of Labour History

14h15             National and international narratives

• Tom Stammers (Durham) – Globalising the French Revolution in interwar France
• Christian Hogsbjerg (UCL) – Globalising the Haitian Revolution in interwar Paris
• Chair: Charlotte Alston (Northumbria)

15h15             Coffee break

15h30             Political movements and the uses of the past

• Máire F. Cross (Newcastle) – Peace in our time? Revolutionary aspirations of French utopian socialists narrated in a twentieth century pacifist context
• Marcella Sutcliffe (Cambridge) – Fighting for the soul of the British Left under Mazzini’s banner: co-operators versus socialists (c. 1885–1949)
• Amerigo Caruso (Saarbrücken) – Anti-revolutionary paranoia and the foundation of modern conservative political discourse in the long nineteenth century
• Chair: André Keil (Sunderland)

17h00             Closing remarks

Call for papers: 'Revolutionary Pasts: Representing the Long Ninteenth Century's Radical Heritage'

How did activists remember, represent and reassess the revolutionary heritage of the ‘long nineteenth century’? On 4–5 November 2016, Northumbria University’s ‘Histories of Activism’research group will examine this question in association with the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH) and with the support of Durham’s Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies.

We will explore how movements, groups and organisations evoked the memory of particular events (e.g. the revolutions of 1789 and 1848, the Paris Commune, the Haymarket Affair) and how they cast or recast the legacy of particular movements (e.g. utopian socialism, Chartism, feminism). In doing so, the event explores narratives about radical and revolutionary legacies in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

We are now inviting paper proposals for this event. Please send us a brief abstract (c. 200 words) and a biographical note or CV by 12 September. You can contact the organisers (Daniel Laqua, Charlotte Alston, Laura O’Brien) via historiesofactivism@gmail.com.