Organised by UEA School of History in conjunction with the journal Socialist History (Web) and the Institute of Working Class History, Chicago (Web)
Time: 15.-16.02.2020
Venue: School of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Proposals by: 29.11.2019
History has always played a crucial role in the making of the modern left, both in Britain and around the world, providing a vital tool for theoretical rationale, social critique and direct action. Whilst offering an important source of intellectual stimulus, it has equally been the cause of hot debate, controversy and division, never more so than during the 20th century.
Over the course of those ten tumultuous decades, history became the ground upon which the left struggled to define and redefine itself in response to dramatically changing times. Critique was, and continues to be, all-encompassing, from debates on historical interpretation, method, pedagogy and application, to questions addressing the very nature – or possibility – of historical knowledge itself.
This conference seeks to explore all aspects of the status and uses of history in modern left imagination:
- History, Marxism and international socialism
- History, class and class consciousness
- History, philosophy and critical theory
- History, gender, race, sexuality
- History and (post)colonialism
- History and/as activism
- History, pedagogy and empowerment
- National and international histories
- Party histories
- History and the role of the historian as public intellectual. Read more … (Web)