Events

*** EVENT CANCELLED  ***

7 April 2020, Tuesday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Yangtze Lecture Theatre, Centre Building, LSE

Book Talk: Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman World

Speaker: Professor Houri Berberian (University of California, Irvine)
Chair: Professor Marc David Baer (LSE International History)

Roving Revolutionaries (UC Press, 2019, winner of the Der Mugrdechian SAS Outstanding Book Award) probes the interconnected aspects of Russian, Iranian, and Young Turk Revolutions that all exploded between 1904 and 1911. It does so through the study of the circulation of ideas, print, and Armenian revolutionaries, whose movements and participation within and across frontiers tell us a great deal about the global transformations that were taking shape.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and the Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century research clusters.

*** EVENT CANCELLED  ***

30 March 2020, Monday, 6.30pm to 8pm, 32L.G.03, LSE

Public Lecture: A Natural History of Evil: Postcolonial and Postsocialist Approaches

Speaker: Professor Alexander Etkind (European University Institute)
Chair: Dr Dina Gusejnova (LSE International History)

Based on his forthcoming book, Natural History of Evil: Global Resources and the State, Alexander Etkind was meant to talk about non-human agency of sugar, fur, hemp, oil and other natural resources in their relations with the changing character of the state.

Hosted by the department's Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century research cluster.

*** EVENT CANCELLED  ***

19 March 2020, Thursday, 9am to 6.30pm, Fawcett House, Room 9.04, LSE

LSE History Graduate Conference 2020: Transnational Disruptions: Decline, Renewal or Change?

Speakers: Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley (University of Southhampton) and Professor Gopalan Balachandran (Graduate Institute Geneva)

The objective of this conference, organised in association with the UCL Centre for Transnational History, was to examine disruptions across transnational spaces concerning global matters such as conflict, migration, diplomatic world orders, impact of international organizations, knowledge-sharing, and more. Our panels were meant to investigate historical moments of decline, change and renewal and analyse how political, economic and social disruptions inform the present.

The conference was organised with the generous support of The London Arts and Humanities Partnership, the Economic and Social Research Council and the LSE PhD Academy.

Sponsored by the department's Modern World History research cluster.

*** EVENT CANCELLED  ***

16 March 2020, Monday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Fawcett House, Room 9.04, LSE

Department of International History and LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre: Puerto Rican Nationalism: From the 1920s to Today

Speaker: Professor Margaret Power (Illinois Institute of Technology)
Chair: Dr Tanya Harmer (LSE International History)

This presentation was meant to explore varied expressions of nationalism and puertorriqueñidad in Puerto Rico during the last century.

Co-hosted by the department's The Americas in World History Research Cluster.

*** EVENT CANCELLED  ***

12 March 2020, Thursday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Cultures of War seminar series: The Force of Aesthetics: Literature, Knowledge, War

Speaker: Professor Anders Engberg-Pedersen (University of Southern Denmark)
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones (LSE International History)

In the third session of the Cultures of War seminar series, co-organised with the Department of International Relations, Professor Anders Engberg-Pedersen will explore how war is an aesthetic phenomenon. The talk examines the entwinement of war and aesthetics and seeks to place war within a broader history of knowledge.

Focusing on the period around 1800, the first part of this talk will seek to place war within a broader history of knowledge, tracing the impact of large-scale warfare on literary form, on military theory, and on cartography and wargames around the Napoleonic Wars. The second part, in turn, will examine the force of aesthetics. From Schiller’s philosophical aesthetics to contemporary developments in creative warfare, serious games, and the discourse on military design, war has put pressure on traditional aesthetic categories and distinctions between autonomy and use, representation and operation, and play and praxis. How have military institutions come to realize the force of aesthetics and sought to transform the aesthetic field into an instrument of war?

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War research cluster.

10 March 2020, Tuesday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Yangtze Lecture Theatre, Centre Building, LSE

Department of International History and LSE IDEAS Cold War Studies Project: Martha Graham's Cold War: The Dance of American Diplomacy

Speaker: Dr Victoria Phillips (Columbia) and Dr Stacey Prickett (Roehampton)
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones (LSE International History)

Although modern dancer Martha Graham claimed, “I am not political,” she, and her eponymous company, performed at the behest of the State Department on five continents during the administrations of eight U.S. presidents. From a White House performance for the Roosevelts in 1937, to a planned tour under George H.W. Bush to Eastern Europe in November 1989, Dr Phillips connects readers to the depths to which Graham and her company infiltrated the American propaganda machine.

Sponsored by the department's The Americas in World History and Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War research clusters.

4 March 2020, Wednesday, 1pm to 2.30pm, Centre Building, Room 1.03, LSE

Book Talk: The Letelier Assassination: Human Rights against Fascism in the Americas

Speaker: Professor Alan McPherson (Temple University)
Chair: Dr Tanya Harmer (LSE International History)

On September 21, 1976, a car bomb killed Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to the United States, along with his colleague Ronni Moffitt, in Washington, D.C. The quest for justice that followed lasted 19 years and exposed the long struggle between fascists and human rights advocates in the Americas. Professor McPherson explores the history of one of the Cold War’s most consequential assassinations. Read more about his book, Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a Washington Assassination Brought Pinochet's Terror State to Justice (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).

Hosted by the department's The Americas in World History Research Cluster.

Listen to the podcast.

3 March 2020, Tuesday, 1pm to 2pm, Shaw Library, 6th Floor, Old Building, LSE

LSE Festival: Engaging a Risen China by Understanding its Past

Speakers: Dr Isabella Jackson (Trinity College Dublin), Dr Ronald C. Po (LSE International History, pictured), Dr Pete Millwood (LSE International History)
Chair: Professor Leigh Jenco (LSE Government)

This roundtable discussion brought together historians of China and scholars on the country's international relations and politics to offer insight into how understanding China's history can help us make sense of the country today. 

This departmental event was part of the LSE Festival: Shape the World which ran from Monday 2 to Saturday 7 March 2020, with a series of events exploring how social science can make the world a better place.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and Modern World History research clusters.

2 March 2020, Monday, 1pm to 2.15pm, Shaw Library, 6th Floor, Old Building, LSE

LSE Festival: Lessons from the Past: how to learn and not learn from history

Speakers: Professor Michael Cox (LSE IDEAS), Professor Matthew Jones (LSE International History), Professor Anita Prazmowska (LSE International History, pictured), Professor David Stevenson (LSE International History)
Chair: Dr Dina Gusejnova (LSE International History)

How can history be used in making judgements about the present? We will be looking at the First World War, the History of Poland, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the End of the Cold War for answers.

This departmental event was part of the LSE Festival: Shape the World which ran from Monday 2 to Saturday 7 March 2020, with a series of events exploring how social science can make the world a better place.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and the Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century research clusters.

Listen to the podcast.

18 February 2020, Tuesday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Sumeet Valrani Lecture Theatre, Centre Building, LSE

Public Lecture: Empire Envisioned: The Sense of Sight in Imperial India and the Philippines

Speaker: Professor Andrew Rotter (Colgate University)
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones (LSE International History)

The social history of empire was constructed of all five human senses. This lecture considered the role of sight in the formation of British India the American Philippines.

The lecture was based on Professor Andrew Rotter's latest book, Empires of the Senses: Bodily Encounters in Imperial India and the Philippines (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Sponsored by the department's Modern World History research cluster.

12 February 2020, Wednesday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Cultures of War seminar series: Mediating Militarism through Affect: The Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army

Speaker: Dr Maria Rashid (SOAS)
Chair: Professor Tarak Barkawi (LSE International Relations)

In the second session of the Cultures of War seminar series, co-organised with the Department of International Relations, Dr Maria Rashid explored the findings of her new book, Dying to Serve (Stanford University Press).

The relentless expansion of  military values and technologies to domains outside the military suggest that militarism diffuses and shapes lives and spaces around it. Dr Maria Rashid addresses the question of how does the military thrive when so much of its work results in injury, death and debility? Grounding her study in the famed martial district of Chakwal in Pakistan, she studies the place of affect in recruitment and training practices, as well as the management of death and compensation to families.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and the Modern World History research clusters.

See pictures of the event.

11 February 2020, Tuesday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

Annual International History Lecture: LSE and the Genesis of Global Governance

Speaker: Professor Patricia Clavin (Oxford)
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones (LSE International History)

Starring the League of Nations, and featuring the students, staff, and archives of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the lecture recovered the entangled history of LSE with the practices of global governance. This international history reveals a wide-ranging preoccupation with the material conditions of peace, alongside the more familiar concern of disarmament.

Sponsored by the department's Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century and the Modern World History research clusters.

Listen to the podcast.

See pictures of the event.

10 February 2020, Monday, 5pm to 7pm, Graham Wallis Room, Old Building, LSE

Book Launch: The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of Empire

Panel: Professor Peter Burke (Cambridge), Professor Catherine Hall (UCL), Professor Mike Savage (LSE Sociology).
Response: Professor Jürgen Osterhammel (Konstanz) and Dr David Motadel (LSE International History).

While the nineteenth century has been described as the golden age of the European bourgeoisie, the emergence of the middle class and bourgeois culture was by no means exclusive to Europe. The Global Bourgeoisie explores the rise of the middle classes around the world during the age of empire. Bringing together eminent scholars, this landmark essay collection compares middle-class formation in various regions, highlighting differences and similarities, and assesses the extent to which bourgeois growth was tied to the increasing exchange of ideas and goods. The contributors indicate that the middle class was from its very beginning, even in Europe, the result of international connections and entanglements.

Read more about the book.

Sponsored by the department's Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century and the Modern World History research clusters.

See pictures of the event.

6 February 2020, Thursday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Department of International History and LSE IDEAS Cold War Studies Project: Book Launch: Global Development: A Cold War History

Speaker: Dr Sara Lorenzini (University of Trento)
Chair: Dr Roham Alvandi (LSE International History)

Global Development (Princeton University Press) tells the story of how the Cold War was fundamental to construct the institutions, concepts, and discourse around foreign aid that survive today.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and the Modern World History research clusters.

27 January 2020, Monday, 6.30pm to 8.30pm, Sumeet Valrani Lecture Theatre, Centre Building, LSE

Film screening and panel discussion: "Crafting the Resistance": Chilean resistance then and now

Speakers: Sara De Witt, Ana María Pelusa, Dr Hernando Fernández-Canque (Glasgow Caledonian University), Dr Sergio Vasquez (Sheffield)
Chair: Dr Tanya Harmer (LSE International History)

More than a million Chileans took to the streets to demand greater democracy and a new constitution in October 2019. They were met with severe repression from the army and police that reminded many of the violence used by General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990). To reflect on the current situation and parallels with the past, we showed the film “Crafting the Resistance” (2018). The film was followed by a panel discussion with some of those in the film who fought against the Chilean dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.

Hosted by the department's The Americas in World History Research Cluster.

Watch the documentary.

Listen to the podcast.

See pictures of the event.

10 December 2019, Tuesday, 6.30pm, German Historical Institute London, 17 Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2NJ

Department of International History and German Historical Institute London

GHIL Visiting Professorship Inaugural Lecture: The Short and the Long Twentieth Century: German and European Perspectives

Speaker: Professor Ulrich Herbert (GHIL Visiting Professor, 2019/20)

If the 20th century is said to start in 1917 and end in 1990, then the conflict between capitalism and communism is declared to be the sign of the era. World War II, National Socialism and the Holocaust, as well as colonialism and decolonisation, are all defined by this contradiction and become secondary events. If the starting point is set around 1890 with the implementation of high industrialization, high imperialism and the culture of modernity, then the First World War and with it the emergence of the great ideological mass movements become the result of these decades of upheaval. The period up to the 1970s, when classical industrial society came to an end, is then understood as a unity.

Does all this apply to Germany, does it characterize a structuring of European history in the 20th century as a whole or do national historical differences predominate here?

The Visiting Professorship is a joint project of the GHIL and the International History Department of the LSE and is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and the Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century research clusters.

21 November 2019, Thursday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Book Launch: Europe and the British Geographical Imagination, 1760-1830

Speaker: Dr Paul Stock (LSE International History)
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones (LSE International History)

Dr Paul Stock examined the findings in his new book, Europe and the British Geographical Imagination, 1760-1830, which explores what literate British people understood by the word 'Europe' in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Sponsored by the department's Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century and the Pre-Modern East and West research clusters.

30 October 2019, Wednesday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Book Talk: The Europe Illusion? Britain, France, Germany and the Long History of European Integration

Speaker: Dr Stuart Sweeney (University of Oxford) and Dr Tim Hochstrasser (LSE International History)
Chair: Professor David Stevenson (LSE International History)

In this talk, Dr Sweeney discussed his latest book The Europe Illusion with Dr Tim Hochstrasser. The book considers Britain’s relationships with France and Prussia-Germany since 1648 and how these relationships have been at the basis of European integration.

Sponsored by the department's Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century research cluster.

Listen to the podcast.

30 October 2019, Wednesday, 6pm to 8pm, Alumni Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Black History Month: Négritude: From Poetry to Politics

Discussants: Dr Imaobong Umoren (LSE International History, pictured), Christina Ivey (LSE Government) and Eileen Gbagbo (LSE International Relations)
Chair: Dr Dina Gusejnova (LSE International History)

To celebrate Black History Month, we screened exclusively Manthia Diawara's rarely shown documentary film "Négritude, a Dialogue between Soyinka and Senghor" (2015).  The documentary was followed by a discussion.

Sponsored by the department's Modern World History and The Americas in World History research clusters.

24 October 2019, Thursday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

Annual Gulf History Lecture: The 1979 Revolution in Iran: important or not?

Speaker: Professor Ervand Abrahamian (City University of New York)
Chair: Dr Roham Alvandi (LSE International History)

The Iranian Revolution shook the world, but left little lasting impact outside Iran. Professor Ervand Abrahamian will address this puzzling paradox of modern Iranian history in this Annual Gulf History Lecture.

This event, free and open to all, is hosted by the Department of International History with the generous support of the LSE Kuwait Programme.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and the Modern World History research clusters.

See pictures of the event.

Listen to the podcast.

23 October 2019, Wednesday, 6.30pm to 8pm, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Department of International History and LSE IDEAS: 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: German Historical Memory and National Identity

Speaker: Dr Hope M. Harrison (George Washington University)
Chair: Dr Roham Alvandi (LSE International History)

This public lecture examined the arc of memory politics in Germany since 1989, including the impact of the rise of the far right as well as German plans for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War and the Conflict and Identity in Europe since the 18th Century research clusters.

See pictures of the event.

Listen to the podcast.

16 October 2019, Wednesday, 6pm to 7pm, Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Department of International History and Department of International Relations: Professional, Regimented and Aggressive: British paratroopers and the Falklands War

Speaker: Professor Helen Parr (Keele)
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones (LSE International History)

In the first event of the Cultures of War seminar series, Professor Helen Parr talked about the lives and experiences of British paratroopers before, during and after the short but symbolic 1982 Falklands war.

Sponsored by the department's Contemporary International History and the Global Cold War research cluster.

See pictures of the event.