Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism

Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism
Location: Germany
Call for Papers Deadline: 2006-03-30

21-23 June 2007
Warburg-Haus, Hamburg
Proposal deadline 30 March 2006

Research on migration, diasporas and exile suggests that the specific trans-national situation with which exiles are confronted, frequently leads to
the emergence and development of nationalist or cosmopolitan attitudes towards other ‘nations’ or ethnicities, political and social groups. Nineteenth and early twentieth-century national historiography suggests that, during the process of nation building and the formation of national identities in western Europe, tendencies to develop rival national identities in exile were much stronger than in the so-called ‘cosmopolitan age’ of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. In the case of the Italian Risorgimento exile in France reinforced those exiles’ ‘nationalism’, other groups in diaspora, including the Huguenots, who migrated to different European and overseas destinations between 1548 and 1787, are identified as ‘cosmopolitans’. However, closer assessment of diasporic groups and of exile makes evident that exiles frequently developed attitudes that would be identified as simultaneously both cosmopolitan and nationalist.

This conference seeks,

  1. To discuss different forms of exile to approach a more differentiated perspective on exile and its consequences for groups living in a trans-national context. These groups reacted to their circumstances by creating a new political, social, economic and/or cultural identity.   2. To define and explain ‘nationalism’ and the so-called ‘rise of the nation-state’ in the context of ‘exile’ and diasporic movements.   3. To define and explain cultural, political or social ‘cosmopolitanism’ in
the context of ‘exile’ and Diasporas.

We invite papers which

  1. Offer specific forms of ‘exile’ including a) exile beyond the native country; forced exile or voluntary exile, political exile, diasporas and the discrimination of groups abroad that lead to forms of ‘non-voluntary exile’  b)exile within the native country: ‘inneres Exil’, discrimination of specific groups in their home countries which, in context, led to a variety of forms of ‘exile’.
  2. Present responses of ‘exiled’ groups to the challenges posed by ‘exile’ – such as acculturation, integration and assimilation, discrimination and concepts of cultural superiority or inferiority developed by both the ‘hosting’ and the ‘hosted’ groups - that could be defined as ‘nationalist’ or ‘cosmopolitan’.

Please send an abstract of your paper proposal and a short curriculum vitae to

Dr. Susanne Lachenicht (slachenicht@yahoo.com). The deadline for proposals is 30 March 2006.

Organisers: Lehrstuhl für Neuere Geschichte, Schwerpunkt Nordamerikanische, Atlantische und Karibische Geschichte, Historisches Seminar, Universität Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Claudia Schnurmann, Dr. Susanne Lachenicht and the Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden, Hamburg, Dr. Kirsten Heinsohn.

 Dr. Susanne Lachenicht
Universität Hamburg
Historisches Seminar
Arbeitsbereich Außereuropäische Geschichte
Lehrstuhl Prof. Dr. Claudia Schnurmann
Von Melle Park 6
Hamburg
Germany
Email: slachenicht@yahoo.com