Layers and Connections of the Political

Annual Conference of the Association for Political History

23-25 June 2021 – LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy

Politics has changed a lot, in the last half-century – and so has political history. The boundaries of the political have been redrawn. The large social and political bodies of the mid-twentieth century have grown weaker or have dissolved. Public institutions have become both less insulated from society and less effective in controlling and guiding it. Therefore, defining what is political has become more difficult. Political historians have confronted this challenge, and in the process have gained a deeper understanding of their object of study, have enlarged their scope and refined their methodologies, and have entered into closer dialogue with the “other” histories and the social sciences.

The fragmentation of the political and the increasing uncertainty of its boundaries have made political historians more acutely aware that politics does not exist only “high up” and on the macro level, but reaches deep into private lives, shapes people’s identities and perceptions, interferes with their thoughts and emotions, regulates and modifies their behaviour. Actions and reactions performed on the micro level can in turn not only determine how initiatives from the top are received, reinterpreted and remoulded, but also condition, constrain and change the institutions and subjects that act on the macro level.

Call for Panels & Papers

For its 2020-2021 conference (23-25 June 2021 – LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy), the Association for Political History invites proposals for panels and papers that consider, in a historical perspective, examples of how the multiple layers of the political have connected and interacted with each other during the last three centuries. We welcome senior researchers, but also encourage PhD candidates and young scholars to submit proposals and participate in the conference.

Application

Proposals must be sent by the 31st of January 2021 to the email address of the APH 2020-2021 Organizing Committee (aph2020@luiss.it).

Proposals must include:

• the description of the panel (1000 words maximum)
• the abstracts of the individual papers (200 words each)
• the short biographic notes of the participants (100 words each)

Panels will be composed of maximum of four participants and one discussant

Selection procedure & participation

Proposals will be selected by the end of February 2021 and participation must be confirmed by March 14. The deadline for registration and fees is April 30. The individual participation fee is 100 euros for senior scholars and 50 euros for PhD students and scholars belonging to departments attached to the Association for Political History. The fee is to be paid via credit card to the Luiss School of Government. Besides participation in the conference, the fee covers the social dinner on the evening of June 23 and the lunch on June 24. It does not include the accommodation, for which participants must provide autonomously.