CfP: Old Cities, Former Capitals and the Nation-State Building in Europe (18th-20th centuries): regional and national identities
Iași, November 19-21, 2024
The community identities in a society organized according to certain political principles, in a state, is one of the most persistent, fertile, and controversial topics of debate in the social sciences and humanities. In a common understanding, regional identities have a stronger connection with pre-modern forms of identity, historically constructed over a longer period of time, being specific to the political and cultural plurality of the medieval world, while national identities are specific to modern “imagined communities“, based on a unitary cultural discourse and the political principle of collective sovereignty, according to which the political community (the nation) is the only legitimate constituent power. But is this the case? The theme of our conference proposes an interdisciplinary debate around the forms of regional and national identities in the cultural and political discourse of modernity, but also in the political geography of nation-states, taking its starting point from the changes that have occurred as a result of the integration of cities with a long history as centers of political power and regional community cohesion into a nation-state. In order to provide potential participants with some clearer points of reference for debate, we have thought of a few sub-themes, which are of an indicative nature, but without limiting the openness to other relevant issues:
Regional identities and national identity, with the aim of analyzing the interference between regional, political and cultural traditions and the discourse of national identity in the nineteenth century
National languages and regional dialects: particularities of the linguistic transition in the nineteenth century, the standardization of national languages (etymological dictionary, grammar, cultural debates on the historical heritage and the features of the modern national language), etc.
Center and periphery in nation-state building: about political inertia and economic adaptations/declines in some regions and cities with important political background in the past, on the features of the integration of regional elites into the institutional and political structure of the nation-state in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century
Regional historical memory and the discourse of decentralization/regionalization in the second half of the twentieth century, about the balance between the principle of subsidiarity, the decentralization policies, the problem of economic disparities, and the discourse of regional autonomy in the post-war period.
The conference is organized by the Center for the History of International Relations (CIRI), within the Faculty of History from “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Universidad Salamanca and Balkan History Association, and is included in the programme of Coimbra Group Universities for November 2024.
Each participant in the International Conference Old Cities, Former Capitals and the Nation-State Building in Europe (18th-20th centuries): regional and national identities will have 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes for questions and discussions. The presentations can be delivered in English or French. During the conference session, on the afternoon of November 20, some papers may be presented online on Zoom.
Please send the title of your paper, a summary of maximum 300 words and the information regarding your institutional affiliation by October 25, 2024, at the email address mihut.cosmin@yahoo.com; cploscaru@yahoo.com. The organizers will provide, at your request, half board accommodation for three nights. The scientific papers presented will be included in a conference volume, to be published by a prestigious publisher abroad, with a submission deadline of 1 March 2025.
Organizing Committee:
PhD. Professor Raul Sanchez Prieto – Vice-Rector of the University of Salamanca
PhD. Professor Cristian Ploscaru – Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Professor Efrem Yildiz Sadak – Spanish Language Department, University of Salamanca
PhD. Associate Researcher Mihai Dragnea – Department of Business, History and Social Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway
PhD. Lecturer Cosmin Mihuț – Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Aurica Ichim – Director of “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum of Iași
PhD. Professor Daniela Cojocaru – Faculty of Philosophy and Social-Political Sciences, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Researcher Liviu Brătescu – “A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Iași, Romanian Academy
PhD. Associate Professor Gabriel Leanca – Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Researcher Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu – Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași