The historical transcendence of the Great War is beyond doubt. Because of its complex combination of military, social, cultural and political aspects, it has been unanimously considered as a sort of gigantic historical breaking line, a no turning point for the European and worldwide history. In spite of the elements that provided continuity and bridged the pre and the post war situation, it is difficult to imagine the twentieth century history without taking into account the break with the past that the war meant.

In spite of this transcendence, the study of the Great War has not deserved close attention among the Spanish historians, probably because of the neutral position that Spain held in the battle. However, now that we commemorate the centennial outbreak of the War, the internationalization of our historiography forces us to consider the questions that are being posed beyond our borders.

It is for this reason that GERD (Republic and Democracy Studies Group at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) promotes the celebration of the International Conference The Great War and its aftermaths. The alternatives to the breakdown of the liberal civilization. The aim of this conference is to offer an occasion to share views and to raise discussion on the most recent approaches to the war conflict that signalled the birth of our times. We consider it necessary to focus on the analysis of the enormous changes that this conflict caused all over the world and in Europe in particular. Among other issues, the conference will tackle the liberal world crisis that the end of the Great War triggered, with the birth of the different alternatives (democracy, fascism, socialism, communism) that would be dominant in the following two decades of the European history.

The languages of the Conference will be Catalan, Spanish and English (without translation). Inaugural conference will be held in French (with translation into Spanish).

Call for Paper

The Organizing Committee invites the submission of papers on all topics related to the main theme of the conference. The topics may be related to the strict period of the Great War as well as to the broad postwar period (the twenties and early thirties).

Papers can be written in any of the official Spanish languages, English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese.

Authors of papers should submit abstracts specifying the author’s name, affiliation, surface mail address and e-mail address.

Abstracts should be around 500 words (excluding references).

Abstracts should be sent by e-mail, as attachments (compatible format: Open Office, Word 2007 or Word 2010), to <Javier.Rodrigo@uab.cat>.

The deadline for all abstracts is 30 September 2013.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 31 October 2013.

The final versions of papers should be sent as attachment (compatible format: Open Office, Word 2007 or Word 2010), to <Javier.Rodrigo@uab.cat> before 28 February 2014. The scientific committee will reject those papers which do not follow the historiographic requisites of a conference of this characteristics. All the accepted papers will be published in CD-Rom.

Papers should not exceed 50.000 characters, including spaces, footnotes and references.

Instructions on papers’ formatting will be sent to participants, together with the acceptation of the paper, via email.

Registration

There is a registration fee of 30 € payable on acceptance of your submission. The Organizing Committee offers the possibility of attending the conference without the submission of a paper (registration fee: 50 €). All participants have to send the registration form and a proof of payment (scaned docum) to <adria.llacuna@gmail.com>.

The bank account number and the registration form will be provided in the following call (in the Conference website).