Les sources des historiens de l'amour

Sources for Historians of Love, Sex and War

Call for papers

Love/Sex/War. Another History of 20th Century Europe

Workshop 1 – Sources for Historians of Love, Sex and War

Date: May 18-19, 2015
Location: Paris (Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, 56 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris) 

This workshop is launching a two-year research project focusing on the history of love/sex/war in Europe: The 20th century has been called “the century of sex” (D. Herzog) and is frequently understood as a time in which “gender troubles” emerged (L.L. Downs, K. Canning). It thus seems crucial to have a gendered look on European societies.

Recent scholarship has drawn particular attention to the kinds of sources available to study the history of love/sex/war. War is significant in people’s lives: nearly every aspect of life, for almost everyone concerned, changes during war. Also, life after wartime is irrevocably altered. In order to improve our knowledge of a timeframe that re-shaped our understanding of love and sexuality in times of war, we shall firstly focus on a key issue for historians: that of relevant and available sources.

The workshop aims to find (or change our reading of) specific sources that dive into the emotional realms of affection, desire, inhibitions, repulsion, and grief – to name only a few. In order to write a history of sexuality and emotions, we might have to look for other forms of evidence and specific methods of analysis. Old sources can be used to answer new questions. New sources can be mobilized, and in the case of oral history, created. Individual accounts (such as memoirs, autobiographies, and oral history interviews) are particularly important.

However, whatever the source: though the material might only sporadically include tangible traces of sexual practices and emotional responses, they do embed the narrated acts into a larger socio-historical framework. The workshop is particularly interested in exploring the range and interpretive possibilities of sources, including oral histories, ego-documents, institutional records, and (audio)visual sources.

What windows do these sources open for interpretation?

What are the theoretical implications and methodological challenges for historians?



Application: Please send your abstract (max. 500 words) and a short bio-bibliography (max. 1 page) to elissa.mailander@sciencespo.fr and patrick.farges@univ-paris3.fr before 30 November 2014.

Applications by PhD-students and post-docs are particularly welcome.

Elissa Mailänder (Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po)
Patrick Farges (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, CEREG)
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, TU-Berlin)