Wokshop: "War Veterans and the World after 1945: Social Movements, Cold War Politics, and Decolonization" (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany, 6-8 July, 2017)

Here's an recent call for papers for a wokshop on  history of war veterans in transnational context - taking place at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany on 6-8 July, 2017 entitled "War Veterans and the World after 1945: Social Movements, Cold War Politics, and Decolonization." The call for papers explains more about the workshop's ambit:

The history of war veterans movements and politics around the world is a growing and fertile historiographical field. War veterans have often formed political lobbies, conducted protest campaigns for pensions and benefits, and kept alive the memory of war, in very different countries of the world. A number of recent contributions by historians have focused on the organizations and activities of veterans and war invalids of the First World War. Comparative and transnational perspectives have been introduced to examine inter-war veteran politics. As for the world after 1945, historians have analysed the role of veterans in different nation-states such as the Soviet Union, the United States, Germany, Italy, and China. However, introducing an innovative global perspective on the history of war veterans after the Second World War can provide further insights into the topic, while contributing to filling important historiographical gaps in the field. This conference aims to bring together historians working on the history of war veterans of any armed conflict between the Second World War and 1989, with a view to advancing towards a global history of veterans' movements and politics in the twentieth century.

We seek contributions that re-examine the history of the most influential veterans organizations in western and eastern European countries during the period after 1945, as well as contributions focusing on less-known veterans movements from Asian, African and Latin American countries. We would specially welcome papers on the following topics:

- The role of American Legion, the British Legion, and the Canadian Legion in shaping foreign policy in their countries after the Second World War.

- War veterans from countries of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

- The history of native veterans from the colonies of the main powers that participated in the Second World War. This might include not only those veterans who remained loyal to the Empire and supported organizations such as the British Empire Service League, but also those who joined movements for national independence (for example: veterans from the Algerian war of independence).

- Veterans from the main armed conflicts of the 1950s, particularly the Korean War and the Indochina war.

- Japanese veterans from the Second World War.

- Indian and Pakistani veterans during and after Partition, and after the Indo-Pakistani wars.

- Veterans from the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

- International organizations of veterans such as the World Veterans Federation.

- Veterans' movements against war and nuclear weapons.

- Organizations and movements of Resistance fighters in Europe after 1944.

- The history of combatants from the Cuban revolution.

- Veteran politics and race relations, particularly in countries such as South Africa and the United States.

- Veterans from the Vietnam war, particularly from the Vietnamese, Chinese and North Korean forces.

- The activities of war veterans from Third World countries in the field of development and their participation in national politics.

- Comparative analyses on disabled veterans' legislation, rehabilitation programmes and pension schemes.

After the workshop, the organizers will consider to publish an edited volume or a special issue in a peer-reviewed journal with a selection of the contributions.

For those interested, proposals should include a title and a 350-400 words abstract, plus a one-page CV  and be sent  to angel.alcalde@eui.eu  no lather than 23 December 2016. Also organizers note that they will select papers based on "1) the scientific quality of the proposal, 2) the originality and novelty of the topic, 3) the objective of composing balanced, diverse yet coherent panels for discussion. In order to assess the quality and interest of the papers the organizers may require the expert opinion of external reviewers. Selected papers (5,000-6,000 words) must be submitted in pdf or word file by 31 May 2017."