Call For Paper

Zaccaria Massimo Discussion

 

Dear Colleagues,

we are editing a forthcoming publication on WWI in Horn of Africa, Red Sea Region and Libya.

You are cordially invited to submit your work for consideration in this publication,

Best regards

Massimo Zaccaria

 

Introduction

The idea that WWI has been a global conflict is commonly accepted by the scholarly community and it constitutes a real leitmotif of the most recent literature on this topic. As a consequence of this development, a number of scholars has started investigating the impact of WWI on Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and even Latin America.

This book, capitalising on a conference held in Addis Ababa on september 2016 aims to suggest an analysis of the conflict that focuses on three crucial points. The first one is related to space. It seems to us that the framework of the nation state is too circumscribed and does not allow to capture the complexity of the relations that came into being at local, national and international level. In this regard we find particularly inadequate the conventional approach which tends to investigate WWI in Africa and the Middle East as two separate settings. Our choice to focus on a territory which stretches from Libya to Somalia is an attempt to overcome this hiatus. Embracing an area rather than a war theatre allows to connect colonies, states and territories that have maintained substantially different attitudes with regard to the war such as being belligerent, neutral and non-belligerent.

The second focus of the book is related to time and, more precisely, to chronologies. As a result of a long and vibrant debate, it is now taken for granted that military chronologies, are just one - and probably not even the most effective - of the possible periodisations of WWI. For the geographic area taken into account by the conference this issue is even more relevant. In fact, on one side some scholars suggest that the Libyan war of 1911-1912 could be taken as the real beginning for WWI. At the same time other scholars emphasise the fact that some of the consequences of the War stretched over a longer period of time and mention among their examples the Egyptian revolution of 1919 and the subsequent independence of 1922, the nationalist movement in the Sudan in the 20s, the political change in the Hejaz, and the British decision to hand over the Jubaland to Italy in 1924. Though some of these suggestions can be criticised, it remains sure that the transition from peace to war and from war to peace in the region lasted well beyond the conventional framework 1914-1918 and that the ensuing political turmoil that engulfed the region significantly redrew the political map of the area.

The third and final focus of the conference is on agency. The conference want to shed light on how different local powers negotiated their involvement in the conflict, providing, in this process, ample evidence of their autonomy of judgement and of their independence in taking action. Tensions ignited by WWI interacted with complex pre-existing balance of power, which, in many cases, influenced the positioning and choices of the local actors.

With this call we look for contributions focusing particularly on Somalia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen with the aim to highlight the regional connections and the impact of WWI on Northeast Africa.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

Political, diplomatic and military history

Economic history of the war

Social and cultural aspects of the war and its legacy

Role of civilian society in the conflict

Recovery of sources and memories of the war

The war and its aftermath (anticolonial movements and nationalism)

Representation of the war (literature, music, arts, oral traditions)

Gendered understandings of the War

 

Editors

David Ambrosetti, Centre Français d’Etudes Etiopiennes

Shiferaw Bekele, University of Addis Ababa

Uoldelul Chelati Dirar, University of Macerata

Alessandro Volterra, University of Roma Tre

Massimo Zaccaria, University of Pavia

 

Publisher

The intention is to publish the book with a reputable academic publishing house

The publication will be released in 2018.

 

Deadlines

27 February 2017: Abstract submission deadline:

17 March 2017: Proposal acceptance notification

Editors will select chapters on the basis of the following criteria: relevance to the theme and goal of the book, originality of the contribution, theoretical rigour and wealth of the empirical material. All authors of submitted abstracts will be informed about the editorial decision via email.

1 July 2017: The 1st draft of all chapters is to be submitted to the editors by email. Chapters need to be 8-9,000 words in length and written in English. Authors of chapters are responsible for the language and style editing. The guidelines for the editing style, references and bibliography will be sent to authors of selected chapters with the editorial decision.

2t July 2017: Feedback and comments of the 1st review of chapters will be emailed by editors to authors of all chapters.

1 September 2017:  The 2nd draft of all chapters is to be submitted to the editors by email.

22 September 2017: Feedback and comments of the 2nd review of chapters will be emailed by editors to authors of all chapters. 

30 October: Final editing of chapters and book submission

January/February 2018 Book publication:  

 

Submission Procedure

Please submit your proposals by providing by the 20 February 2017:

Title of your contribution

Abstract (350 words)

Brief comment on which of the recommended topics the proposed contribution is addressing (200 words)

Contact information (Last name, first name, role, institution and mail)

The proposals must be in English and submitted in PDF format (only 1 file), to be sent via mail to zaccaria@unipv.it

The submitted proposals will be evaluated by the editorial advisory board. Its acceptance will be communicated to authors by 17 March 2017, including the procedures for the full contribution submission. Full contributions are expected to be between 8000-9000 words.

Please, notice that each contribution must be original and unpublished work, not submitted for publication elsewhere.

 

Contacts

For additional information/clarifications please contact: zaccaria@unipv.it

 

Keywords