Conference programme

Revolutionary cosmopolitanism. Transnational migration and political activism, 1815-1848

Friday 22 January 2021, online

In the 1820s and 1830s, several waves of revolution went through the Atlantic world, culminating into the 1848 ‘springtime of the peoples’ in large parts of Europe and beyond. The same period saw large numbers of people moving beyond state boundaries: individual political activists and revolutionaries, but also migrant workers, seamen, soldiers, colonizers and colonized. Although many of these migrant movements can be associated with political uprisings, only few connections have been made between the study of migration history and history of political thought and practices. This one-day conference aims to open a conversation between these different strands of research. How did experiences of migration and cross-boundary mobility contribute to the formation of common revolutionary cultures in the period 1815-1848? To what extent did revolutionary cosmopolitanism survive into the first half of the 19th century? What forms of interplay existed between transnational migrations, cosmopolitanism, the rise of nationalism and imperial reform movements? These are the questions this conference intends to address.

9.30-9.40 opening words, Camille Creyghton (Utrecht University)

9.45-11.00 keynote by Maurizio Isabella (Queen Mary, University of London), Crossing the Mediterranean in the Age of Revolutions: the Multiple Mobilities of the 1820s
followed by a response by Beatrice de Graaf (Utrecht University) and questions

11.30-13.00 Panel 1: Reluctant revolutionaries: Between saving old worlds and adapting to new ones
Moderator: Matthijs Lok (University of Amsterdam)

• James Morris, Crossing the Counterrevolutionary Border in Wallachia, 1848-49
• Oliver Zajac, Hotel Lambert’s Republic of Letters: František Zach’s mission in Belgrade as an example of a cosmopolitan revolutionary network
• Piotr Kuligowski, Between Lamennais and Tocqueville: Polish Democracy in Exile at a Crossroads
• Oliver Schulz, Policing immigration and migrant networks: the Swiss cantons, European politics and the question of political asylum (1815-1848)

14.00-15.30 Panel 2: (Self-)fashioning of revolutionaries and PR strategies
Moderator: Alex Drace Francis (University of Amsterdam)

• Pierre-Marie Delpu, The Transnational Community of Revolutionary Martyrs (Southern Europe, 1830-1848)
• Peter Morgan, Exilic Anglophilia and the hope of intervention: Recasting British exile in the age of revolution with Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar
• Matilde Flamigni, Agostino Codazzi: A Transatlantic Life (1793-1859)

 
16.00-17.30  Panel 3: Large scale and/or involuntary migrations and the spread of revolutionary ideas
Moderator: René Koekkoek (Utrecht University)

• Sebastian Majstorovic, The Vagrant Threat: Political Journeymen Activism as a European Phenomenon, c. 1834-1848
• Alessandro Bonvini, La causa del Nuevo Mundo: Bonapartists in the Latin American Wars of Emancipation
• Elena Bacchin, Transportation of political prisoners: Roman detainees landing in Brazil in 1837

 
17.30-18.00 discussion and closing comments by Camille Creyghton

All times are in CET.
 
You can either register for the keynote only or for the whole of the conference. To receive a link for attending, please contact Camille Creyghton: c.m.h.g.creyghton@uu.nl
 
This conference is part of the Utrecht-Amsterdam Global Intellectual History seminar series, see: https://globalintellectualhistory.org/
 

Call for papers

Revolutionary cosmopolitanism. Transnational migration and political activism, 1815-1848

 

Update 23 March 2020: deadline extended due to coronavirus pandemic

Because of the uncertainties relating to the coronavirus pandemic, it is far from sure that this conference can go forth as planned. A solution will be sought in the following weeks. Depending on the evolution of the situation, the conference will either be delayed or take place online.

For now, the deadline for abstracts has been delayed until 3 April, midnight. After that date, the organizers will contact all selected applicants in order to discuss a solution.

12 June 2020, Queen Mary University of London

 

Organizer: Camille Creyghton (QMUL/University of Amsterdam)

 

Keynote Speaker: prof. Maurizio Isabella (QMUL)

Napoleon’s fall and the settlement of the Vienna Congress in 1815 in no way represented the end of the era of revolutions and political uprisings. To the contrary, several waves of revolution would follow in the Atlantic world in the 1820s and 1830s, culminating into the 1848 ‘springtime of the peoples’ in large parts of Europe and beyond. These subsequent waves of revolution are increasingly studied from transnational perspectives focussing on, for instance, Mediterranean connections in the 1820s (Isabella and Zanou 2016), a ‘common European revolutionary culture’ in 1848 (Freitag 2003) or the global context (Armitage and Subrahmanyam 2007).

The same period saw large numbers of people moving beyond state boundaries: tens of thousands of young German craftsmen found employment in Paris and London; impoverished Germans and Irish crossed the Atlantic in search for a better life in the United States; the suppression of the Polish November Uprising in the beginning of 1831 led to what is known as the Great Polish Emigration; and several thousand free Black Americans settled on the coasts of West Africa creating new societies such as Liberia. Apart from these large-scale movements, a couple of individual cases are well-known, such as Garibaldi’s activities in Latin America or Robert Owen’s attempts to create a self-sufficient community in Indiana. In addition, expanding colonialism and increasing cross-boundary traffic led to the mobility of ever larger numbers of seamen, soldiers, colonizers and colonized. Following Jan and Leo Lucassen’s model for cross-cultural migration (2009), these movements of people have to be considered genuine forms of migration too.

Although many of these migrant movements can be associated with political uprisings, only few connections have been made between the study of migration history and history of political thought and practices. Migration history, with its roots in labour history, tends to focus on social and economic aspects of migration and ignores how migration informed the transfer of ideas. Research on revolutionary cosmopolitanism concentrates on the eighteenth century and presumes that cosmopolitanism came to an end after the 1789 French Revolution due to the rise of nationalism (Palmer 1959; Polasky 2015). That this has hardly been contested so far is due in part to the fact that nineteenth-century revolutionaries are still mostly researched in national contexts, leaving aside their transnational connections, the imperial geographies in which many of them operated, and their experiences of migration (as is shown by Panter 2015).

This one-day conference aims to open a conversation between these different strands of research. How did experiences of migration and cross-boundary mobility contribute to the formation of common revolutionary cultures in the period 1815-1848? To what extent did revolutionary cosmopolitanism survive into the first half of the 19^th century? What forms of interplay existed between transnational migrations, cosmopolitanism, the rise of nationalism and imperial reform movements? These are the questions this conference intends to address.

We invite submissions from researchers in the history of political thought, cultural history, migration history and nationalism studies, working on different geographical areas in the period 1815-1848. Postgraduate and early career researchers are especially encouraged to apply.

Possible topics include:

- diasporic nationalism;

- transatlantic migrations and political upheaval;

- abolitionism, black emancipation and migration;

- diaspora and connected Mediterranean revolutions;

- imperial reform movements, nationalism and international order;

- exile and revolutionary activism;

- political activities of working-class migrants;

- political practices in migrant communities.

To submit a paper or propose a panel, please email a short C.V. alongside an abstract to c.creyghton@qmul.ac.uk. Abstracts should be no more than 300 words for papers of 20 minutes in length. The call for papers will close on 23 March 2020 23.59 GMT. Successful applicants will be notified no later than 6 April.

This conference is part of the project ‘Revolution in exile: Transfer of ideas among émigré intellectuals in Paris and London, 1815-1848, funded by the Dutch Research Council. For postgraduate, early career researchers and researchers without regular funding coming from outside London, travel expenses will be subsidized up to an amount of £ 70.

For any additional information or queries, please contact: c.creyghton@qmul.ac.uk.

References:

Armitage, David, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (ed.), The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-1840, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Freitag, Sabine (ed.), Exiles from European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England, New York: Berghahn Books, 2003.

Isabella, Maurizio and Zanou, Konstantina (ed.), Mediterranean Diasporas: Politics and Ideas in the Long 19th Century, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Lucassen, Jan, and Leo Lucassen, “The Mobility Transition Revisited, 1500–1900: What the Case of Europe Can Offer to Global History,” Journal of Global History 4, no. 3 (November 2009): 347–77.

Palmer, R. R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959.

Panter, Sarah (ed.), Mobility and Biography. Jahrbuch Für Europäische Geschichte 16, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2015.

Polasky, Janet L., Revolutions without Borders: The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015.