Jörn Leonhard: "Universal Expectations, Particular Experiences: The First World War in Perspective"
Department: European Languages and Studies
Date and Time: October 9, 2015 | 9:00 AM-11:00 AMEvent Location: HIB 100
Event Details
The Department of European Languages & Studies presents
Jörn Leonhard
Universal Expectations, Particular Experiences:
The First World War in Perspective
Abstract:
The First World War was a historical watershed in the relation between European societies and other world regions. But at the same time the war also meant a redefinition of the relation between universal hopes and expectations and radically new experiences of millions of individuals. Against the background of a modern machine war and mass killing, most of the military scenarios, political plans and cultural anticipations developed before the summer of 1914 lost their meaning within a short period of time. The result was a vacuum of meaning which explains the almost messianic hope with which new utopias were perceived in 1917: be it Woodrow Wilson’s idea of a last war to end all wars in the name of democracy and national self-determination or W. I. Lenin’s model of a Bolshevik revolution in the name of a new social order. How can we explain the complexity of the war with regard to these constellations which went far beyond the European war societies? How did the crisis of universalism develop, what were contemporary responses to it, and what were the long-term consequences of this rupture?
Short Biography:
Jörn Leonhard is professor in modern European history at the University of Freiburg and director of the School of History at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). He received his PhD (1998) with a thesis on the semantics of liberalism in European comparison and his habilitation (2004) on war experiences and nation building in Europe and the US before 1914 from the University of Heidelberg. He has taught as fellow and tutor in modern history at Oxford University from 1998–2003 and as reader in history at Jena University in 2004–2005 before coming to Freiburg in 2006. His publications include Liberalismus - Zur historischen Semantik eines europäischen Deutungsmusters (2001), Bellizismus und Nation. Kriegsdeutung und Nationsbestimmung in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten 1750-1914 (2008), Die Büchse der Pandora. Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs (2014), Nationalismen in Europa: West- und Osteuropa im Vergleich (co-ed, 2001), Ten years of German Unification. Transfer, Transformation, Incorporation (co-ed, 2002), and Comparing Empires: Encounters and Transfers in the Long Nineteenth Century (co-ed, 2010).
.jpg)
The First World War was a historical watershed in the relation between European societies and other world regions. But at the same time the war also meant a redefinition of the relation between universal hopes and expectations and radically new experiences of millions of individuals. Against the background of a modern machine war and mass killing, most of the military scenarios, political plans and cultural anticipations developed before the summer of 1914 lost their meaning within a short period of time. The result was a vacuum of meaning which explains the almost messianic hope with which new utopias were perceived in 1917: be it Woodrow Wilson’s idea of a last war to end all wars in the name of democracy and national self-determination or W. I. Lenin’s model of a Bolshevik revolution in the name of a new social order. How can we explain the complexity of the war with regard to these constellations which went far beyond the European war societies? How did the crisis of universalism develop, what were contemporary responses to it, and what were the long-term consequences of this rupture?
Short Biography:
Jörn Leonhard is professor in modern European history at the University of Freiburg and director of the School of History at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). He received his PhD (1998) with a thesis on the semantics of liberalism in European comparison and his habilitation (2004) on war experiences and nation building in Europe and the US before 1914 from the University of Heidelberg. He has taught as fellow and tutor in modern history at Oxford University from 1998–2003 and as reader in history at Jena University in 2004–2005 before coming to Freiburg in 2006. His publications include Liberalismus - Zur historischen Semantik eines europäischen Deutungsmusters (2001), Bellizismus und Nation. Kriegsdeutung und Nationsbestimmung in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten 1750-1914 (2008), Die Büchse der Pandora. Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs (2014), Nationalismen in Europa: West- und Osteuropa im Vergleich (co-ed, 2001), Ten years of German Unification. Transfer, Transformation, Incorporation (co-ed, 2002), and Comparing Empires: Encounters and Transfers in the Long Nineteenth Century (co-ed, 2010).
Click here for link to 2014 Europe and the World Conference