Transnational intellectual cooperation, the League of Nations, and the problem of order

This article examines the political and cultural contexts of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation. These two League of Nations bodies were charged with fostering international understanding through the promotion of educational, scientific, and cultural exchange. Whereas previous studies have revealed the institutional and diplomatic processes that shaped these bodies, the present article considers their intellectual genealogies and trajectories. Adopting a transnational perspective, it argues that the multi-layered quest for order is central to understanding intellectual cooperation in the interwar years. This concern was reflected in the role of cultural relations within the post-war order, and in the aim of strengthening intellectuals’ position in the social order (both through legal instruments and through new tools for ‘intellectual labour’)

Internationalisme ou affirmation de la nation? La coopération intellectuelle transnationale dans l'entre-deux-guerres

How did intellectuals and politicians confirm or reinforce national categories, even when they ostensibly promoted visions of an international community? The article addresses this question through a case study of the League of Nations' mechanisms for intellectual cooperation. After a brief discussion of institutional aspects, namely the establishment of League-affiliated committees and institutes in the 1920s, the article focuses on the interplay of transnational and national practices. National actors – for instance intellectuals and organisations from Central and Eastern Europe – targeted the League bodies, evoking both cultural internationalism and national interests. Furthermore, nationhood was projected at international congresses – sometimes openly, sometimes in more subtle terms – with the pronouncements of delegates from Fascist Italy providing an interesting case in point. Finally, the article discusses how individuals sought to reconcile the multilayered nature of their activities; to this end, it considers several figures who were involved in the League’s efforts to foster a 'société des esprits'

Activism in the 'Students' League of Nations': International Student Politics and the Confédération Internationale des Étudiants, 1919–1939

The aftermath of the First World War saw manifold efforts to (re-)construct an international community. One striking development of this development was the foundation of various international student organisations. This article analyses the largest of these bodies – namely the International Confederation of Students (Confédération internationale des Étudiants, CIE). The CIE forms the prism through which the article investigates four major aspects of interwar internationalism: nationalism, intellectual cooperation, mobility and radicalism. The CIE brought together the representatives of different national unions of students and thus involved activists that could cast themselves as future leaders. It portrayed its activities as 'apolitical', embracing an internationalism that sought to consolidate, rather than overthrow, the international order. To this end, the organisation cooperated with the League of Nations, particularly in the realm of student travel. Yet, despite its discourse of peace and non-partisanship, the CIE suffered from manifold national divisions and maintained an uneasy relationship with the political developments of the period. In this context, the article shows how, rather than being the domain of impractical idealists, internationalism provided an arena for the pursuit of competing national and political agendas

Rocking Against the Right: Political Activism and Popular Music in West Germany, 1979–1980

The article examines radical cultural politics by focusing on the West German initiative of Rock gegen Rechts (‘Rock Against the Right’). This campaign involved concerts, publications and demonstrations, most notably the staging of two large-scale festivals in Frankfurt/Main in 1979 and 1980. Rock Against Racism – launched in Britain in 1976 – served as a model for the activists. Yet Rock gegen Rechts differed from its British counterpart in significant ways, both in terms of the political and musical currents that sustained the campaign and with regard to the object of protest. Through the prism of Rock gegen Rechts, the article shows how campaigners debated the nature of ‘the right’ – an important subject in a country whose fascist past figured prominently in public debate. The campaign occurred at a critical juncture of the German left, as the latter underwent seemingly contradictory processes of fragmentation and coalition-building during the late 1970s. The article explores a left-wing milieu that was associated with music and alternative lifestyles, but also with a nascent green movement. Moreover, the example of Rock gegen Rechts sheds fresh light on the interaction between music and politics on the one side, and between music, commerce and consumption on the other

Political Contestation and Internal Strife: Socialist and Anarchist German Newspapers in London, 1878–1910

Daniel Laqua In 1910, Theodore Rothstein – a socialist émigré from Tsarist Russia – traced the ‘long and glorious history’ of the German political press in London. Fittingly, his survey appeared in the Londoner Volks-Zeitung – a weekly founded in 1909 ‘to form a connecting link between the working-class movements of both sides of the North Sea’. Summarizing nearly a century of publishing ventures, Rothstein portrayed the Londoner Volks-Zeitung as the ‘heiress of a beautiful bequest’. Like many of its forerunners, the paper itself was short-lived, lasting for only nine months. Nonetheless, the existence of such publications illustrates the political dynamism of London’s German community. Britain’s role as a site for activists from different countries was linked to its openness towards refugees: the country’s liberal asylum policy only changed with the passing of the Aliens Act in 1905. As Bernard Porter has noted, ‘between 1823 and 1906 no refugee who..

Rencontres intellectuelles et changement social: Henri La Fontaine et la Belle Époque

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Internationalism

The term "internationalism" denotes a variety of impulses and initiatives that favoured and facilitated cooperation between individuals, groups, organisations or governments. The multifarious nature of internationalism meant that it manifested itself in different places and manifold ways. Rather than being informed by a coherent political or social agenda, internationalism was deployed by a wide array of political, social and cultural actors. This essay highlights such diversity and therefore approaches internationalism from several angles: as an idea, a narrative, a set of practices and a quest for international organisation

Educating Internationalists: The Context, Role and Legacies of the UIA’s ‘International University’

This chapter examines an ambitious venture in international higher education: the "International University" (Université Internationale) launched by the Union of International Associations (UIA), a Brussels-based organisation that sought to be the focal point for a range of international ventures. At the time of its foundation in 1910, the UIA had already envisaged the creation of an "international university". While these ideas did not bear fruit immediately, they were put into practice after the First World War: in 1920, 1921, 1924 and 1927, the UIA organized four sessions of its "Université Internationale". On each of these occasions, a host of lecturers and students came to Brussels for a fortnight. While ultimately amounting to little more than an international summer school, this initiative was supposed to lay the foundation for a more permanent institution that would educate future protagonists of internationalism. The chapter traces the rationale for and the practicalities of these sessions. Seen from one angle, the "Université Internationale" needs to be seen in the context of the UIA’s wider activities, which aimed at the promotion of international cooperation both through the gathering and dissemination of information alongside the organisation of congresses and other activities. This aspect is illustrated by the timing of these university sessions: they coincided with the "Quinzaines Internationales" – "international fortnights" through which the UIA founders Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine sought to attract the representatives of international organizations to their "world palace" in Brussels. At a more general level, the "Université Internationale’ embodied the nexus between ideas about education and international order. To shed light on this issue, the chapter sets the UIA’s venture in relation to a variety of other "international university" proposals as well as summer schools with an internationalist agenda. It will also draw attention to the way in which the League of Nations responded to such schemes. On the whole, the chapter highlights the prominence that supporters of internationalism ascribed to university schemes and it reveals the role of international education within the internationalist imagination

Student activists and international cooperation in a changing world, 1919–60

Daniel Laqua Mentions of student activism inevitably conjure up images of 1968 – a year in which protests on university campuses across the world were often framed in internationalist terms. This chapter, by contrast, draws attention to earlier varieties of student internationalism: it focuses on a period that predated both the growing appeal of New Left currents and a substantial expansion in access to higher education. Many student organizations that operated internationally before the 1960s engaged in knowledge exchange and cooperation with international institutions to further the interests of their constituency. Revolving around associational work and expert collaboration, their brand of internationalism resembled other varieties that are being explored in this volume. Prior to the 1960s, university students were but a small subsection of their age cohort. Notwithstanding national variations, the participation rate in interwar Europe barely surpassed 2 per cent. By the late 1950s, this share had increased –..

Transnational Dimensions of a ‘German Case’: The Expatriation of Wolf Biermann and the Politics of Solidarity in the 1970s

In November 1976, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) announced the expatriation of the dissident singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, preventing his return from a concert tour in West Germany. This step attracted widespread press coverage and sparked a substantial expression of solidarity by East German intellectuals. This article proposes an alternative perspective on this well-known episode in German history by highlighting its transnational dimensions and its international contexts. Biermann’s work interacted with broader cultural currents of the period while his political engagement with events in Chile and Spain testified to the importance of transnational solidarity for left-wing mobilizations. Moreover, the article points to two important international factors that are crucial for understanding the events of 1976: the role of Eurocommunism within left-wing debate on the one hand, and the resonance of human rights discourse during the 1970s on the other