Crossing Borders: Intellectuals of the Right and Politics in Europe and Latin America
Transnational Perspectives
Published on Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Abstract
During the interwar period, authoritarian movements and regimes of the right - both of the "old" authoritarian and of the "new" radical varieties - professed their faith in national values but at the same time saw themselves as national agents of an otherwise international intellectual and political wave. Starting from the mid-1920s, a growing sense of shared goals, commonality of vision, and sense of history-making mission led them to draw on each other for inspiration and support. It soon became clear that these movements and regimes embraced ideas from each other, actively studying each other’s discourses and initiatives in the political field. The conference aims to promote a different understanding of the role of intellectuals of the interwar right who perceived themselves as transnational agents “at the service of an idea”.
Announcement
Argument
During the interwar period, authoritarian movements and regimes of the right - both of the ‘old’ authoritarian and of the ‘new’ radical varieties - professed their faith in national values but at the same time saw themselves as national agents of an otherwise international intellectual and political wave. Starting from the mid-1920s, a growing sense of shared goals, commonality of vision, and sense of history-making mission led them to draw on each other for inspiration and support. It soon became clear that these movements and regimes embraced ideas from each other, actively studying each other’s discourses and initiatives in the political field.
Intellectual figures were central to this transnational processes of ideological diffusion and cross-fertilisation, whether by formulating ideas, popularising them across borders or translating and re-contextualising them for different national contexts and audiences. The list of these intellectual figures is long and international: Carl Schmitt, Giuseppe Bottai, Asvero Gravelli, Pier Maria Bardi, Alfredo Rocco, Charles Maurras, Marie Frossard, Mihail Manoilesco, Antonio Sardinha. J. Maritain, Ramiro de Maetzu or Leopoldo Lugones, Oliveira Vianna, Francisco Campos, and others, were central in this process. In some cases too, leaders of fascist and authoritarian political movements were “intellectual-politicians”, like Plinio Salgado in Brazil or Rolão Preto in Portugal.
The conference aims to promote a different understanding of the role of intellectuals of the interwar right who perceived themselves as transnational agents “at the service of an idea”. At a time when the ‘transnational turn’ in the study of fascism and dictatorships has underlines that these need to be liberated from inside the containers of national historiography, we believe that a similar widening of the analytical lens is necessary when it comes to intellectuals themselves, as active historical agents of THE transnational circulation of ideas. The conference wishes to highlight how these intellectuals formed or joined active transnational networks of diffusion of radical ideas, how they influenced the travel and translation of these ideas, how they interacted and intersected with each other, and how they fed a fascinating intellectual momentum within the broader political camp of the interwar authoritarian and radical right across the world. In focusing on these dynamic transnational relationships, the conference is to open a new perspective on transnational connections and interactions, a sphere in which intellectuals played a pivotal role. The conference organisers are particularly interested in the circulation of radical ideas within Europe and Latin America, as well as between these two regions.
Main themes
The organizers are particularly interested in papers that deal with any of the following themes:
- The role played by intellectuals in the general processes of reception, translation, and popularisation of ideas through an analysis of reciprocal, though often asymmetric, relationships beyond individual countries.
- Differences of opinion and conflicts among authoritarian movements and intellectuals, and their role in self-representation, propaganda, National myths and visions of a “New brotherhood”.
- The role of authoritarian “intellectuals-politicians” with strong transnational influence in Europe and Latin America,
-Transnational links and also the transfer, reception, and reformulations of ideas on both sides of the Atlantic.
Submission guidelines
Please, submit an abstract (up to 500 words max) and a short curriculum vitae (max 10 lines) with affiliation and contact information
until June 24 2016,
to annarita.gori@ics.ulisboa.pt stating in the object of the email “CROSS-BORD+SURNAME”. Presentations will be in English.
Organizing and selecting committee
- Rita Almeida de Carvalho, ICS-University of Lisbon;
- Anne Cova, ICS-University of Lisbon;
- Olivier Dard, University of Paris IV;
- Federico Finchelstein, New School for Social Research, New York;
- Annarita Gori, ICS-University of Lisbon;
- Aristotle Kallis, Keel University, UK;
- Antonio Costa Pinto, ICS-University of Lisbon;
- Claudia Viscardi, Federal University of Juíz de Fora, Brazil.
Subjects
- Modern (Main category)
- Mind and language > Representation > Cultural history
- Periods > Modern > Twentieth century > 1914-1918
- Mind and language > Thought > Intellectual history
- Periods > Modern > Twentieth century > 1918-1939
Places
- Instituto de Ciências Sociais Universidade de Lisboa - Av. Aníbal Bettencourt, 9
Lisbon, Portugal (1600-189)
Date(s)
- Friday, June 24, 2016
Attached files
Keywords
- fascism, intellectuals, transnational history
Contact(s)
- Annarita Gori
courriel : annarita [dot] gori [at] ics [dot] ulisboa [dot] pt
Reference Urls
Information source
- Annarita Gori
courriel : annarita [dot] gori [at] ics [dot] ulisboa [dot] pt
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Crossing Borders: Intellectuals of the Right and Politics in Europe and Latin America », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, April 27, 2016, https://doi.org/10.58079/uxh