Received from Dr. Michelle Moffat (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Dates: 30 – 31 May 2025

Location: Manchester Metropolitan University (All Saints Campus)

Provisional Programme

Event Overview

As we approach the 80th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we turn to consider the lives of those who fought on the frontlines of this, and similar, conflicts. For military veterans, while the battles in which they fought may have finished, their legacies linger long after demobilisation.

The Returning Soldier Network invites you to attend our upcoming conference examining military veterans’ experiences in the post-service landscape. This two day, in-person event will be held at MMU’s campus on Oxford Road, Manchester, and aims to explore the aftermaths of conflict, and its effects on veteran lives, wellbeing, and identities.

Keynote speakers: Professor Simon Wessely (King’s Centre for Military Health Research) will share his research in occupational psychiatry and its links to the health and wellbeing of ex-serving personnel. Second keynote, Professor Angela Wanhalla (University of Otago, New Zealand), will speak of her studies into the post-war activism of veterans of New Zealand’s celebrated 28(Māori) Battalion.

Conference dinner: A three-course meal will be held at the Hyatt Regency Manchester from 6:15pm on Friday 30 May. Tickets are £65 and can only be purchased with a relevant conference ticket. Please specify any dietary requirements you may have, though vegetarian and vegan options will be available.

Ticket options:
– £180 2-day full attendance (/ £245 including dinner)
– £100 1-day attendance (/ £165 including dinner)

Subsidised rates:
– £120 postgraduate attendees or MMU staff (/ £185 including dinner)
– Special rate for ECR/PG speakers – please contact organisers for further information before purchasing your tickets

Registration and ticket purchase

For further information and conference agenda see here. Alternately, contact us via m.moffat@mmu.ac.uk

Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

Past & Present logo, 2017 all rights reserved

Received from Dr. Robert Yee (Wadham College, University of Oxford)

Event Overview

Conference taking place 7-8 April 2025, St. John’s College, University of Oxford. Since the financial crisis of 2007/08, international rivalries, nationalist movements, a global pandemic, and the existential threat of climate change have destabilised the global economic order. From an historical perspective, such strains have many precedents in the tumultuous twentieth century. We seek to bring together scholars for a two-day conference at the University of Oxford to explore the history of global economic governance. We are particularly keen to discuss how national governments, international organisations, businesses, financial institutions and workers all responded to shocks and instability, and how these responses shaped the global economic order.

Many recent historical works have explored the history of political economy, capitalism and global governance from multiple perspectives. There has been important historical research into the effects of wars and conflicts on the global economic order; the birth of global economic development initiatives; the ideological foundations of neoliberalism; and the hegemony of economic growth. Together, these works raise an array of important questions: What economic, political and social factors underpinned the evolution of national and global economic governance in the twentieth century? How have conflicts and crises generated competing ideas and agendas for governing the global economy? And to what extent can these works inform our perspective on present-day challenges of climate change, global poverty, public health, deindustrialisation and global economic stability?

The focus of this conference will be on examining the ways in which the world economy has been contested, debated, governed and restructured during moments of crisis and change, as well as how challenging conditions determined relations between states, businesses, individuals and civil society. Our conference will aim to bridge past and present by offering fresh insights into the forces that have shaped our current global economy, and by considering possible future trajectories of the international economy.

Our conference welcomes a broad range of topics that are historical in perspective, including but not limited to those concerned with: global trade and monetary order; the economics of empire and decolonisation; international economic organisations and international economic relations; the governing of global food and commodities; global labour practices and markets; global banking and finance; multinational business enterprises; and international tax and regulation. Following the conference, we may solicit articles for the publication of a special issue.

This conference is sponsored by the History & Political Economy Project, the Economic History Society, the Conference for European Studies at Temple University, the Rothermere American Institute, the Oxford Martin School Changing Global Orders project, Past & Present, St John’s College and Wadham College.

Programme

Registration

Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

Past & Present logo, 2017 all rights reserved

Received from Maisie Brenchley (University of York)

Event Overview

Join us on April 24th at the University of York’s Berrick Saul Building in Heslington North Yorkshire for Margins to Centre 2025! This in-person conference explores Belonging, celebrating the literature, art, and histories of marginalised communities. Engage in vital discussions on identity, inclusion, and the diverse narratives shaping our world.

Our conference features a diverse lineup of esteemed speakers exploring key themes, including colonialism and the construction of the ‘other,’ gender and identity through historical perspectives, marginalisation and power dynamics, exclusion and resistance, and the reassessment of marginalised and underutilised sources.

This event is open to all—join us for engaging discussions with our panels. Tea and coffee will be provided. We look forward to seeing you!

For inquiries or more information, please email us at marginstocentre2025@gmail.com or message us on Instagram @marginstocentre. We’re happy to help!

You can also visit the event’s website

Registration (free)

Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

Past & Present logo, 2017 all rights reserved

Received from Dr. Noëmie Duhaut (University of Southampton)

Jewish Dis/Connections across and beyond the modern Mediterranean

Location: University of Warsaw, Faculty of History

Dates: 6 – 8 April 2025

Keynote: Modern Jewish History in a Mediterranean Key, Prof. Matthias B. Lehmann (University of Cologne), 6 April 2025 16:30 – 18:30

Conference programme

The organisers advise that attendance is free and that registration is not required. However, it should be noted that participation is entirely in person and that there is no livestream or other hybrid option to join this event. 

Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

Past & Present logo, 2017 all rights reserved

recevied from Dr. Michelle Aroney (Magdalen College, Oxford)

Dates: 11–13 July 2025
Location: University of Oxford, UK
Submission deadline: 31 January 2025

Conference Theme and Goals

Historians have studied extensively how sciences begin—but how do they end? This is a crucial question for understanding how the labour of knowledge-making evolves. Previous attention to the founding, disciplining, and professionalisation of individual sciences has provided robust frameworks for thinking through the birth and growth of knowledge-making communities. Far less attention has been directed toward how those same communities decay, dissipate, or evolve beyond the contemporary boundaries of science. This conference seeks to cultivate case studies of the ends of sciences, and thereby to motivate a new approach to thinking about the developmental trajectories of scientific disciplines, communities, institutions, and the ordering of expert knowledge. A further aim is to strengthen the community of scholars with a shared interest in studying the ends of sciences.

“Without the science it’s just fiction” placard photograph, image supplied by Michelle Aroney

Scope and Eligibility

The conference will seek to examine the variety of ways that sciences come to an end. Thus, it will explore not just how some sciences came to be dismissed as pseudosciences, but also to understand those knowledge-making communities which chose to classify themselves as non-scientific, that dissipated while their practitioners and resources migrated into other sciences, or that were otherwise unmade. We also encourage reflection on the hidden continuities which might be masked by narratives of disciplinary demise. Both ‘science’ and ‘ends’ can thus be understood broadly, and eligibility is not restricted by time period or regions. A non-exhaustive list of possible case studies could include: alchemy; anthropology; Aristotelianism; astrology; chronology; cybernetics; divination; eugenics; history; medicine; mesmerism; natural history; natural philosophy; natural theology; phrenology; and psychical research. Students and early career scholars are especially encouraged to submit.

Submission Process

Submissions should be sent to howsciencesend@gmail.com. Please title the email “SciEnds Abstract Submission” and include the following information in the body:

– Full name as you would like it to appear on the programme
– Email address
– Affiliation, or how you would like to be identified on the programme
– Presentation title
– An abstract of no more than 250 words describing your proposed talk and how it fits the conference theme and goals.
– An indication of whether you would like to be considered for travel support. (Limited funds are available to defray travel costs, with priority given to early career and insecurely employed scholars.)

The submission deadline is 31 January 2025. The organisers plan to circulate a draft programme by the end of February 2025.

The CFP can be downloaded here.

Organisers

Michelle Aroney (Oxford), Alex Aylward (Oxford), Joseph D. Martin (Durham)

In addition to the Past and Present Society this conference is supported by Durham University, the Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, and the Oxford Centre for Intellectual History.