A world without empire?

Il convegno A World without Empire? Encounters and connections between African, European, and Soviet Communists, 1920s to 1970s si svolgerà presso la Scuola Normale Superiore dal 25 al 27 ottobre. L’iniziativa concluderà le attività di un Progetto di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) varato nel 2017. Diretto dal Prof. Silvio Pons della Scuola, il progetto ha indagato le connessioni tra il mondo comunista e quello africano nell'epoca dell’anticolonialismo e della decolonizzazione, offrendo un contributo a una ricostruzione di lungo periodo delle "globalizzazioni alternative" nel XX secolo. Durante il convegno, le ricerche di studiosi italiani e stranieri saranno discusse all’interno di cinque sessioni tematiche e cronologiche. Sono previsti due keynote speeches di studiosi di alto profilo quali Allison Drew (York University) e Odd Arne Westad (Yale University), che si soffermeranno rispettivamente sui caratteri del comunismo africano e sull'intreccio tra guerra fredda e decolonizzazione. Il dibattito sarà anche rivolto a riflettere sulle eredità lasciate dal comunismo, dal nazionalismo e dall'antimperialismo nel Sud globale del nostro tempo.

Partecipanti

• Ngoran Gédeon Bangali
• Andrea Brazzoduro
• Arlena Buelli
• Paolo Capuzzo
• Mario Del Pero
• Marco Di Maggio
• Allison Drew
• Maria Cristina Ercolessi
• Alessio Gagliardi
• Giovanni Gozzini
• Sofia Graziani
• Immanuel Harisch
• Andreas Hilger
• Sara Lorenzini
• Steffi Marung
• Daniela Melfa
• Silvio Pons
• Nemanja Radonjić
• Anna Shapovalova
• Gabriele Siracusano
• Gregorio Sorgonà
• Giulia Strippoli
• Jean Michel Mabeko Tali
• Natalia Telepneva
• Marica Tolomelli
• Dora Tot
• Odd Arne Westad
• Serge Wolikow
• Bogdan Zivkovic
• Arturo Zoffmann Rodriguez

Programmi di Ricerca scientifica di rilevante Interesse Nazionale – Prin 2017, codice progetto 2017J2AFW5, settore ERC SH6, titolo: How Communism went global.
Building connections between Soviet, European and African Communists, 1920s to 1960s

Programme

WED, 25 OCTOBER Sala Azzurra

Welcome address 2.00 p.m.

1 st SESSION 2.30-5.30 p.m.
Communist Internationalism and Anticolonial Cultures: the place of Africa

Paolo Capuzzo (University of Bologna)
Anti-racism and the racial question in the Comintern’s global strategy in the 1920s

Giovanni Gozzini (University of Siena)
Nationality policies and land reforms in African communism

Anna Shapovalova (University of Bologna)
Gender and the communist agenda in the Union of South Africa (1920s-1930s)

Gabriele Siracusano (National Research Council of Italy)
The Comintern and Pan-Africanism. Policy networks and cultural connections between Europe and French possessions in Tropical West Africa

Arlena Buelli (University of Bologna)
The other shore of the Spanish Civil War: African anticolonialists and the Republican cause (1936-39)

Chair: Silvio Pons (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Arturo Zoffmann Rodriguez (Nova University Lisbon)

6.00-7.00 p.m.

Keynote speech: Allison Drew (University of York)
21st century refl ections on African communism

THU, 26 OCTOBER Sala Azzurra

2 nd SESSION 9.30 – 12.30 a.m.
The Socialist Camp, Anti-imperialist players and Decolonization in Africa

Andreas Hilger (Max Weber Foundation)
The Socialist camp and Africa after Stalin

Steffi Marung (University of Leipzig)
Another Sputnik moment? The challenges to Soviet African Studies in times of decolonization

Andrea Brazzoduro (University of Naples “l’Orientale”)
The Algerian War and global revolutionary cultures

Dora Tot (University of Florence)
Yugoslavia’s ‘Battle for Algiers’: Intra-Socialist Competition in Colonial and Post-Colonial Algeria (1956-1965)

Sofi a Graziani (University of Trento)
Youth exchanges, transnational networks and Sino-African relations in the early Cold War years

Chair&Discussant: Allison Drew (University of York)

3 rd SESSION 2.30 – 5.30 p.m.
European Communists and the Rediscovery of the Third World

Bogdan Zivkovic (Institute for Balkan Studies)
Tito’s Yugoslavia and Africa between Non-alignment and Cold War

Gregorio Sorgonà (Scuola Normale Superiore)
An impossible symmetry? Anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism in the Italian Communist Party

Marco Di Maggio (Sapienza University of Rome)
The French Communist Party facing decolonization in Africa

Alessio Gagliardi (University of Bologna)
Antifascism, anticolonialism and internationalism in the Portuguese Communist Party

Chair: Paolo Capuzzo (University of Bologna)

Discussant: Daniela Melfa (University of Messina)

6.00 – 7.00 p.m.

Keynote speech: Odd Arne Westad (Yale University)
The Global Cold War and Africa: an assessment

FRI, 27 OCTOBER Sala Stemmi

4 th SESSION 9.30 – 12.30 a.m.
Labour, political and cultural networks in the 1960s

Giulia Strippoli (Nova University Lisbon)
Women struggling for socialism in Angola

Ngoran Gédeon Bangali (University Jean Lourougnon Guédé of Daloa)
The All-African Trade Union Federation. Impact of U.S.P.A communist connections on its relations with C.S.A

Immanuel Harisch (University of Vienna)
Overcoming Eurocentrism in the Classroom? Trade Union Education for Africans by the Communist-led World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) and its Affi liates, 1958-68

Chair: Maria Cristina Ercolessi (University of Naples “l’Orientale”)

Discussant: Sara Lorenzini (University of Trento)

FRI, 27 OCTOBER Sala Stemmi

5 th SESSION 2.30-5.30 p.m.
The Global Sixty-Eight and its aftermath

Silvio Pons (Scuola Normale Superiore)
Cold War in Africa, détente in Europe, and the antinomies of revolutionary internationalism in the aftermath of 1968

Marica Tolomelli (University of Bologna)
Anti-imperialism and the New Left movements

Nemanja Radonjić (University of Belgrad)
“The Second Scramble for Africa”: Ideological Positioning of Yugoslavia after the Tito-Stalin split

Jean Michel Mabeko Tali (Howard University, Washington, DC USA)
The Angolan liberation struggle and international communism

Natalia Telepneva (University of Strathclyde)
Journeys to ‘Terra Branca’. Experiences of Soviet Socialism and the Liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde

Chair: Odd Arne Westad (Yale University)

Discussant: Mario Del Pero (Sciences Po – Paris)