Date: May 29th 2009

Propaganda: purpose and practice in the sixteenth and twentieth century
Call for papers

Workshop
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institute for European Studies, October
23, 2009

The use of the term "propaganda", despite its origin in the expression
"propaganda
fide" that dates from the seventeenth century, has flourished first
and foremost in the
field of contemporary political communication. It is only rather
recently that the term
"propaganda" has been reinvested to other, more distant periods of
history as a key
concept of scholarly study. Many recent books and essays on the
practices of
persuasion in the sixteenth century, a time of religious strife and
political
centralisation, now resort to the term "propaganda"
But how do historians of early modern societies use a concept that
became central for
those who study modern mass society? Which semantic shifts can be
observed in the
use of the term "propaganda" by early modern historians? And is it
possible to
compare the purposes and practices they describe with the research
subjects of
historians working on the twentieth century? Only a diachronic
approach will allow us
to answer these questions. It has to go hand in hand with a change of
perspective: the
focus must be on the long-term means and techniques of propaganda
instead of on its
specific contents.
On the basis of work in progress, contributors are invited to tackle
the following
questions for the 16th century or/and for the 20th century:
-What is the terminology of propaganda? What are the definitions of
the term? In the
sources? In the historiographical tradition? And in current research?
-Who are those who produce propaganda? What are their aims? Which
practices do
they resort to? And who do they want to influence?
- What kind of problems (sources, methodology) do historians confront
in the study of
the production and the "reception" of propaganda?
The languages of the workshop will be French and English.

We encourage proposals by young researchers and ask that those
interested submit a
short abstract (max. 1 page) by email before 1st July 2009 to:
propagandes16-20[at]ulb.ac.be

The workshop will take place on 23 October 2009 at the Institute for
European
Studies at the Université libre de Bruxelles.

Organisers: Irene Di Jorio, Stéphanie Gonçalves, Véronique Pouillard,
Monica
Stensland and Monique Weis.