Category: Research stays

The MoH at Sciences Po Paris

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Emmanuel will spend two months and a half at the Centre for History

After Antwerp in 2023, the MoH Team lands in Paris. This time, Emmanuel will be spending two months and a half completing the drafting of his monograph The Myth of Homogeneity: Minority Questions in Interwar Western Europe at the Centre for History of Sciences Po Paris. The research stay will also allow him to access material at the Archive of Foreign Affairs in La Courneuve concerning the transition from the minority protection system of the League of Nations to the human rights regime of the United Nations, which will be at the core of the Epilogue of the book. 

The Epilogue argues that the so-called transition to individual human rights in 1946-1948, in fact, marked the triumph of an assimilationist conception of human rights, one that did not really privilege the individual, but rather some specific groups (national majorities) and penalised other groups (national minorities). France was at the core of efforts within the UN to reject the inclusion of any clause concerning protection against assimilation in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. France, along with the United States and many Latin American countries, defended the idea that states can legitimately go to great lengths to promote the homogenisation of its population. As the French delegate within the UN Commission on Human Rights said in 1948: ‘the historical development of France into a homogenous State has resulted from the extensive and rigorous application of universal human rights to all sections of the population’ (my emphasis). In this respect, the Epilogue will expand on an argument that Mona and Emmanuel have already explored in the following paper: https://themythofhomogeneity.org/2021/10/ 

This stay also offered Emmanuel the opportunity to attend the many activities organised by the Centre for History, as well as to discuss his research with some excellent scholars that work there, notably Sabine Dullin, Matthieu Fulla, Marc Lazar, Guillaume Piketty, Paul-André Rosental and Jakob Voegel.

The Myth of Homogeneity lands in Antwerp

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Emmanuel will be spending three months as a visiting fellow at the University of Antwerp

The Po-His Centre for Political History at the Department of History of the University of Antwerp will host the project from 13 February to 12 May. During this period Emmanuel will be benefiting from access to archives and published sources on the history of the Flemish Movement as well as exchanges with faculty members specialised on Flemish history, the history of nationalism from below and national indifference.

More specifically, he will investigate more in depth the personal trajectories of some Flemish intellectuals that during the interwar period were active in the transnational sphere, notably in organisations such as the International Federation of League of Nations Societies. He will also inquire more extensively into the process of Dutchification of the University of Ghent and the approach of the Church to the Flemish question.

He will also take part in the weekly seminar organised by the Centre introducing the project on 16 February and presenting a paper on repertoires of instrumental nationalism in interwar Western Europe on 20 April.