How can civic engagement be combined with the historian’s craft? To what extent did the historical context and intellectual experiences of European historians who lived through the Second World War influence their historiographical path? What political and cultural impact of the profession of historian can we see in the civilized society that has just emerged from the Second World War, and how has the role of historians changed in the 20th and 21st centuries in Europe?

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe and the liberation of the occupied European countries from Nazi-fascism, the ISIG LXVI Study Week 2025 will focus on two levels of analysis: First, with the historiographical debate in Europe since 1945 and, second, with the question of how this can be examined in the light of the different experiences of historians in their civic and political engagement activities in national and international civil society. Various activities that characterize the profession of historian will be considered, such as: participation in politics; participation in historical commissions; the founding of historical institutes; networking in an international environment; participation in publishing endeavors; participation in public debates; social and political activism (feminism, decolonization, environment, human rights, LGBTIQ+).

The aim is to trace the history of historiography not only on the basis of the academic production of historians, but also taking into account their historical and political contexts of reference and education.

The study week is an opportunity to reflect on the role of historians today, on the influence they have in national and international public life and on the network of intellectual relationships in which they are also integrated outside academic institutions.

During the Week it will be possible to visit a Documentary Exhibition on Enzo Collotti and his work as a historian.

Scientific Committee: Gabriele D’Ottavio (UniTn), Laura Di Fabio (Biblioteca FBK), Lutz Klinkhammer (DHI Rom), Cecilia Nubola (FBK-ISIG), Camilla Tenaglia (FBK-ISIG)

Partners: Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence, University of Trento, DHI Rom

Patronage:
Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri
Società Italiana per la Storia Contemporanea dell’Area di Lingua Tedesca (SISCALT)
Società Italiana delle Storiche (SIS)
Società Italiana per lo Studio della Storia Contemporanea (SISSCO)

PROGRAM

September 3

10.00 – 10.30 | Introduction
Laura Di Fabio, Cecilia Nubola, Camilla Tenaglia (FBK-ISIG)

10.30 – 12.30 | Historians and Civic Engagement between the caesuras of time

Chair: Simon Edwards (University of Sussex PGR), Sofia Miola (University of Pavia)

Margherita Angelini (Dipartimento di Studi classici, linguistici e della formazione dell’Università degli Studi di Enna  “Kore”)
Assessing Historians’ Social Role in Twentieth-Century Italy

Stefan Berger (Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
Historians as Public Intellectuals  in Germany from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day

Benjamin Zachariah (Einstein Forum, Potsdam)
Partisans and War Games: Academic Self-Delusions and the Future of History

14.00 – 18.00 | Historians in the post-World War II transition between continuity and ruptures

Chair: Freddie Scott Cracknell (Universidad Complutense Madrid), Federica Schiaffino (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Christoph Cornelissen (Goethe Universität)
The experience of Germany’s defeat in 1945 and the search for a new historiography

Nicolas Sesma (Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) and École des hautes études hispaniques et ibériques (EHEHI))
Making History for and against a Dictatorship. The Spanish Case

Marta Verginella (Università di Lubiana)
Post-war Yugoslav historiography between continuity and discontinuity. The Slovenian case

Renato Camurri (Università di Verona)
European historians between exile and the construction of democracy: the case of Gaetano Salvemini

18.30 – 19.30 | ISIG Grant recipient presentation 

September 4

9.30 – 12.30 | The commitment of historians in the institutions: Justice and historiography (1945-1989)

Chair: Inês de Sá (FBK-ISIG), Simone Guerzoni (Leeds Beckett University)

Giulia Quaggio (Universidad Complutense Madrid)
History and Politics of Spanish Democratisation: from Social Mobilisation to “Liberty” Commemoration (2008-2025)

Cecilia Nubola (FBK-ISIG)
Historians, a commitment to justice?

Nicola Labanca (Università di Siena)
The politics in writing the history of the Italian Resistance

Lutz Klinkhammer (Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom)
The commitment of historians in judicial inquiries and in front of the tribunals

14.00-17.30 | The civic engagement of historians. International Networks, political participation and social activism 

Chair: Rosa-Lena Lange (European University Institute), Elena Serina (Scuola Superiore Meridionale)

Bowen Ran (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Distance Configuration in Politically Engaged Historiography: Towards a Hermeneutic Framework

Raffaella Sarti (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo)
Feminism and the value of history (1960s-2000s)

Marco Armiero (Institut d’Història de la Ciència – Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona & ICREA, Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats)
A Sin of Youth or a Badge of Honor? Environmental Activism in Environmental History

Matthew D’Auria (University of East Anglia) – The Historian’s Conscience: Ideas of Europe and Public Engagement, 1943–1960

Valeria Deplano (Università di Cagliari)
Studying Colonialism as Social Activism: The Public Role of Italian Historians between the 20th and 21st Centuries

 18.00-20.00 | Gli storici e le storiche oggi

Evento pubblico

Francesco Collotti, Massimo Rospocher
La biblioteca e l’archivio di Enzo Collotti donate a ISIG

Chair:  Massimo Rospocher

Marco Armiero (Institut d’Història de la Ciència – Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona & ICREA, Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats)
Giorgio Caravale (University Roma Tre)
Marco De Nicolò (Università di Cassino)
Filippo Focardi (Università di Padova)
Raffaella Sarti (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo)

September 5

9.30-13.00 | How to study historians 

Chair: Leonardo Costadura (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena), Helen Williams (University of East Anglia)

Laura Di Fabio (Biblioteca FBK)
Civic engagement between historiography and politics in the library and personal archive of historian Enzo Collotti

Camilla Tenaglia (FBK-ISIG)
From Parallel Paths to Diverging Engagements: Enzo Collotti, Leo Valiani, and the Evolution of Italian Historiographical Activism

Agostino Bistarelli (Associazione Italiana di Public History)
Either as an Ogre or as a Bullfighter. Studying Pavone through Pavone

Christoph Nonn (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)
Tectonic changes, moral abysses and political instrumentalization. On writing an biography of Theodor Schieder

Mikko Immanen (University of Helsinki)
Different but Entwined Paths: Reimagining Collective Biography

13.00-13.30 | Conclusions