On 9-10 November, the University of Oxford hosts the conference Make Revolution Great Again, exploring the social and intellectual context and legacy of the German Revolution.
The conference “seeks to re-examine the reception of the Revolution, as well as the Weimar Republic and the interwar period, across a range of disciplines, including but not limited to European history, intellectual history, political theory, and political science.
In light of the collapse of the nascent Republic into Nazi dictatorship, and shortly afterwards the abrupt end of two decades of uneasy peace with the outbreak of WW2, there has been a temptation to see the German Revolution and the Republic it inaugurated somewhat in block-colour terms. Either they are presented as a ‘false dawn’, an aberrant moment of superficial democratisation that failed to achieve lasting structural transformations in a recalcitrantly reactionary society, or a ‘lost opportunity’, a glorious first flowering of progressivism replete with idealistic creativity whose reversal represented one of the greatest tragedies in European history. Together, these views have contributed to a systemic neglect of a moment, and a period, whose effects reverberated around Europe for many years afterwards.”
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Jochen Hung (November 5, 2018). Conf: The German Revolution. Weimar Studies Network. Retrieved January 18, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/vbp2