Conferencing the International

A Cultural and Historical Geography of the Origins of Internationalism, 1919-39 

'Conferencing the International' was a major five-year AHRC funded project (2015-2020).

It examined liberal, imperial and radical forms of internationalism as manifested in their conferencing spaces between the wars.

Key aims

The key aim of the project was to closely examine the new breed of international conferences that emerged in the post-1918 world so as to investigate what internationalism was, how it was experienced, and what it achieved.

The key research questions were: 

1. How could the different forms of internationalism that emerged after WWI be understood through their spaces of international conferencing? 
2. How were international conferences influenced by the cities in which they took place and how were these events linked to wider relational networks? 
3. How were international conference environments created: how were venues and buildings equipped, staff prepared, and conditions established, and how were interactions between speakers and audiences facilitated, reported and received?
4. How were international conferences experienced: how were spaces created and policed, how can we move beyond published records to explore the sociality of entertainment, music and dining, and how can we recreate their multi-sensory character by reference to their sounds, smells, tastes and associated social intimacies?

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