Civil society and peace mobilisation in Southern Europe in the 1980s *CANCELLED*

Civil society and peace mobilisation in Southern Europe in the 1980s *CANCELLED*

Wednesday, 30 October 2019 - 5:00pm
Venue: 
Seminar Room, European Studies Centre, 70 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HR
Speaker(s): 
Eirini Karamouzi (Sheffield University)
Chair: 
Paul Betts (St Antony's College, Oxford)
Convenor: 
Othon Anastasakis (St Antony's College, Oxford)
Series: 
SEESOX

POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
The peace campaign against the Euromissiles constituted one of the biggest mass movements in modern European history with a strong transnational and pan- European dimension. The recent declassification of archival material pertaining to NATOs’ ‘dual track’ decision and the ensuing upsurge of peace mobilisation has gathered the attention of historians with particular focus on the western European counties that were earmarked to deploy the Euromissiles. This is not yet the case for Southern Europe.The paper aims to examine the neglected peace movements in Southern Europe during the early 1980s, and attempts to offer a social and political history of Cold War Greece from below, while exploring the multi-layered complexities of its interaction with parties, government and international developments and mobilisation. In particular, it will examine why protests occurred and how they contributed to political participation, how they were connected to political parties and influenced by domestic developments and wider historical events. Also, in what ways were these protests entangled with other peace movements in the continent?

The paper is part of an exhibition entitled ‘Fighting for Peace; Greece- Spain -Italy currently held at the Hellenic Parliament Foundation:http://foundation.parliament.gr/central.aspx?sId=106I340I952I646I434896&...

People in Greece, Italy and Spain played a crucial, but lesser-known role in the protests and the European societal response to the nuclear arms race. Italy had been selected for the deployment of nuclear missiles and was thus a key battleground of conflicts over NATO’s Dual Track Solution. Greece and Spain were not directly involved in the nuclear conflict but both experienced intense protests against the presence of US military bases and against NATO membership more generally.

http://www.coldwarcultures.group.shef.ac.uk/projects/protest-as-democrat...

Eirini Karamouzi is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Greece, the EEC and the Cold War, 1974–1979 (2014) and co-editor of the volume Balkans in the Cold War (2016). She is co-director of the Cultures of the Cold War network, Editor of the Cold War History Journal, and Book Review Editor of the Journal of Contemporary History. She works on the history of European integration and the Cold War, modern Greece, and currently leads a project funded by the Max Batley Peace Studies on peace movements in Southern Europe during the Euromissile crisis.
She tweets: @EiriniKaramouzi

Paul Betts is Professor of European History at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St Antony's College. His research and publications center on Modern European Cultural History in general and 20th Century German History in particular.  He is especially interested in the relationship between culture and politics over the course of the century, and has worked on the themes of material culture, cultural diplomacy, photography, memory and nostalgia, human rights and international justice, death and changing notions of private life. His published work includes the books Within Walls:  Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; paperback, 2012), which was awarded the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History by the Wiener Library, and The Authority of Everyday Objects:  A Cultural History of West German Industrial Design (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004; paperback, 2007). prof. Betts is currently researching a new project on changing notions of civilization in Europe after 1945.