CfP: Revisionism and Contemporary History Research

The media controversy over revisionism in research on socialist Czechoslovakia drew attention to an important fact – that historiography, and the humanities and social studies in general, regularly revise the starting points and conclusions of their research. These revisions give rise to expert controversies, which often reflect current political disputes and may therefore spill over into debates far beyond the academic sphere. Issues in contemporary history have long been central themes of such controversies.
The debate on totalitarianism and revisionism in research on state socialism, most recently covered in Radek Buben and Martin Štefek’s article entitled Konceptuální labyrinty. Kolik pojetí totalitarismu znáš, tolikrát jsi revizionistou? Conceptual labyrinths. For as many concepts of totalitarianism that you know, so many times are you a revisionist (Soudobé dějiny 2/2021), is a famous and today archetypical polemic of this type. This was, however, only one of many similar disputes over methodological innovations and revisions of interpretations in contemporary history research. As a follow-up to the publication of the cited article, the editorial team of the Soudobé dějiny/CJCH journal invites authors to submit papers for a thematic issue dedicated to this phenomenon. The aim of the issue is to open up discussion on revisionism that would show the broad nature of this theme and point out, for example, the complicated history of the term revisionism, interaction between historiography and politics in controversies over interpretations of the recent past, or other “revisionist” disputes that so far have been overlooked in the current Czech debate.

The issues covered by the papers may include, for example, the following:
1) Revisionism – history of the term
2) Methodology of contemporary history research and the issue of revisionism
3) Historical revisions and study of expert controversies
4) Discussion on revisionism in Cold War research
5) Holocaust denial and other extreme forms of historical revision
6) Gender-inspired revisions of dominant historical concepts and actors
7) Revisionism and the media image of contemporary history research
8) Historical revisions and the politics of history

Manuscripts should be submitted by 15 February 2022 via the journal’s online editorial system at https://sd.usd.cas.cz, FOR AUTHORS – SUBMIT MANUSCRIPT

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