CALL FOR PAPERS Civil War and Intervention: U.S. Foreign Policy in International Perspective

The proliferation in recent decades of wars in which civil and international dimensions overlap suggests a need for new intellectual paradigm to capture the nature of these kinds of complex conflicts. This conference seeks to train scholarly attention on the changing nature of civil war and interventions, focusing on moments in which the United States, through the long 20th century, became involved in the relationship between foreign citizens and foreign governments, diplomatically, militarily, or economically. Papers presented at the conference will form a part of an edited volume.

We welcome proposals from scholars and graduate students in history and political science who are working on any topic related to the question of U.S. intervention in a foreign civil war, broadly defined. We encourage contributors to use historical examples to interrogate the categories of “civil war” and “intervention,” exploring, among other questions, how humanitarianism shapes civil war and intervention; the ways in which interventions abroad have changed U.S. foreign and domestic policy; the effects of U.S. nonintervention in certain civil wars; and what intervention means for the notion of sovereignty, both in the United States and in countries undergoing civil war. Proposed papers may draw on research from both U.S. and non-U.S. archives. Papers should run between 5,000 and 7,000 words will form the basis on an edited volume on U.S. intervention in civil war.

Interested contributors should submit a CV, a paper title, and a 150-word abstract that outlines their original research and its relevance to the conference themes to the organizers via Dr. Emily Whalen ([email protected]) no later than 28 May 2021. Panelists will have their travel and accommodation covered.