CMY Workshop 2024 - Munich

CMY - the Cambridge-LMU-Yale Junior Scholars Seminar in the Contemporary History of Europe in the World held its first workshop on 27 and 28 May 2024. CMY is jointly organized by the University of Cambridge, Yale University and LMU Munich. The workshop took place at LMU Munich and at IBZ München.

The workshop brought together fifteen advanced PhD candidates and early postdocs (five from each university) and more senior scholars. They discussed whether and how contemporary European history can be re-thought and researched in the light of new perspectives from global and transnational history.

A first panel discussed this question by revisiting Charles S. Maier’s "Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era", and by asking what alternative narratives have emerged since its publication more than 20 years ago and how to periodisize contemporary European history today.

Five additional panels were devoted to discussing papers by the junior scholars, ranging from pointed think pieces to elaborate draft chapters or articles offering insights into their ongoing work and discussing how it contributes to research on the contemporary history of Europe in the world. A roundtable provided the opportunity to synthesize the individual discussions by working out common points and relating them back to overarching questions that emerged during the re-reading of Maier's text.

The group is looking forward to continuing the discussion over the course of the next two workshops in Cambridge in May 2025 and in Yale in September 2025.