Call for Papers: Refugees from Nazism: Trade, Industry and Engineering
Historically, Exile Studies have concentrated on social, political and cultural themes but in recent years – most notably with the Conference of the Gesellschaft für Exilforschung in Vienna in 2014 and the subsequent publication of its Proceedings Kometen des Geldes – economic questions have moved from the periphery to the centre of academic enquiry. With this in mind, the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies at the Institute for Modern Languages Research, University of London is inviting contributors to speak at its Conference on 13 and 14 September, 2023 on Refugees to Britain from Nazism: Trade, Industry and Engineering. The conference will be both online and live at Senate House, University of London.
Key Areas of enquiry could include:
- Aryanisation and transfer of existing companies in the Third Reich
- Establishment of manufacturing, engineering and other companies by refugees from Nazism
- Impact of economic conditions on émigré entrepreneurs
- Wartime changes in legislation and their implications for emigrants engaged in trade and industry
- Innovation in trade and industry: development of new products, processes and technology in Britain and/or overseas
- Development of international trade links
- Career change and retraining
- The impact of internment on refugee engineers and industrialists
- Refugee employees of British engineering and manufacturing companies in Britain
- Restitution for Aryanised companies
- Legacy of refugee engineering and industry
Contributions may be in either English or German for 30-minute papers.
The deadline for offers of papers is 1 September 2022. An abstract not exceeding 300 words together with a short speaker biography, both as attached WORD documents, should be sent to the editors by that date: Anna Nyburg and Charmian Brinson.
Selected papers from the conference will be published in the Research Centre’s Yearbook 21 (2024).
