On 12 November 2021, KNHG is organizing its Annual Conference in partnership with Huygens ING for the History of the Netherlands. The theme is World citizenship in motion: in history, heritage and education. The conference will be held at the National Archives in The Hague.
Is world citizenship: an ideal we want to pursue? Is it only for elites? Incompatible with national identity? Is it recent, or are there historical parallels? Is world citizenship a circumscribed concept, or are historical trends discernible? In contemporary debate about world citizenship historians are also outspoken, voicing their observations in studies, books and editorials. Transborder heritage issues figure high on the agenda. Initiatives to highlight world citizenship in history education are thriving. What works, and what does not? And how can historical scholarship continue to nurture the debate? This autumn the Royal Netherlands Historical Society (KNHG) is organizing a conference about World Citizenship. All these questions will be addressed in the program for this event.
The objective of this conference is to reinforce the historical dimension in the debate about world citizenship. This historical dimension enriches ideas about the possibility or impossibility of world citizenship and alternative forms within it. How have (recent) studies influenced this subject, and how can those insights further education, heritage and policy? The added value of the historical dimension is clear, for example from debates about concepts such as ‘citizenship light,’ especially in the global cities network, which Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Eindhoven are eagerly joining as well. At the same time, new alliances and identities are emerging in border regions and Eurozones. In heritage issues the nation state remains the standard, while the heritage sector has unequalled awareness that material culture has always propagated well across political and religious boundaries. And in education, despite all the initiatives of the past decades, the national frame continues to prevail. Throughout, world history abounds with fine examples of transborder responsibility and solidarity.
The morning program of the Annual Conference will be held in Dutch. The afternoon panel on world heritage and the closing lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah will be held in English.
9.15 am | Registration of participants
9.45 am | Welcome and opening by (new) director of National Archives
9.55 am | Welcome and opening by host of the day, Inger Leemans
10.05 am | Key note by Marjolein ’t Hart, head of the history research department of the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands and Professor of the History of State Formation in Global Perspective at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
10.35 am | Panel on world citizenship and (secondary/scientific) education (in Dutch)
11.45 am | Q&A
12.15 am | Luncheon
1 pm | General assembly for members of KNHG/visit to National Archives for non-members
2 pm | Panel on world heritage and discussion with Aspha Bijnaar, director of EducatieStudio, and Valika Smeulders, head of the Department of History at Rijksmuseum
3.15 pm | Tea break
3.30 pm | Closing lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor Of Philosophy And Law at New York University and author of Education for Global Citizenship (2006) and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2016). In one of his last books, Lies that bind (2018), Appiah deconstructs identity on the basis of religion, color, country and class.
4 pm | Reaction by Susan Legêne, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Professor of Political History at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
4.15 pm | Q&A
4:45 pm | Closing of conference and drinks
5.30 pm | End of program
Date| Friday 12 November 2021
Location| National Archives, The Hague (if possible due to COVID-19 regulations)
Theme| World citizenship in history, heritage and education
Tickets KNHG members/non-members | KNHG members: €15 | non-members: €25 | students (non KNHG members) €5 | student members and Young KNHG members: free!
More information| info@knhg.nl