Call for papers on Home Rule, 1870-1814, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique,
Special issue, Autumn 2018
In 1870, Isaac Butt charted a course for Irish autonomy, which articulated and allowed the development of moderate nationalism. According to its advocates, this project would have allowed for a specific – and, it was hoped – and more satisfactory treatment of what was known as “the Irish question” within a constitutional paradigm. In 1914, the outbreak of WWI suspended sine die the implementation of the third Home Rule Bill passed by the House of Commons. In the meantime, the issue had become a divide in British politics. Home Rule had created, established or lost connections with offshoots in the empire, and –within the UK – in Scotland and Wales. Such developments questioned the very unity of kingdom and empire; and simultaneously, the idea of portioning the island had taken hold in the debate.
The Irish dimension of the question should not blind us to the other aspects – British, imperial, and transnational – which we wish to highlight on this special issue.
The topic of Home Rule has just been chosen to be on the program (for the next two years) for the French Agrégation (a national exam for French students seeking to teach English at the university and secondary school level). About three thousand students take these exams, and prep classes are offered at nearly every university in the country. This means that for the next two years, the field Home Rule studies in France will be a subject of high interest for a fairly sizeable number of French students and fellow academics. Plus, the syllabus brings extra focus to the questions studied beyond the exam itself, and contributes to developing research in that field
Through the Revue, we hope to provide a fairly broad coverage of the various issues at stake, while bringing fresh insight, through recent research. Given the themes of the various articles we expect at this stage of our work on the journal, we would particularly welcome contributions on the following issues:
Negotiations over the partition of Ireland over the period 1911-1914, especially in the year 1914;
Liberal Unionism;
David Lloyd George and the Welsh dimension of Home Rule;
Role and attitude of the Catholic Church; Protestants and Home Rule;
Reactions to Scottish Home Rule/Wesh Home Rule within the empire.
As this special, exam-based issue needs to be made available as early as possible for candidates and colleagues, we work on tight deadlines. The articles (5 to 7,000 words), in English or in French are to be sent to us by mid-August. Further editorial details can be found at
Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique
We shall also be happy to answer any queries.
If you wish to contribute an article, send us a provisional title, summary and short biography by 10 June 2018.
anne-catherine.debouvier@unicaen.fr
We will answer in the following days.