Call for papers – www.learning-from-history.de
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Learning from History is a web portal that promotes historical and civic education on the themes of National Socialism, the Holocaust and twentieth-century history. For over ten years, our portal has been bringing together essays, reports on school-based projects, reviews of teaching materials, presentations of other web portals, and more. As well as discussions and materials from Germany, we also pick up on international debates. Some of our contributions thus appear not only in German but also in English and Spanish. Contributions in Polish are handled by our cooperation partner in Warsaw, the Karta foundation. In addition, in October 2010 we published an international issue of our magazine, on "Learning about National Socialism and the Holocaust", which included some contributions in English. We want to expand the international section of our portal and enlarge our reach by publishing more essays and project presentations in English and Spanish. We are very interested in your research and experiences in the field of education in schools, museums and youth-work settings, on the following topics:
- Learning about National Socialism and the Holocaust
- Intercultural historical education
- Projects with young people and in schools on the topic of National Socialism and the Holocaust
- The treatment of National Socialism and the Holocaust in history books
- Syllabus design on the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust
- Antisemitism past and present in the context of historical and civic educational work
- Web offerings in the field of education about twentieth-century history
- Reviews of textbooks and specialist publications on historical and civic education about National Socialism, the Holocaust and antisemitism (only books that are available internationally)
- Remembering and commemorating National Socialism and the Holocaust
- Remembering twentieth-century dictatorships in the context of educational work
- Remembering genocides in the context of educational work
We invite submissions in English or Spanish. For papers that are longer than 4,500 characters (around 800 words), we will need an abstract and a PDF version of the article. Shorter papers will be posted directly on the portal. All contributions will appear on the following page of our portal:
http://learning-from-history.de/International
Please send your submissions and any questions to Birgit Marzinka:
marzinka [at] lernen-aus-der-geschichte [dot] de
Eight editorial rules for an essay for www.learning-from-history.de
Learning from History asks that discussion papers and presentations of projects, teaching materials, etc., be written in the form of an essay. To help you prepare your contribution, we have put together some guidelines on what we expect from an essay.
- The essay should set out its central thesis early on, without a long preamble. In the course of the text, that thesis should be discussed from a range of different perspectives. The essay should clearly set out your own opinion. In order to stimulate and facilitate discussion, an essay needs to be informative, and at the close you should clarify your own stance on the key points.
- The essay should be written in a journalistic style – that is, it should be easy to read and not overloaded with details. This distinguishes it from a scholarly paper. Don't try to pack in too much information: present fewer points, and organise them in a clear, accessible way.
- Because our contributions aim to reach a wide audience, we ask you to use technical terms only when necessary. Please give explanations of any technical terms you do use.
- Active constructions instead of passive ones often make a text easier to read.
- Please avoid using an abstract style in your essay: put your point as concretely and specifically as possible. Again, this distinguishes the essay form from a scholarly paper. For example, “High-quality learning institutions are a key precondition for the facilitation of the learning process” is less accessible than “To learn effectively, children need good schools”.
- Please avoid excessively long sentences.
- The careful use of paragraphs will make your text easier to read, by structuring your content and arguments for the reader. Please ensure that you group your points clearly into paragraphs.
- Please use gender-neutral language.
