A History of Exchange Programs in the XXth Century: Education, Circulations and Transfers

International Conference, University of Geneva, 11-12^th December 2014

• Organized by Ludovic Tournès (UNIGE) & Giles Scott-Smith (University of Leiden)
• Technical supervisor : Laetitia Corbière (UNIGE)

Place: GSI, 20 rue de l’École-de-Médecine, Room 123 

Free entrance

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11^TH

08:30: Welcome, tea/coffee

09:00: Welcome speech (Yves Flückiger, Vice-Rector, UNIGE)

09:10: Introduction to the Conference Theme (Giles Scott-Smith & Ludovic Tournès)

Session 1 (9:30 - 12:00): instruments of national policy

Chair: Matthias Schulz (UNIGE)

Discussant: Pierre-Yves Saunier (Université Laval)

Ludovic Tournès (UNIGE):

American academic exchanges and the rise of an intellectual superpower (1920-1939)

Alice Byrne (Université Rennes-2):

The British Council’s Commonwealth university interchange scheme: fostering the new Commonwealth or prolonging British influence?

Jacob S. Eder (Friedrich-Schiller Universität, Jena):

Students as ambassadors: the Congress-Bundestag youth exchange program and German-American relations

Jesse Sargent (Graduate Institute, Genève):

Importing barbarian knowledge: the JET programme and the development of cultural internationalism in Japan (1987-2014)

12:00 - 13:30 Lunch

Session 2 (13:30 - 15:30): the ambiguity of internationalism

Chair: Giles Scott-Smith (University of Leiden)

Discussant: Ludovic Tournès (UNIGE)

Stefan Hübner (Bundeswehr Universität, Munich): The YMCA’s sportive ‘Civilizing Mission’: Asian sports experts and the YMCA training school (Springfield College)

Panayotis Papaevangelou (UNIL):

The League of Nations and the organization of International academic exchanges

Thomas David, Yi-Tang Lin (UNIL) & Davide Rodogno (Graduate Institute, Genève):

The fellowship programs of the World Health Organization

Session 3 (16:00 - 18:30): world politics and the Cold War

Chair: Ludovic Tournès (UNIGE)

Discussant: Giles Scott-Smith (University of Leiden)

Frédéric Attal (Université de Valenciennes):

Evaluating success and limits of the different Fulbright exchange programs in Europe with a special focus to the program to researchers

Peter Simons (Hamilton College, Clinton):

Grassroots diplomacy: US agricultural exchanges in the early Cold War

Igor Czernecki (Warsaw University):

An intellectual offensive: the Ford Foundation and the destalinization of the Polish social sciences (1957-1990)

Rachel Applebaum (Tufts University):

Study abroad in the land of Stalin: Cold War educational exchanges in the Eastern bloc

Hannah Higgin (Cambridge University):

African exchange students in the United States in the 1960s

19:30 Conference Dinner

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12^TH

Session 4 (9:30 - 12:00): Knowledge Transfer and Long-Term Effects

Chair: Davide Rodogno (Graduate Institute, Genève)

Discussant: Frédéric Attal (Université de Valenciennes)

Tamson Pietsch (University of Sydney):

Organising scholarly exchange: the Rhodes Scholarships (1903-1913)

Judith Syga (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris):

Managing exchange in interwar Germany: August W. Fehling and the administration of the Rockefeller Foundation’s fellowship program for the social sciences

Pierre-Yves Saunier (Université Laval, Québec): A special kind of fellows? Half a century of Rockefeller Foundation nursing fellowships 1919-1970

Carol Aktinson (University of Southern California, Los Angeles): Military exchanges and American soft power

12:00 - 13:30: Lunch

Session 5 (13:30 - 16:00): The Present and Future challenges

Chair: Pierre-Yves Saunier (Université Laval, Québec)

Discussant: Jesse Sargent (Graduate Institute, Genève)

Patricia Rosenfield (Rockefeller Archive Center, New York): American Foundations and the Post-World War II Funding of Fellowship Programs: The Internal and External Challenges

Guangqiu Xu (Friends University, Wichita): American fulbrighters in China (1979-2013)

Giles Scott-Smith (University of Leiden): Promoting Leadership: The Fulbright and Foreign Leader programs in perspective

Lonnie R. Johnson (Austrian-American Educational Commission, Vienna) : The new geography of American public exchange program since 1989

Vanessa Debiais-Sainton (European Commission) : Contemporary challenges of the ERASMUS program.

16:00-16:30: Concluding remarks (Giles Scott-Smith & Ludovic Tournès)