"Rencontres de Genève - Histoire et Cité": building peace

How did people conceive, picture or imagine peace in former times? How did they contribute to it in concrete terms? Why and how were they sometimes obliged to fight to promote or enforce it? Which material, symbolic, financial, political and economic means were used to foster cohesion between societies, peoples and communities? The Rencontres de Genève - Histoire et Cité festival invites us to learn about the past to better understand the present.

 

Events taking place at Geneva University (Uni Dufour and Uni Bastions) and elsewhere in the city from Wednesday, 13 May to Saturday, 16 May.

Organised by Geneva University’s Maison de l'histoire in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland (HES-SO), this first festival of history in Switzerland features a comprehensive programme of events taking place at various locations.

The city of Geneva will become a focal point for discussion and reflection, hosting some forty conferences and round-table discussions on the subject of peace from ancient times to the present day, on all five continents, as well as a cinema festival, the Journées du film historique, during which over 30 films will be shown, plus history cafés, a historical book and comic book fair, exhibitions, a concert for peace, educational gatherings and a “Digital Humanities” salon.

The full programme can be consulted here.

Three opportunities to meet people from CERN
As one of the event’s partners, CERN will be taking part in two round-table discussions on Friday, 15 May:


The discussions will be open to the public and will take place in English, without simultaneous interpreting.

CERN will also be taking part in a history café the same evening:


For more information on the festival, see histoire-cité.ch.

by Laurianne Trimoulla