Africa and the African Diaspora and the World Wars
February 19-21, 2026
Florida State University Alumni Center
Sponsored by the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience, Department of History, Florida State University
and the Society for Black Military Studies
This conference seeks to examine the pivotal role the two world wars (1914-1918) and (1931-1945) played in reshaping Africa and the African Diaspora. In both conflicts, much of Africa served as a battlefield contested by warring European powers. In the case of World War II, Ethiopia became the first country to be invaded by Mussolini’s Italy. Although most European colonial regimes initially survived both world wars, these global conflicts undermined their legitimacy and hastened their demise. Africans and those in the African Diaspora were mobilized to fight in both conflicts and the conference conveners seek papers examining their experiences, especially when deployed to serve in Europe and Asia. We want to include papers from a variety of disciplinary perspective especially related to Africans and the African Diaspora on the home front.
The conference conveners encourage both individual and panel proposals. Please submit an abstract (500 words) and cv for each participant by September 15, 2025. Proposals should be in the form of a PDF sent to G. Kurt Piehler, Director, Institute on World War II and the Human Experience, Department of History, Florida State University at kpiehler@fsu.edu. Conference organizers anticipate that they will be able to provide accommodations for those presenting papers at this conference and offer travel grants to graduate students and independent scholars. The new Journal of Black Military Studies will solicit paper submissions that fit the journal’s mission for future publication.