Whose World? Internationalism, Nationalism and the Struggle over the ‘Language Question’ in the International Federation of University Women, 1919–1932

Abstract

AbstractThis paper focuses on how the International Federation of University Women, founded in 1919, sought to reconcile its mission of fostering internationalism with the interests of its over thirty national member organisations. Nowhere was the challenge to its internationalist ethos greater than in post–First World War Germany. Being one of the last European member associations to join the IFUW in 1926, the Germans immediately requested their language to be used alongside English and French. The article reconstructs the struggles preceding the admission of Germany to the IFUW and the subsequent disputes over the ‘language question’ to explain why and on what terms the Germans first contested and eventually agreed in 1932 to accept the new Anglo-American and French dominance as world languages.