CfP: Conference of the International Society for First World War Studies ‘War Time’, 10-11 November 2016, Oxford

The 9th Conference of the International Society for First World War Studies, War Time will be held at the Maison Française, University of Oxford, on 10-11 November 2016.

Following the success of previous events, the International Society for First World War Studies is delighted to announce its 9th conference, to be held at the University of Oxford in November 2016. The conference will explore the theme of ‘War Time’. 2016, as the midpoint of the First World War formal centenary period, marks a significant opportunity to reexamine and reflect upon the ways that time has been conceptualised both during the war itself and in the hundred years of scholarship that have followed.

Traditionally, periodisation has been considered a useful framework for understanding the
war. This has neglected a plurality of timelines, both within the years of conflict and those which traverse and connect pre- and post-war narratives. The war marked a rupture in the way individuals experienced time, and interrupted usual rhythms and patterns. The conference will seek to reveal and contextualise new chronologies, pursued along flexible and multiple timelines. All approaches (social, cultural, military, etc) and disciplinary perspectives are welcome. We invite papers which address aspects of the following themes, particularly through comparative and transnational lenses:

• communication and time (including methods and posthumous communication)
• desynchronised and/or simultaneous relationships (between hemispheres, between fronts, across spaces)
• the war’s effect upon conceptions of age groups, life cycles, and rites of passage
• processes of evolution, development, learning curves, and cycles of learning
• materiality of time
• varying perceptions and experiences of time: pauses, waiting, anticipation, suspensions, time slowing down, boredom, time stopping, ‘the end of times’, losing/lost time, running out of time
• institutional measures to control time (such as differing calendars, curfews, time zone boundary changes, and the introduction of Daylight Savings Time)
• war generations, e.g. ‘lost generations’
• military coordination and precision

Conference papers will be circulated in advance to all attendees. Panels will focus on
discussion rather than presentation; each paper’s time-slot will commence with a commentary, before the floor is opened to broader discussion in order to promote engaging and interdisciplinary conversations. We therefore strongly encourage proposals from graduate students and early career researchers.

Proposals should be approximately 300 words in length, with the final papers a maximum
of 7,000 words. Applications should also be accompanied by a short CV. Please submit
proposals to 2016wartime@gmail.com by 16th May 2016. Successful applicants will be
invited to submit their final research papers by 31st August 2016. The working language of the conference and all submissions is English. The organisers intend to publish the proceedings of this conference.

CfP: Violence and Conflict Workshop, University of Cambridge

The Violence and Conflict Workshop invites graduate students to submit papers to be presented in Lent Term 2016. The workshop is interested in submissions which explore the themes of violence and conflict, understood both in physical manifestations such as war, crime, rebellion, etc., as well as psychological/systemic forms including colonialism, slavery, and discrimination. We encourage submissions from any regional or geographical focus, and from Late Antiquity to the present day.

We welcome both works in progress and completed projects, as well as graduate research in its early stages of development. Papers should be approximately 30 minutes and will be followed by discussion and light refreshments. The workshop will meet every Friday at 4pm in Room S3 of the Alison Richard Building, University of Cambridge.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to violence.conflict@gmail.com no later than 3 January 2016.

New book: War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy before WW1

Based on a 2012 Oxford conference, the forthcoming book ‘War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy before World War 1’ by James Pettifer and Tom Buchanan will be published shortly by I B Tauris.

War in the Balkans 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CFP: The British Commission for Military History

The British Commission for Military History invites proposals for its annual summer conference on the theme of ‘culture clash’. The conference will be held at the Old Fire Station, Oxford on 11 July 2015. We will be looking at how different cultural understandings of war shaped the conduct of tactics, strategy and operations in a historical context. We welcome papers on any aspect of any conflict in which two or more different cultures came into contact, and where their cultural differences and similarities shaped the conduct of the war. This includes assumptions of superiority or inferiority, differing strategic goals and operational methodology (societies preferring either raiding or persisting strategies, for example), differing concepts of justness and proportionality in war or any other area of warfare that can be shaped by cultural practices and assumptions.

If you would like to present a paper, please send a short proposal (one or two paragraphs) to the conference organiser Jonathan Krause by 22 May 2015.