To End All Wars? Geopolitical Aftermath and Commemorative Legacies of the First World War

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August 22, 2018 to August 25, 2018
Ieper, Belgium

At the end of 1914 H. G. Wells published The War That Will End War, a collection of patriotic essays justifying Britain’s participation in the war. The title sounds familiar as it was taken up later on in other contexts, particularly by the British prime minister David Lloyd George and the American president Woodrow Wilson (‘the war to end (all) wars’).

With To End All Wars? the In Flanders Fields Museum (Ypres) and CEGESOMA (Brussels) once again return to this historic title for a multi-day conference, to tackle two questions: what were the consequences of the new geopolitical order installed after this so-called ‘last war’, and how is the legacy of both war and post-war order remembered up to the present day?

Taking worldwide perspectives, this unique and prestigious conference brings together international specialists including Jay Winter, Nicolas Offenstadt, Carole Fink, Stefan Berger, Bruce Scates, Pieter Lagrou, Piet Chielens and many others. They will discuss and reflect upon the consequences of the new geopolitical order that came into being after the First World War, and how that war and its legacy have been remembered up to the present day.

See here for full conference details and to register.

CfP: A HERITAGE OF WAR, CONFLICT, AND COMMEMORATION, Change Over Time Journal

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The journal Change Over Time: An International Journal of Conservation and the Built Environment, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, invites submissions for the Fall 2019 issue.

A HERITAGE OF WAR, CONFLICT, AND COMMEMORATION
Guest Editor: William Chapman

Sites of war and conflict that symbolize collective loss or that served as pivotal moments in national or global history are sometimes elevated to the status of “heritage.” Battlefields, sites of bombings, or places of terrorist attacks are all marked by human tragedy and acts of violence and their interpretation is inherently conflictual. This issue of Change Over Time examines heritage produced by violent acts of destruction and our efforts to commemorate the complex narratives these sites embody.

To support the interpretation of sites characterized by absence, we have often erected commemorative memorials of various forms from plaques and commissioned statuary to the presentation of charred and damaged remnants of what stood before. Examples featuring the vestiges of physical destruction include: the hull of the USS Arizona, sunk during Japan’s 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor; the skeleton of the domed administrative building that marked the zero point of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945; the stabilized walls of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry, a victim of the German Luftwaffe’s November 1940 blitz; and the “Survivors’ Stairs,” the last remaining element of the World Trade Center following its destruction on 11 September 2001. In this issue, we invite contributors to interrogate the types and nature of heritage produced out of war and conflict, the forms of its commemoration, and the challenges associated with its conservation. We encourage contributors to consider the influence of class, politics, and culture in commemorative expressions; the technical and conceptual challenges of conserving objects or places of destruction; inclusive or conflicting (re)interpretation; and evolving perceptions of places over time.

We welcome contributions representing a broad array of geographic, cultural, temporal, and historical contexts that may or may not include vestiges of destruction but that do address the complex attributes of collective place based tragedy. Submissions may include, but are not limited to, case studies, theoretical explorations, and evaluations of current practices or policies as they pertain to the conservation and commemoration of heritage of war and conflict.

Abstracts of 200-300 words are due 1 August 2018. Authors will be notified of provisional paper acceptance by 1 September 2018. Final manuscript submissions will be due late November 2018.

Submission
Articles are generally restricted to 7,500 or fewer words (the approximate equivalent to thirty pages of double-spaced, twelve-point type) and may include up to ten images. See Author Guidelines for full details at cotjournal.com, or email Senior Associate Editor, Kecia Fong at cot@design.upenn.edu for further information.

CfP – The Many Faces of War: An interdisciplinary symposium on the experience and impact of war throughout history

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September 19th, 2018 at South Dakota State University

The study of warfare is often restricted to the sphere of military history and rarely allowed to transcend the artificial boundaries of historical study, namely those limited by geography and periodization. Throughout the ages war has had the greatest impact, not on the political elite who declare wars but on those who fight and die and their families and friends. This conference aims to address both the experience and impact of war for those fighting as well as for those on the periphery of combat.

Subtopics of particular interest are:
Women in war; the social stigma of retreat or cowardice; war and agriculture; the impact of scorched earth policy on populations; The depopulation of villages; war’s effect on birth or marriage rates of the loss of male citizens; prisoners of war; camp-followers and non-military personnel; displacement of populations; arms production; social security systems for war widows and orphans; the effect of training on a soldier’s mindset and actions (before, during and after combat); the social position of soldiers; peacetime relations between soldiers and civilians; wartime relations between civilians and occupying armies.

The conference is aimed equally at postgraduate students, researchers in the early stages of their careers and established academics. There are no specific geographical or temporal parameters regarding the subject matter of papers, and scholars of ancient, medieval and modern warfare are encouraged to submit proposals. We would also encourage the proposal of panels of three papers.

Proposals/abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and should be sent to:
Graham Wrightson (graham.wrightson@sdstate.edu)
The deadline for submission of proposals is August 31st, 2018.

CfP: To cease fire, to cease hostilities? Since modern times to the present day

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The Defense Historical Service and the Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, the Institute of War and Peace Studies (IHMC-UMR 8066, Paris 1-Sorbonne) are organizing on the 27th and 28th November 2018 an international symposium entitled “To cease fire, to cease hostilities? Since modern times to the present day.”

Over the last few years, the historiography of military history has benefited from a profound renewal of ideas, objects and methods in the wake of John Keegan’s works. Despite a growing interest in the surrender phenomenon (P. Vo-Ha) or in the experience of war captivity (F. Théofilakis, F. Cochet) and more generally in the fate of the vanquished (C. Defrance, C. Horel and F.-X. Nérard), the analysis of the end of hostilities still remains a blind spot. However, the organizers of the current conference are convinced that this problem is a particularly fertile prism through which the war object should be examined: The way we stop fighting says much about how the war is thought and waged.

Papers can be submitted in French or English.
Languages for the symposium will be French and English.
Please send us a 500-word abstract and a short bio by July 1st, 2018. Accepted speakers will be notified by July 15th, 2018.

The organizers of the symposium will bear the costs of:
– Travelling tickets, accommodations and catering for non-Parisians speakers
– Midday lunches

Please direct questions and submissions to: colloque.ceasefire@gmail.com
Full call for papers: CFP To cease fire

CfP: From the “New Republic” to the Spanish Flu: the Azores and the Armistice

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World War 1 Congress
Faial Theatre, Horta, Faial, Azores, 18-20 October 2018
Azores Military Museum, Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, 15-17 November 2018

Sidónio Pais died on December 14, 1918, murdered in Lisbon. As a republican, he would successively occupy the positions of deputy, senator, minister and ambassador, returning to Portugal when the First World War was already predicted. In power by the conspiracy that established the “New Republic” (1917-18), he would lead a confederation of disgruntled republicans, monarchists, clericals and anti-war forces, and legitimize the presidency by elections, exercising a mixed power of authoritarianism and populism. His homicide left the country in great political, economic and social instability, aggravated by the Spanish flu, the Influenza A virus.

In the Azores, the year of 1918 was marked by the war in the sea; the Spanish Flu; the Azores Detachment of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and the High Commissar of the Republic, General Simas Machado, was sent by the President of the Republic to control the civil, military and diplomatic areas in the archipelago. To this scenario were added the war in the sea, the TSF and submarine cables and the communication of the Armistice to North America; a German POW in Terceira island and a deep trade crisis, with big social misery, promoted in many cases by the action of hoarders.

This meeting aims to analyze the last year of World War I, with particular emphasis on the Azores in its relationship with the Atlantic, belligerence, economic crisis, communications and Atlantic ports, and international affairs with Sidonism and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Likewise, 1918 also marks a year of profound reflection about the hygienic-sanitary conditions, and is even a starting point for the study of war traumas or morpho-functional sciences / biomedical engineering, to which we can ally the relevance of the female activism, with some echoes in the Azores.

The organizing committee calls for proposals that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

The maritime and terrestrial dimension of the involvement of the Azores in World War I;
The naval and submarine war;
The Atlantic and telecommunications during the Great War;
The maritime connections in the Trenches War, or in the colonies;
The Sidonism and the High Commissioner of the Republic for the Azores;
Health services, health conditions and the Spanish Flu;
The Armistice and the return to normality;
Women’s Emancipation.

Submission deadline: 17 July 2018
Further information here.
Download CfP: 2018-10-18_Azores-Armistice_CFP

Submission process: Please send your identification (name, institutional affiliation and mail address), Paper title, place of preference (Horta/Ponta Delgada), Abstract (maximum 700 words), and academic CV (1 page) via mail to: azoreswar@gmail.com

Working languages: English, Portuguese (no simultaneous interpretation is available).

Organising committee:
Ana Paula Pires (IHC – NOVA FCSH and Stanford University)
Rita Nunes (Comité Olímpico de Portugal and IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Sérgio Rezendes (IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Manuel Marchã (Museu Militar dos Açores)
Carlos Lobão (Escola Secundária Manuel de Arriaga /CHAM Açores)

Scientific committee:
António Paulo Duarte (IDN and IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Carolina Garcìa Sanz (Universidad de Sevilha)
Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses (University of Maynooth)
Luís Manuel Vieira de Andrade (Universidade dos Açores)
Maria Inès Tato (CONICET and Universidad de Buenos Aires)

Call for Articles – The Historian

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The Historian is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal with a global readership and an eighty-year history of publishing articles of the highest quality across the discipline’s many fields and foci. The journal welcomes manuscripts on all regional, temporal, and thematic fields of history. Submissions should be of interest to a wide readership. Manuscripts that have been published elsewhere, or that are being considered for publication elsewhere, will not be considered.

Submissions are expected to meet the highest standards of academic quality, have an original point, be in dialogue with the relevant literature, and either be based on new source material, or constitute an exhaustive and critical overview of the historiography of a particular topic. Article manuscripts should normally be between 6,000 and 8,000 words, not including notes. The latter should be footnotes, not endnotes, and conform to The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition. Manuscripts can be submitted electronically as e-mail attachments (formatted in MSWord) to kleiohistorian@gmail.com. Authors should also attach a separate MSWord file with the title, an abstract of no more than 100 words, and their contact information. The author’s name should appear only on the title page.

The journal’s manuscript policy can be found on its website: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/15406563/homepage/forauthors.html

Contact Info:
Dr. Adrian O’Connor – University of South Florida St. Petersburg – Editor, The Historian

Museums, Collections & Conflict, 1500-2010 – MGHG Biennial Conference 2018 Provisional Programme

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13-14 July 2018, National Maritime Museum

Tickets can be purchased online here. For discounted conference tickets and access to the Museums History Journal, membership of the Museums and Galleries History Group can be purchased online here at a rate of £15 for students, £20 for individuals and £35 for institutions. MGHG Membership runs from 1 February to 1 February each year.

MGHG members: £40 / non-members: £70 / MGHG student members: £25 / student non-members: £40

Friday 13 July 2018

9.30 – 10.00 – Registration and tea/coffee

10.00 – 10.10 – Introduction (Kate Hill, Chair of MGHG)

10.10 – 12.10 – Panel 1: New insights into the history of the Imperial War Museum

Chair: James Wallis (University of Essex) Discussant: James Taylor (IWM London)

James Wallis (University of Essex) – The Imperial War Museum’s First World War galleries – a space of conflict?
Anna Maguire (King’s College London) – Researching Colonial Experience in the Collections of the Imperial War Museums
Kasia Tomasiewicz (University of Brighton & IWM) – Methods in the Museum: Reflections on Positionality within the Imperial War Museum

12.10 – 13.10 – Lunch (not provided) – postgraduate students lunch session for pre-registered participants only

13.10 – 14.40 – Panel 2: Museums in Wartime I: Protecting museums and objects

Anna Tulliach (University of Leicester) – Assessing the war issue at the Civic Museum of Bologna (1915-1945)
Zoé Vannier (École du Louvre) – Managing a collection “far from drums’ sound”: The evacuation and management of the Near Eastern Antiquities department of the Louvre Museum during World War II
Eva March (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona) – The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Catalan art museums

14.40 – 15.10 – Tea/Coffee

15.10 – 16.40 – Panel 3: Politics of curating and displaying war

Quintin Colville (Royal Museums Greenwich) – Medals and masculinities: representing the First World War at sea through word and object
Bridget Yates (independent researcher) – ‘The present is pretty terrible, the future is unknown, the past is the only stable thing to which we can turn’: Philip Ashcroft, Rufford Village Museum and the preservation of rural life and tradition during the Second World War
Zoe Mercer-Golden (Royal Museums Greenwich) – Treasure, Triumph and Trespass: Curatorial Challenges in the Collecting and Display of “Priam’s Treasure”

17.40 – 17.00 – Break

17.00 – 18.00 – Keynote lecture: Prof Geoff Quilley (University of Sussex)

18.00 – 19.30 – Reception

Saturday 14 July

9.30 – 11.00 – Panel 4: Collecting during conflict

Simon Quinn (University of York) – British military antiquarianism and collecting during the campaign in Egypt, 1801
Nicholas Badcott (SOAS) – Collecting on campaign in Mahdist Sudan
Amanda Mason (IWM) – Collecting Contemporary Conflict at IWM

11.00 – 11.30 – Tea/coffee

11.30 – 13.00 – Panel 5: Museums in wartime II: Keeping museums going

Catherine Pearson (Anglia Ruskin University) – ‘I knew what I wanted to do and just went ahead’: The experiences of museum staff during the Second World War
Karin Müller-Kelwing (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: Dresden State Art Collections) – Museum without objects?
Evelien Scheltinga (research-curator) – Dutch museums during World War 2

13.00 – 14.00 – Lunch (not provided) – selection of archival materials on view in Caird Library on history of the National Maritime Museum

14.00 – 14.30 – MGHG AGM

14.30 – 16.00 – Panel 6: History of War Museums

Jacqui Grainger (Royal United Services institute for Defence and Security Studies) – A Lost Museum: the RUSI Museum, 1831-1962
Phil Deans (Newcaslte University) – From A Museum on the World’s Last War, To a Museum on the Two World Wars: Crisis Management and reinvention at the Imperial War Musuem, 1939 – 1946
Melanie Vandenbrouk (Royal Museums Greenwich) – Two world wars and art at the National Maritime Museum

Conference closes