A new book on the First World War, Etica e letteratura della Grande Guerra: rappresentazioni della crisi (Ethics and Literature of the Great War. Representations of the Crisis) (Napoli, Marchese editore), edited by Patrizia Piredda and Gianluca Cinelli has just been published.
For further information, see here.
York St John University, York, UK
17-18 June 2016 (associated social and cultural events on 16th and 19th June)
Keynote Speakers include Priya Satia (Stanford University); more to be confirmed.
This international interdisciplinary conference will examine the effects of World War 1 and the post-war settlement in the Middle East, especially those which are still felt today e.g. state borders, migrations, secular and religious ideologies and movements, and struggles over power. The centenary of the 1916 “Sykes-Picot agreement”, which fed into the post-1918 politics of the region, provides a prompt to reflect on these themes, but does not limit the range of topics for discussion.
With its associated exhibitions and cultural events, the conference will provide a timely opportunity to re-examine the history of this period from many different perspectives and consider the extent of its consequences for the present, and implications for the future. It will also be an opportunity for scholarly work on the Middle East over the last century to be heard and discussed by a wider audience, and for participants to share non-academic as well as academic perspectives on past, present and future in the Middle East.
The conference will encourage the exploration of:
* issues such as gender politics, oil, imperialism, borders, mandates and state formation, local, national, and international elites, and local, national and communal histories of the region
* the impact of early twentieth century developments on subsequent histories and perceptions of ethnic, religious, social and communal diversity in the region
* cultural, political, and ideological aspects of these topics within and beyond the Middle East.
* histories and/or contemporary experiences of York/Yorkshire connections with the Middle East
Potential contributions to the conference may thus come from many disciplines; these might include geography, cartography, ethnography/anthropology, political science, war and peace studies, international relations, archaeology, science and/or engineering, religious and philosophical studies, the arts, cultural, media, and literary studies, statistics.
The conference will include both plenary sessions and panels. All sessions will be designed to give ample time to discuss presentations with a common theme. Proposals for papers or other forms of presentation are invited from all disciplines and areas. Selected papers will be considered for inclusion in an edited volume of conference proceedings.
Paper proposals should be for presentations of no more than 15 minutes; we are happy to consider proposals for contributions in other formats. Panel proposals should be for 2/3papers dealing with common themes.
Proposals, which should provide [1] a title, [2] an abstract of no more than 250 words, [3] the proposer’s name and contact details, should be sent to i.horwood@yorksj.ac.uk by Friday 23 January 2016 at latest. Proposers will be informed of decisions about their proposal by early March.
Further details about the conference, including registration fees, concessions, etc. will be available shortly.
Organising committee: John Bibby, Joanna de Groot, Ian Horwood
Sponsors: York St John University; Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past, History Department, University of York; also associated with the York Festival of Ideas.
University of Tampere, Finland, 16−18 March 2017
This international conference in historical sciences analyses the political, cultural, intellectual and societal influences of the First World War in Europe, focusing especially on the emergence of new nation states. The Finnish process of declaring independence in 1917 is related to the international developments of the time, paying particular attention to transnational interaction. In Finland, the Russian Revolution of February/March 1917 started a period of constitutional ferment which led to widespread political mobilisation, constitutional controversies, a declaration of independence in the aftermath of the October/November Revolution in December 1917, a civil war in spring 1918, and finally to adoption of a republican constitution as a compromise in July 1919. In all of these phases the Finnish process of becoming an independent state was linked to and dependent on inter- and transnational developments.
Paper and session proposals
Researchers interested in contributing to the conference are invited to submit an English-language abstract of no more than 250 words to 1917conference@uta.fi no later than 15 April 2016. You can propose either a full panel of three papers (90 minutes) or an individual paper. Kindly include full contact details of the proposer and all the speakers. The organisers will inform you about the inclusion of your paper in the programme during June 2016.
The Finnish Historical Society will award a limited number of travel grants covering part of the participation costs for non-Finnish scholars who do not have a permanent academic position or other kinds of travel funding. If you would like to apply for a travel grant, kindly send your application of no more 250 words to the above-mentioned address.
Further information here.
23 November, 17:00-18:30
Rothermere American Institute book launch and wine reception
Celeste-Marie Bernier (University of Nottingham)
Suffering and Sunset: World War I in the Art and Life of Horace Pippin
Details about her book here.
For self-made artist and soldier Horace Pippin — His ability to transform combat service into canvases of emotive power, psychological depth, and realism showed not only how he viewed the world but also his mastery as a painter. In Suffering and Sunset, Celeste-Marie Bernier painstakingly traces Pippin’s life story of art as a life story of war.
Illustrated with more than sixty photographs, including works in various mediums—many in full color—this is the first intellectual history and cultural biography of Pippin, a pioneering African American artist who served in the 369th all-black infantry in World War I until he was wounded. The war defined much of his life and work. The Great War, Pippin wrote, ‘brought out all the art in me.’ Working from newly discovered archives and unpublished materials, Bernier provides an in-depth investigation into the artist’s development of an alternative visual and textual lexicon and sheds light on his work in its aesthetic, social, and political contexts.
Celeste-Marie Bernier was a Visiting Professor in Oxford in 2013 at the RAI and at Wolfson. She has since held appointments at Harvard, Memphis and King’s College, London.
Times Higher Education‘s book of the week is Geert Buelens’ Everything to Nothing. Deborah Longworth provides a review of this study of the interrelation of politics and poetry.
Everything to Nothing: The Poetry of the Great War, Revolution and the Transformation of Europe
By Geert Buelens
Translated by David McKay
Verso, 400pp, £20.00
ISBN 9781784781491 and 1507 (e-book)
Published 2 November 2015
For the THE review, please see here.
The programme for the Postgraduate Workshop, Connecting Approaches on the First World War in the Wake of the Centenary, taking place on Monday 7 December from 09.00-18.30, at the Maison française d’ Oxford is now available.
This workshop is generously supported by the Sanderson Fund, Oxford History Faculty, the Maison française d’Oxford and the Observatoire du centenaire de l’université Paris 1.
For the full programme, please see: http://greatwar.history.ox.ac.uk/?page_id=2042
Dr. Alice Kelly, Postdoctoral Writing Fellow on the Women in the Humanities Programme at TORCH has had an article published in the Times Literary Supplement on her research into an unknown First World War story by Edith Wharton. The story is about Wharton’s anxieties about women in wartime and, more generally, about the broadening the canon of women’s First World War writing.
A link to the Times Literary Supplement article is here.
A link to Oxford’s Arts Blog is here.
The work has also been included The New Criterion’s Critic’s Notebook – see here, in The Atlantic – see here, in Jezebel – see here, and in The Smithsonian’s Smart News – see here.