Rothermere American Institute, 1a South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UB
American History Research Seminar
Tuesday 21 November, 16:00-17:30
Jennifer Luff (Durham)
‘The re-conquest of America’: American munitions and British governance during the Great War
Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Park Street, Woodstock, OX20 1SN
13 December 2017 7-8:30pm
Sir Stephen Sedley, who became interested in British trench songs in the 1960s and recorded recollections of veterans, discusses the remarkable body of spontaneous, insubordinate and humorous song with which the troops faced hardship and death. With live music from Dick Wolff, Ian Wheeler and Mark Fry of Three Pressed Men. Guest vocalist, Marie-Jane Barnett.
Enjoy this evening entertainment with mulled wine and a mince pie included!
And take part in an ‘Out of Hours’ opportunity to visit our Heritage Lottery Funded exhibition on the centenary of the Great War Oxfordshire Remembers 1914-1918 Part II
Admission
£16 per ticket (includes mulled wine and a mince pie)
The 2017 HENG Special Lecture by Andrew McCarthy
Wednesday 1st November, 5.30-6.30
Pichette Auditorium
Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke’s Annual HENG “Special Lecture” will be given by Andrew McCarthy, bestselling author of The Huns have got my Gramophone.
Download poster: Business As Usual and Unusual poster
The McGovern Lecture 2017, Green Templeton College
6pm, Wednesday 25 October 2017
Professor Edgar Jones
Professor in the History of Medicine and Psychiatry, King’s College London
The scale of the First World War, and in particular the high numbers of killed and wounded, marked the conflict as one of the most significant events of the twentieth century. For the first time, psychiatric casualties were not only a medical priority but also presented as a military crisis. In a protracted war of attrition, shell shock had the capacity to erode morale and undermine the fighting strength of the major combatants. Some senior physicians, such as Gordon Holmes, interpreted shell shock in the absence of a head wound as little more than cowardice, whilst others, including Charles Myers and Frederick Mott, explored ideas of psychological vulnerability and sought to correlate its symptoms with traumatic exposure. Clinical presentations differed between armies. In the UK, shell shock was commonly represented as a movement disorder, characterised by tremor and unusual gaits. This stood in contrast to Germany and Italy where seizures and dissociated, soldier-like actions were more commonly reported. Possible explanations for these national differences will be discussed in the context of combat medical services.
E P Abraham Lecture Theatre
Green Templeton College
43 Woodstock Road
Oxford
Oxon
OX2 6HG
United Kingdom
More information here.
All are welcome, but booking is essential. Book your seat now!
Workshop One: Why Remember? War and Memory Today
Friday 10 November, 10am – 5.30pm
Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford
Funded by a British Academy Rising Stars Engagement Award
This interdisciplinary seminar series ‘Cultures and Commemorations of War’ brings together early career researchers and advanced scholars working on the memory of war in a range of disciplines with practitioners, policy makers, charities, and representatives from the media and culture and heritage industries. Through a series of three one-day workshops held in Oxford and London in 2017-18, this series aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue about the history and nature of war commemoration across time and its cultural, social, psychological and political iterations.
This first workshop seeks to assess the current field of war and memory studies and consider the impact of recent centenary commemorations, such as the ongoing First World War commemorations and the removal of confederate statues across the US. The morning workshop is led by ECRs and will include discussion of readings circulated two weeks before the event. It is open to everyone.
Registration is free and open to all! Please register here: bit.ly/2ihZd02
Any questions, please email: alice.kelly@rai.ox.ac.uk
10am: Coffee and Registration
10.30-12.30pm: Workshop led by ECRs – Kevin Waite, James Wallis, Emma Login, Alice Kelly
12.30-1.30pm: Lunch
1.30-1.45pm: Opening Remarks for Afternoon Session – Alice Kelly
1.45-3pm: Panel: The Materiality of Remembrance – Jennifer Iles & Layla Renshaw, chaired by Hanna Smyth
3-3.30pm: Coffee
3.30-4.30pm: Keynote – David Rieff, in conversation with Alice Kelly
4.30-5.30pm: Closing Roundtable – Elleke Boehmer, David Rieff, Adrian Gregory, Sara Haslam
5.30pm: Drinks, followed by dinner in college
Au Coeur de la Grande Guerre: L’individu au croisement du civil et du militaire (At the Heart of the Great War: the Individual at the Intersection of the Civilian and Military Dimensions of the Conflict)
Mons Memorial Museum, Mons, Belgium, 26-28 October 2017
The symposium « In the Heart of the Great War » has been, above all, conceived as an exchange between graduate students and early career researchers in order to construct, via debate and dialogue, coherent interpretations about the individual at the crossroads between military and civilian realities. The desire to organise this conference originates from previous encounters and from the desire to prolong the discussions had during the Summer School « The Face of the First World War », organised by the International Research Centre of the Historial de la Grande Guerre of Péronne.
The symposium theme is merely a guideline, a clue for reflection rather than a well-defined subject. It leads us to question the ways through which individuals – soldiers, civilians at the home front or in occupied territories – integrate and conciliate the military dimension on one side (whether it’s their experience at the front or German presence on the streets of their village) and the civil dimension on the other. In addition to the encounter between the civilian and military « worlds », constituting two separate spheres, we must reflect upon the individual as being at the crossroads between two dimensions, which jointly construct him or her.
Conference website here.
Programme: Programme Mons
11 October 2017, 17:30-19:30, the Harold Lee Room, Pembroke College
The Apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 represent one of the most controversial acts of public religiosity in the modern era, highlighting complex interactions of sacred and secular beliefs. From humble local beginnings, the events at Fatima achieved global significance during the course of the twentieth century, with interpretations ranging from mass delusion to proof of the apocalypse.
For the centenary of the 13 October 1917 ‘Miracle of the Sun,’ this interdisciplinary event will feature historical and scientific commentary on the apparitions, including discussions of current events in Portugal and the Vatican as well as the upcoming Hollywood film, Fatima, starring Harvey Keitel and Sonia Braga.
The event is open to the public, hosted by Pembroke College as part of Oxford’s ‘Globalising and Localising the Great War’ project. Featured speakers include Manus Henry, Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Oxford; and Patrick Houlihan, Research Fellow in History, University of Oxford.