Category Archives: Great War

‘Lest We Forget’: First World War digitization event, Our Lady’s Abingdon Senior School, 9 March, 13.00-16.00

Posted on by

This project invites local schools, groups, and organizations from across the UK to hold their own ‘Digital Collection Days’. At these events, members of the local community are invited to bring in their Great War stories, photographs, medals, diaries, and letters. These vital objects and memories are then documented and photographed so that they can be saved for future generations. The collected stories and objects are then uploaded to a free-to-use Oxford University database, where they will be freely accessible to all members of the public to discover, research, and learn.

Our next event that is open to the public is on 9th March at Our Lady’s Abingdon Senior School from 1:00 – 4:00pm.

A brief Introductory Guide on what a ‘Digital Collection Day’ is/looks like is available on our website (https://lwf.web.ox.ac.uk/home)
You can also read about a recent, and highly successful, Digital Collection Day that was held at a local Oxford school here:
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/yourtown/oxford/15670737.Cigarette_case_which_saved_man__39_s_life_in_First_World_War_discovered_at_school/

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15581379.School_preserves_First_World_War_memories_for_ever_in_mass_digital_project/

For more information, or to get involved, you can get in touch with the Lest We Forget team at: ww1collections@it.ox.ac.uk

War Through Other Stuff: ‘Witnessing War’, University of Hertfordshire, 24 March 2018

Posted on by

In her photographs, Käthe Buchler captured not only German citizens during the First World War, but also illustrated the widespread impact of conflict. The photographs are of interest not only for their artistic merit but also for what they tell us about war and they way it changed lives on the German Home Front.

‘Witnessing War’ is a free one-day workshop that will seek to answer a series of questions. Who witnesses war? From what perspective? How do they capture it? War is not only witnessed by those who choose to participate, but has lasting and significant impact on lives of many. This workshop focuses on first-hand experiences of conflict, with no restraints as to time period or geographic location. From medieval annals written by monks, to children’s diaries, documentary film, and the use of social media in modern conflict, there are many different ways to witness war.

The workshop is a collaboration between the War Through Other Stuff Society, First World War Network, and Everday Lives of War. It will take place at the University of Hertfordshire Galleries on 24 March. This FREE event is open to all. Full details and booking (via Eventbrite) can be found here.

Programme:
10.00: Registration / coffee & tea

10.30: Welcome talk

11.00: Talks
Jo Young, University of Glasgow: ‘Finding Freedoms in War Writing: Narrative Control of the Female Soldier’s Poetic Response to War’
Trevor Russell Smith, University of Leeds: ‘The Use of Classical Writings in the Representation of War during the Later Middle Ages’
Kirsten Lawson, State University of Milan: ‘From ‘Somewhere in France’: Sharing experiences of war through epistolary discourse’

11.45: Keynote
Anastasia Taylor-Lind, photographic journalist: http://www.anastasiataylorlind.com/

12.30: Lunch (provided)

1.30: Activity
Interactive session responding to the war photography of Käthe Buchler

2.30: Coffee & tea

3.00: Talks
Stacey Clapperton, University of Glasgow: ‘‘The work of an eye-witness’: An examination of the working methods behind John Lavery’s Wounded: London Hospital, 1915’
Siobhan Doyle, Dublin Institute of Technology: ‘Representations of Death in Commemorative Exhibitions in Irish Museums’
Melissa Bennet, University of Warwick: ‘Insights into Military Photography, Ranks, and Relationships through Lieutenant Charles Howard Foulkes’ 1898 Hut Tax War Album’

3.45: Keynote
Jason Crowley, Manchester Metropolitan University: ‘Beyond the Universal Soldier: Combat Trauma in Classical Antiquity’

4.30: Closing remarks

CfP: The Effects of WW1 on the Christian Churches in Europe 1918-1925 (EXTENDED DEADLINE)

Posted on by

Rome, 12-14 November 2018

Extended deadline: 1 March 2018

This workshop will adopt an international comparative approach to study the effects of the Great War on institutionalized Christian religion (eg. Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches) in the immediate aftermath of the war. How did churches perceive the war and the immediate post-war period? What was the impact on Christian theology and culture? How did churches interact with the belligerent nation states and how did they cope with the changing (geo)political situation after the war? What were their ecclesiologi­cal, pastoral and liturgical challenges after the armistices? Did they adopt a defensive stance towards secularization, or did they intensify their dialogue with modernity? To what extent did they move towards a pastoral policy of social healing and offer a welcome to Christian pacifism and ecumenism?

The workshop wishes to stimulate innovative research on the interaction between religion and society in the difficult years between the end of the war and the mid-1920s. It explicitly adopts an interdenominational and international comparative perspective, stimulating a multifaceted and in-depth analysis, with due attention to methodological questions. It wants to combine the results of different fields of historical research: the history of churches and religions, cultural, intellectual, social and political history, etc. Although well-chosen case-studies with a focus on, for instance, particular regional/national contexts, or specific denominations, organizations or individuals can surely offer valuable insights, the organizers especially aim for papers that deal with the issues concerned from a broad comparative perspective. They should contribute to a better understanding of the changing nature of religious cultures across Europe. Although the workshop will deal in particular with the immediate post-war years (1918-mid 1920s), contributors are encouraged to adopt a broader chronological perspective of continuity and discontinuity in evaluating the results of their analysis for the period at hand.

The workshop will bring together senior academics as well as junior doctoral researchers in a scientific dialogue on the subject. Introductory keynote lectures from established researchers and thematic sessions will structure the multi-layered perspective as well as the comparative baseline.

More information here

Practical
The main conference and discussion language will be English, but papers in other languages are accepted as well. In that case, the organizers do ask for an English summary and an English or bilingual PowerPoint or other presentation.

Proposals should be submitted as PDF documents and should contain the following: a clear title of the proposed paper; a summary (max. 500 words), outlining the paper’s goals, methodology and source materials; CV(s) of author(s), with contact information, position and institutional affiliation.

These abstracts should be attached and emailed to the work-shop secretary (kristien.suenens@kadoc.kuleuven.be) no later than 1 March 2018. You should receive a confirmation of proposal receipt within 48 hours. The proposals will be evaluated and selected by the Scientific Committee based on topic relevance, innovativeness and the degree to which the proposal answers the call. Notification of the evaluation will occur no later than 1 April 2018. Full papers should be sent to the workshop organizers no later than 1 October 2018.

CfP: Situating Empire: The Great War and Its Aftermath

Posted on by

Graduate Student Conference “Situating Empire: The Great War and Its Aftermath”
History Department, Harvard University
November 15-16, 2018

We invite graduate students to submit proposals for a workshop exploring the impact of the Great War upon the history and configuration of Empires. This workshop is intended only for advanced doctoral students who have completed substantive archival research. Its priority is to provide close readings and feedback on research that speaks to theme themes at hand. Accepted papers will be grouped on panels, with one faculty commentator per presenter. Participation in this workshop provides an opportunity to engage in lively and lengthy discussion with faculty, and an emerging cohort of doctoral candidates from around the world.

Opening remarks will be provided by Professor Erez Manela. Our workshop’s keynote speaker will be Professor Heather Streets-Salter, and Professor Antoinette Burton will join us for a plenary panel.

This workshop will host nine papers comprised of panels of three, occurring over two days. Themes of the workshop include (but are not limited to): the constitution of imperial boundaries with respect to space, mobility, race, and class; intellectual history; histories of mobility; legal history; and the history of science and/or medicine.

Submission Guidelines and Funding
We encourage submissions from individuals at all universities. Interested graduate students should submit a 300-word proposal and one-page Curriculum Vitae (in either Word or PDF format) to greatwar.empire.harvard@gmail.com. Proposals must be received by March 30, 2018. Papers for each panel will be selected in accordance with the workshop’s themes and for their potential to facilitate dialogue across regional specializations. All participants will be notified of participation by May 1, 2018. Given that this workshop requires an engagement with the written work of other participants, all panelists are asked to submit their papers one month prior to the workshop. All questions should be directed to the email above.

We anticipate being able to reimburse reasonable travel and lodging expenses for participants who do not receive sufficient funding from their institutions of study. Due to a limited budget, however, this amount will not exceed $500. Meals will be provided throughout the workshop.

CfP: Immoral Money and War Profiteurs (1870-1945)

Posted on by

29-30 May 2018
Maison de la Recherche (Paris-Sorbonne University), Paris

The conference on “Immoral Money and War Profiteurs (1860-1945)” is part of a series of scientific events focusing on the topic of political corruption, organised by a Franco-German research partnership (project POCK2, ANR-DFG) between Paris-Sorbonne University, the University of Avignon, Darmstadt University of Technology and Goethe University Frankfurt. The collaborative project is also supported by research groups from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the New Europe College of Bucharest, the Free University of Amsterdam, and is part of the International Scientific Coordination Network « Politics and Corruption » (GDRI 842 CNRS).

The conference will explore the emergence of immoral money and war profiteurs in times of war or in the post-war period in Europe (1870-1945). The “economic cleansing” that occurred in France after the Second World War is an example of war profiteering that has been studied by the CNRS research team (GDR) 2539 “Companies under the Occupation”. By contrast, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and the Great War have not been given much attention. This conference aims to analyse the allegations of corruption levelled against companies that were thought to have turned high profits in wartime or immediately thereafter. A special but nonexclusive focus should be given to French and German cases. Examples found in other European countries, from the last third of the XIXth century to the first half of the XXth century, may also be addressed.

While it is superfluous to stress the importance of wars as historical highlights, we shall emphasize how decisive wars are in defining public norms systems. Indeed, the potential contradiction between individual benefits and collective interest is increased during such conflicts. In this context, great sacrifices are made on behalf of community and national safety as patriotism is required from all, while unique economic dynamics emerge: hasty decisions are made in times of great uncertainty; public spending increases substantially and huge funds are injected in the war system. High profits may thus be made at a low cost by individual stakeholders, particularly in such sectors as military supply and army logistics. Influence networks prove to play a crucial role in such circumstances. It is mainly when wars have been lost that the gains achieved by war profiteurs are seen as unacceptable. Profit margins considered as unreasonably high, as well as speculative profits, are on the radar and deemed all the more scandalous since they have been made against a backdrop of general shortage. The topic of “immoral money” invites us to assess the importance of post-war periods rather than just focus on the conflicts themselves.

Topics could include but are not limited to:
– public debates on immoral money and hidden practices/malpractices during the 1870-1871 War, the Great War or World War II and their aftermaths – not only in France. Other conflicts may also be examined. Proposals that deal with the issues of war debts and reparations, especially in terms of the polemics they led to, will be welcome.
– the institutions that have dealt with this question in judiciary, political and parliamentary terms: focus may be placed on the parliamentary inquiry committees that have been established at the time.
– efforts should be made to put a figure on the profits made by specific firms as well as by entire industry sectors, however delicate the task may be – especially in the case of France, given the lack of a standardized business accounting programme until 1941, which is when the national chart of accounts was created.

Please send proposals (1500 characters max.) in either English or French before 1st March 2018 to frederic.monier@univ-avignon.fr and olivierdard@orange.fr

The scientific board (composed of Olivier Dard, Jens Ivo Engels, Silvia Marton, Cesare Mattina, Frédéric Monier and Gemma Rubi) will examine and select the proposals.

Transport (in Europe) and accommodation will be provided to participants.

Graduate summer school – An Environmental History of the Great War, France & Belgium, 2-7 July 2018

Posted on by

The Centre international de recherche de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre (CIRHGG, Péronne) together with the EHESS (Paris), the University of Heidelberg, the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History de l’Université du Luxembourg, the Université catholique de Louvain, Université Clermont-Auvergne – Centre d’Histoire « Espaces et cultures » and the Université de Picardie Jules Verne (Amiens), invites applications for its third summer school for graduate students (masters and PhD) working on the First World
War.

We intend to bring together an international group of 20 to 30 graduate students working on military, cultural, social, and environmental history of the First World War from 2nd to 7th July 2018. Over the course of the week, they will have opportunity to get to know each other, but also a wide range of internationally recognized academic experts. Guided tours on excursions to French and Belgian sites are an integral part of the program and will enrich the participants’ experience.

After the 2014 and 2016 editions of our summer school, which focused respectively on initiations in contemporary wartime experiences (http://1418.hypotheses.org/547) and on the “Face of Battle” and battlefields (http://1418.hypotheses.org/1059), we have chosen a new topic for 2018: the environmental history of the First World War.

We understand the environmental history of the Great War in a broad sense. We will of course reflect on the environmental consequences of the war: the destruction of cities, villages, soils, various forms of pollution and their counterparts: reconstruction and reconstitution (at the level of public policies but also at the level of territories), de-mining of battlefields, exhumation and re-inhumation of the dead, policies for maintaining their memory and handling war ruins (and in particular battlefields). This obviously implies taking into account the long duration of the Great War, since the environmental footprint of the Great War is often present to this day. Moreover, the environmental consequences of the war are not confined to the front lines. The economic exploitation of the hinterlands, even if they are far away from the epicentres of warfare, has their rightful place in this context, as it results in sometimes profound and long-lasting changes to ecosystems. For example, what does the totalization process mean in terms of exploitation of oil, mineral resources, forestry, agriculture, etc.? Thus the stigmata of the famine of 1915-1916 in Mount Lebanon are visible until today in the landscapes. The history of cities will also be an important focus, since the war also had a great influence on urban development, as it did in Thessaloniki, for example, due to the massive presence of Allied troops, but also to a great fire in 1917.

However, this conception of environmental history based on the consequences of war does not in itself sum up the relationship between individuals and their environment. The environmental conditions and constraints that the environment imposes on warfare are at the heart of many current research projects that examine the relationship of individuals and groups to the space around them and their larger environment. This means that varied scales of analysis must be used. The relationship between combatants and their combat environment, for example, can then be evoked on the basis of both meteorological and geographical criteria. Newspapers and correspondences are full of references to geographical features, to places lived in, to the weather. The drawings and photographs represent “war landscapes” in large numbers.

This will make it possible to address in return not only the effects of war on various environments, but also the effects of the environment on warfare and those that take part in it on the different theatres of operations (mountains, seas, hot and cold deserts…). This may then also allow us to investigate a new global history of the world war in terms of latitudes, longitudes, altitudes, in short to consider the possibility of a geohistory of the Great War that is as concerned with the environmental conditions as with the environmental consequences.

Download information
English: CFP-env2018-EN- OK
French: CFP-env2018-FR OK

Programme
Participants will benefit from guided tours of the battlefields and memorial sites in France and Belgium (Somme, Ypres…), with specialists, practitioners and experts in battlefield archaeology (Dominik Dendooven In Flanders Fields Museum). Lectures and discussions with leading First World War historians (including members of the CIRHGG Steering Committee) and environmental history experts will complement workshop sessions led by members of the organizing committee (Laurence Van Ypersele, Franziska, Heimburger, Benoît Majerus, Nicolas Beaupré). Successful students will also have the opportunity to present their own work from the perspective chosen by the summer school.

Advanced masters students and doctoral students can apply to the summer school. Research themes directly related to the school’s theme or showing how their research is linked to it will be prioritised, but all masters or doctoral students working on the Great War and its consequences can apply.

The working languages of the Summer School will be English and French. In order to participate fully in the programme and in particular the guided tours, at least a passive knowledge of French is required.

In order to enable us to exchange efficiently, we will send participants a preparatory dossier to be read ahead of the summer school with archival excerpts and scientific articles.

We will cover accommodation (single or double room; shared bathrooms), transportation (from and to Paris), entrance fees for the different sites and most meals. We also hope to be able to contribute to the transport costs of participants to and from Paris, especially for those whose home institutions do not subsidize this type of expenditure. We strongly encourage applicants to try to secure partial or full funding of these transport costs from their home university.

The application (in English or French) includes a one-page summary of the research project and a one-page academic CV.
Applications must be submitted by midnight on Thursday, 15th February 2018 via our dedicated platform https://environment1418.sciencesconf.org/?lang=en.

Procedure:
1- Create an account on the website, clicking on « Create account » in the left-hand menu.
2- Fill in the form, click on « register » and then activate the account when you receive the confirmation email. 3- Click on « Submissions » in the left-hand column and then « Submit a paper ».
4- Fill in the submission metadata. In the “Abstract” field, please tell us in a couple of paragraphs why you feel this summer school would be beneficial to you and what you could bring to it. When you reach the page for paper submission, please submit your project summary as “Paper” and your CV as “supplementary information”.
We will notify applicants whether their papers have been accepted by 15th March 2018.
Laurence Van Ypersele (Université catholique de Louvain)
Nicolas Beaupré (Université Clermont-Auvergne – Centre d’Histoire « Espaces et cultures »)
Caroline Fontaine (Centre International de Recherche de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne)
Franziska Heimburger (Sorbonne-Université – EA Histoire et Dynamique des Espaces Anglophones)
Benoît Majerus (Université du Luxembourg – Centre for Contemporary and Digital History)
Claire Morelon (Università degli Studi di Padova – DiSSGeA)
Contact : ecole-ete@cirhgg.org

1st Joint KCL/Oxford History of War Conference

Posted on by

The study of the history of war at King’s College London and the University of Oxford has long been intertwined, owing to the figure of Sir Michael Howard. At King’s, the sustained growth and success of the Department of War Studies, and the new Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War attest to this. At Oxford, Howard’s legacy is reflected in a sustained engagement with the history of war beyond operational military history, taking seriously wider cultural, economic, intellectual, political, and social entanglements of armed conflict.

This conference aims to bring together postgraduate research students working at King’s College London and the University of Oxford in order to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas or work in progress, and foster new connections and exchanges between the two institutions. The conference aims to create an inclusive forum to showcase current research on war and armed conflict in all its breadth and will therefore accept submissions from historians in any and all fields, working on a range of periods.

We invite historians working on a variety of aspects of war, whether they are interested in operational military history or the representation of war in art or poetry, to present their research. Submissions are welcomed from scholars working on any disciplinary approach to armed conflict in any period.

The conference will take place at King’s College London on 23 April 2018.

Proposals
Proposals (c. 300 words) for papers of 20 minutes should be submitted to the organisers at kcloxphdconference@gmail.com by 1 March 2018.