Conference Dates: October 19-21, 2017
National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, MO, USA

During the Great War, many people questioned the claims of the Allied and Central powers, desired a negotiated peace, opposed intervention, refused to support the war effort, and/or even imagined future world orders that could eliminate war. Among them were members of the peace churches and other religious groups, women, pacifists, radicals, labor activists, and other dissenters. Intolerance and repression often muted the voices of these war critics. Almost overnight, the individuals and groups who opposed the war faced constraints on their freedom to advocate, organize, and protest from the government, the press, and war supporters. Peace advocates, antiwar activists, and conscientious objectors also confronted internal disagreements over how to respond to the war and advance the cause of peace. Yet, those who opposed World War I helped initiate modern peace movements and left a legacy that continues to influence antiwar activism.

This interdisciplinary conference, hosted by the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, will explore the experiences of those who were in any way critical of the Great War, sometimes at great cost. We welcome paper, panel, poster, roundtable, and workshop proposals that engage in diverse ways with issues of conscience, dissent, resistance, and civil liberties during World War I in the United States and around the world. We encourage proposals that examine historical and contemporary parallels to the war. Strong conference papers will be given consideration for publication in special issues of the journals Mennonite Quarterly Review and Peace & Change.

Topics might include:

War Resistance as an Expression of Religious Conscience
Secular Dissent and Resistance to War (feminists, socialists, and other movements and communities)
The Costs of War: economic, political, social, physical, psychological, etc.
Civil Liberties in World War I and War Today
Race and Empire in World War I
The Legacy and Relevance of World War I Peace Activism to the Present
The Causes and Prevention of War: World War I and Since
Teaching World War I and Peace History in High School and College
Memory, Memorialization, and the Public History of World War I

The program committee invites interested participants to send a 1-page proposal focused on the theme of the conference by January 31, 2017 to John D. Roth (johndr@goshen.edu).