Tag Archives: War

CfP: Why Remember? Memory and Forgetting in Times of War and Its Aftermath

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3-Day Conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia, June 30th, July 1st, July 2nd 2017

Sponsored by PARC University of the Arts, London; Salem State University,
Massachusetts, USA; WARM Festival, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Keynote Speakers include:
Simon Norfolk, photographer, and Vladimir Miladinović, artist.

In his book In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies, David Rieff offers a persuasive challenge as to whether the age-long “consensus that it is moral to remember, immoral to forget” still stands in our contemporary era. What should we remember, what should we forget, and why? Do we need to reconfigure the way that we think about memory and its potential impact on issues such as reconciliation and healing in the wake of war? Is memory impotent as a social, political, or aesthetic tool? Rieff’s questions appear more pertinent than ever as wars and conflicts continue to rage in many parts of the world with no end in sight.

These questions of memory (and forgetting) are intensely political and have far-reaching consequences. This conference will engage with difficult and troubling questions around the value and nature of memory such as how do they reverberate in the context of postwar societies, post-conflict reconciliation, prevention, questions of memory and past events? Does memory discourse help us push the borders of how the concept of memory is currently being configured and applied? To what extent do we remember the past and how do we choose what to remember and why we remember? How could and should (consciously and unconsciously) memory processes shape the present and future? How might public institutions (such as museums and other heritage sites that support education/awareness) deal with the past? What is the difference between commemoration and memorialization? Where do they intersect and how might they impact the process of reconciliation and prevention? How can art function as a site of the aesthetic interpretation of the past?

We seek papers from a wide-range of historical and geographical spaces that address the discursive limits of contemporary memory studies, particularly drawing on these areas of study:

• Film/media studies
• Museum studies/objects/ New Materialism
• Visual arts
• Literature/Narrative
• Music/Performance
• Necropolitics/Forensics/Anthropology
• Politics and aesthetics
**Interdisciplinary approaches to memory and remembrance studies are welcome.

There will be two styles of presentations: more formal papers of 20-25 minutes and workshop idea papers of 10-15 minutes. We welcome submissions from artists, early career researchers and post-docs as well as established scholars. We encourage applications from a range of academics, current PhD students, especially those outside of Western European institutions. All papers will be delivered in English.

Paper proposals should include:
• author name(s), affiliation(s) and contact email,
• paper title,
• a paper abstract (200 words max),
• and short bio (200 words max).

Please clearly indicate whether you are submitting formal paper or a workshop idea paper.

This academic conference is linked to the Art and Reconciliation AHRC funded research project currently being undertaken by The University of the Arts London, King’s College War studies Department, and the LSE. The research is under the auspices of the PACCS Conflict Programme.

It is also part of the larger WARM festival, which takes place in Sarajevo, Bosnia each summer, and “is dedicated to war reporting, war art, war memory. WARM is bringing together people – journalists, artists, historians, researchers, activists – with a common passion for ‘telling the story with excellence and integrity’.” See this link for more information: http://www.warmfoundation.org

Registration cost: 150 Euros.

Concessionary rates are available for faculty applying from non-EU, non-US institutions, and for those who can present a case for reduced fees. Information about hostels and hotels will be provided for participants.

Please submit your proposals no later than March 17th, 2017 to why.remember.conference@gmail.com.

Decisions will be made by March 31st, 2017.

The conference is supported by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Salem State University, Massachusetts, and the Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC) at the University of the Arts London.

Contact Info:
why.remember.conference@gmail.com (e-mails get delivered to Stephanie Young and Paul Lowe, the organisers).
Further information: admir.jugo@durham.ac.uk

Also:
contact@warmfoundation.org
www.warmfoundation.org

CfA: Issues & Controversies in History

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Facts On File is hiring historians and writers on a freelance basis to contribute articles to Issues & Controversies in History, a database in world history targeted to high school and college students. Each article will focus on a specific question encapsulating a debate or conflict in global history. MANY TOPICS ARE STILL AVAILABLE, including Revolution, Slavery, Colonialism, Empires, War, and Technology.

Overview
Issues & Controversies in History places students at the center of the great debates and conflicts in global history. It brings history to life not as a mere recitation of names and dates but as a set of turning points where the future hung in the balance and opinions raged on all sides. By exploring the issues as the key players saw them, or, in some cases, as historians have interpreted them, the database will build a deeper understanding of how historical events and conflicts have shaped world history.

Goal
The goal of Issues & Controversies in History is to present history as a dynamic process of controversies, conflicts, and issues that people debated and experienced and ultimately made choices about. The “issues and controversies” approach will help personalize the engagement with global perspectives, reminding students and teachers that world history doesn’t have to take a distanced point of view, but rather can also be about linking local individual actions and events to the larger global experience. Students will learn that in spite of the vastness of the past, the daily lives of individuals also comprise the building blocks of world history and that the choices made by individuals—be they merchants, rulers, farmers, or slaves—have shaped world history for thousands of years.

Format
Each article poses a single historical question and is presented in pro/con format. Some of these focus on specific controversies and events (e.g., Did Constantine’s conversion to Christianity transform the Roman Empire? Should Tsar Alexander emancipate the serfs? Should La Malinche have helped Cortés in the Spanish conquest of Mexico? Should West African states have rejected the importation of European guns? Should Britain and France intervene during the U.S. Civil War?). Other articles focus on broader historical issues and comparative questions (e.g., Did the spread of world religions benefit women in ancient societies? Did resistance to slavery shape ideas of freedom? Were merchants or missionaries more important in the spread of early religions? Did the Mayan Empire decline because of internal dissent or environmental change?).

Each article provides all the essential information to enable a student to both understand the issue and its significance and answer the question in specific world history contexts. Every article contains an introductory highlight box summarizing the issue and the two competing positions; a narrative essay providing historical background of the issue/event; an argument section presenting both sides of the controversy, with quotations from primary sources used as evidence to support each position; a selection of primary sources (on which the arguments are based and which are referenced and quoted in the article); a chronology; a sidebar; discussion questions; bibliography; and a “what if” section contemplating what could or might have happened had the alternative side prevailed.

Scope
As a whole, articles are designed with an aim toward achieving a narrative balance among historical eras and the broadest possible coverage of global geographical regions and peoples.

Contact
Facts On File is currently seeking authors for this exciting new database, and many articles are still available. If you are interested in being an author or would like more information, please contact Andrew Gyory, Ph.D. at agyory@infobaselearning.com; or Facts On File, 132 West 31st Street, New York, N.Y. 10001.

CfP: Performing War: Acts of Transgression and Transformation

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DeAnna Toten Beard, Baylor University
Jenna L. Kubly, Independent Scholar

This body will convene a diverse group of scholars, methodologies, and research interests to participate in an ongoing conversation about the complex relationship between war and performance. In concert with the larger conference theme, the working group is interested in projects that consider the many ways that transgressive acts associated with war—for example, physical destruction, psychic violence, border crossing, political betrayal—both transform performance and are transformed by/in performance.

Papers might address how theatre, drama, civic performances, musicals, operas, popular entertainments, re-enactments, and dance relate to the following ideas:

How does the environment of violence impact theatre in a war-zone? On the Home Front? In a P.O.W. camp or concentration camp?
What are the artistic and ethical implications of presenting images of wartime violence on stage?
How has war-time drama supported soldiers and citizens negotiating the transition from peace time to war time—and then back again?
How might war and war-time theater offer a liminal space for explorations of transgender/sexuality?
How do voices of pacifism and reconciliation become transgressive during the climate of war?
How does the literal act of border crossing by combatants in times of war create opportunities for transcultural performance? How is artistic border crossing made suspect by war?
How do translations or transmissions of war-time texts operate as propaganda, modes of resistance, or documents of “truth-telling”?

The goal of the working group is to form a community of scholars and practitioners invested in this unifying theme. Through two rounds of paper exchanges with small subgroups, each participant is offered the change to give and receive feedback and suggestions on the completed 15-20 page work. During the conference session, participants will caucus in groups over questions suggested by the convenors, before coming together for a discussion that will include all participants.

Images, video, music or other multimedia to accompany the papers are strongly encouraged, but the participant must be able share it with the group prior to the conference (i.e. via a website link or Dropbox). There will be no media provision in the conference session.

For any specific questions, please contact the working group convenors at DeAnna_Toten_Beard@baylor.edu and JLKubly@yahoo.com. Please note that all submissions must be received formally through the ASTR website, at http://www.astr.org/page/16_WGSubmissions. The form will allow you to indicate second and third -choice working groups if you wish; if you do so, note that there is a space for you to indicate how your work will fit into those groups. The deadline for receipt of working group proposals is 1 June 2016 and we anticipate that participants will be notified of their acceptance no later than 30 June. As this is the first year of this new process, please contact the conference organizers at astr2016@astr.org if you have any questions about the process.

The Conference and Organisation

The American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) is a U.S.-based professional organization that fosters scholarship on worldwide theatre and performance, both historical and contemporary.

The 2016 Conference will be held November 3-6, 2016
Minneapolis Marriott City Center
30 S 7th St
Minneapolis, MN 55402

CfP: Innovation, Adaptation and Change in War

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Innovation, Adaptation and Change in War
New Research in Military History: A Conference for Postgraduate and Early Career Historians

26th November 2016
Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London

This conference, organised by the British Commission for Military History in association with the University of Sussex and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, intends to highlight current research being undertaken by postgraduate and early career scholars in the field of military history and related disciplines.

This is the British Commission for Military History’s seventh annual New Research Conference giving postgraduate and early career scholars an excellent opportunity to meet, share new ideas and discuss the latest research.

The conference theme focuses on change in war, innovation and society. This might include matters relating to military organisations, technology and culture as well subjects concerned with strategy, tactics and social change. Proposals that move beyond solely British issues and engage global, colonial and post-colonial perspectives are particularly encouraged.

The conference organisers will also be very happy to receive papers on other topics related to military history, broadly defined, including those that deal with gender, society, identity and race.

Proposals (c. 300 words) for papers of 20 minutes should be submitted, along with an academic CV, to the organisers at bcmhnrc@gmail.com by Sunday 31st July 2016. The organisers welcome proposals for panel submissions as well as individual papers.

Contributors will automatically be considered for publication in a special issue of the British Journal for Military History.

Further information here.

CfP: The Myriad Faces of War: 1917 and its Legacy

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The Myriad Faces of War: 1917 and its Legacy Symposium
25-28 April 2017
At Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand

The organizing partners are excited to send out this call for papers inviting submissions to this unique international, multidisciplinary symposium showcasing academic and creative work on the year 1917 and its myriad legacies.

The concept behind the symposium is that key events of 1917 not only influenced the outcome of World War I but continue to be felt today in political, social, cultural, economic, and technological spheres. Using 1917 as a focal point, the Myriad faces symposium will expand outwards to reflect on the significant impact of the Great War and the wider role of war – and peace – in the past and present.

For more information go to: http://myriadfaces.org
Call for papers deadline: 1 July 2016

Keynote speakers:
The symposium has drawn together leading international scholars including:

Professor Annette Becker (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)
Piet Chielens (In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres)
Dr Santanu Das (King’s College London)
Dr Jock Phillips
Professor Michael Neiberg (U.S. Army War College)
Dr. Gorch Pieken (Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr)
Dr Galina Rylkova (University of Florida)
Professor Peter Stanley (University of New South Wales)
Professor Jay Winter (Yale University)

The Myriad Faces of War: 1917 and its Legacy symposium is organised by:

WHAM (War History Heritage Art and Memory) Research Network
Massey University Te Kunenga Ki Pūrehuroa
Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira
The University of Auckland Te Whare Wānanga o Tāmaki Makaurau

The symposium is supported by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

CfP: Violence and Conflict Workshop, University of Cambridge

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The Violence and Conflict Workshop invites graduate students to submit papers to be presented in Lent Term 2016. The workshop is interested in submissions which explore the themes of violence and conflict, understood both in physical manifestations such as war, crime, rebellion, etc., as well as psychological/systemic forms including colonialism, slavery, and discrimination. We encourage submissions from any regional or geographical focus, and from Late Antiquity to the present day.

We welcome both works in progress and completed projects, as well as graduate research in its early stages of development. Papers should be approximately 30 minutes and will be followed by discussion and light refreshments. The workshop will meet every Friday at 4pm in Room S3 of the Alison Richard Building, University of Cambridge.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to violence.conflict@gmail.com no later than 3 January 2016.

Talk: Military Occupation, International Law, and the End of the 19th Century Conception of War

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The Long Nineteenth Century Graduate Seminar

30 November 2015, 11:10 (Monday, 8th week, Michaelmas 2015)
MacGregor Room, Oriel College

Speaker: Jonathan Gumz (Department of History, University of Birmingham)

Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only