Tag Archives: AHRC

Survey: ‘Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War: Learning and Legacies for the Future’

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Between 2014 and 2018 Britain, together with many other nations, is commemorating the centenary of the First World War – the first ‘total’ war of the 20th century – the legacies of which live on in a range of institutional, educational, geographic, political, social and cultural forms. At the outset of the centenary, a particular ‘cultural memory’ of the war dominated in Britain, one described by the then Education Minister Michael Gove as a ‘Blackadder myth…designed to belittle Britain and its leaders’ (Daily Mail, 2 January 2014).
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), over the course of three years (2017 – 2020), this project sets out to both evaluate the extent to which the range of commemorative activities undertaken since 2014 has engaged with, challenged, or changed this ‘myth’, and the experience and outcomes of projects that are built on academic-public engagement and the co-production of knowledge, especially those involving the AHRC World War One Engagement Centres.

The three main aims of this research project are:
– to evaluate activities during the centenary period of the First World War in the United Kingdom in order to trace and analyse shifting patterns of cultural memory;
– to evaluate these activities in order to assess how successful they have been in involving diverse members of the community in their production and reception;
– and to consider the lessons and legacies of these projects for a range of stakeholders involved in planning for future anniversaries and events.

To complete the survey and find out more about the ‘Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War’ project, please visit:
http://reflections1418.exeter.ac.uk
@reflections1418
Download poster: Reflections on the Centenary of the FWW – Survey A4 Poster

For all enquiries about the ‘Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War’ project, please contact the Project PI, Professor Lucy Noakes: l.noakes@essex.ac.uk

Research is conducted under the guidelines of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). All survey responses will be highly confidential and the anonymity of all respondents is assured.

The ‘Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War’ project is run by Professor Lucy Noakes (University of Essex) alongside Dr Emma Hanna (Kent), Professor Lorna Hughes (Glasgow), Dr Catriona Pennell (Exeter), and Dr James Wallis (Essex).

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

National Maritime Museum Research Fellowships 2017-18

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Applications are now invited for the National Maritime Museum’s range of Research Fellowships for 2017-18.

Royal Museums Greenwich offers a range of funded research opportunities for academics, students and researchers.

The purpose of our programme is to support new research by academics, researchers and students with an interest in maritime history, astronomy and time.

We offer co-supervision for Doctoral Studentships funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and we offer Museum funded programmes, including a series of short-term and long-term fellowships, plus student internships.

Further information here.