Tag Archives: Church

CfP: What Tommy Did Next – Veterans’ Organisations and Activities during and after the First World War, in the UK and beyond

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A 1-day Symposium to be held in the Centre for the Study of Modern Conflict at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom on Saturday 18th March 2017

Keynote: Professor Jay Winter, Yale University

During the First World War a number of ex-services organisations arose in the UK, run by the men themselves, motivated by poor administration of war pensions and other allowances, and radical enough to rattle the Government. Other veterans, male and female, chose non-political activities, such as the church, trade, education or agriculture, while still others just wanted to shed their service identities altogether. This symposium is designed as an encompassing event to explore the experiences of veterans and their dependents during and after the conflict, and to investigate how military service influenced their subsequent lives. While it focuses primarily on the UK, the organisers are also keen to attract papers about the experiences of veterans in other countries.

Proposals for 15-minute individual papers are invited. Joint proposals for panels or workshops will also be considered. Abstracts of 250 words should be accompanied by your name, institutional affiliation (if applicable) and a brief biographical statement (100 words).

Submissions are welcome from established and emerging academics (postgraduate and early career researchers are particularly encouraged), independent researchers, community projects, organisations/associations, and any other interested parties who relate to the theme of the symposium. Please make all submissions through the dedicated website at https://whattommydidnext.submittable.com/submit. Deadline: 30 November 2016.

Potential paper topics may include, but are certainly not limited to:
• Ex-service organisations during and after the FWW, including the Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers (DSS), The Federation of DSS, The Comrades of the Great War, The National Union of Ex-Servicemen, The British Legion
• Ex-service issues in post-war society(ies)
• The involvement of veterans in politics
• State responses/reactions to ex-servicemen/women
• Non-State responses/reactions to ex-servicemen/women
• Disabled Veterans
• Ex-servicewomen and Ex-Servicewomen’s Associations
• Veteran engagement with the Church or religion
• Veterans and Violence, Disorder and Discontent
• Veterans and Radicalism
• Veteran identities
• Comparative experiences of veterans in different belligerent countries
• Commemoration, Memory and Veterans

The language of the conference is English, and all speakers will be expected to deliver their papers in English. Request to join the mailing list, and any other enquiries, to Mike Hally. Further information will be posted on the event website.

Contact Info:
Mike Hally, doctoral candidate, Centre for the Study of Modern Conflict, University of Edinburgh.

CfP: The Church and Empire

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Church and Empire: Ecclesiastical History Society, Winter Meeting
14 January 2017
Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK

From its beginnings, the Christian Church has had close, often symbiotic relationships with empires and imperial power. Christianity emerged within the Roman Empire; it was shaped amid persecution and martyrdom by imperial power. Then, in 313 AD Constantine granted Christianity toleration, and soon it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, influenced by Roman imperial institutions. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Christianity remained the religion of the Eastern, or Byzantine Empire until its fall in 1453. In the West, the connection of Christianity and imperial power was revived in the ninth century with the Carolingian Empire – which was itself again revived in the tenth century – and with the Anglo-Norman, Genoese and Venetian Empires.

The medieval and early modern periods saw re-conceptualisations of empire as both a theoretical structure of rulership and a political-theological order. This included conceptions of papal dominium through the idea of universal empire and Christ/the pope as dominus mundi – as well as emerging notions of ‘regnal imperialism’, with ‘the king as emperor in his own kingdom’. Henry VIII famously based his claim to supremacy over the Church on the idea that ‘this realm of England is an empire’. The Russian Tsarist Empire was from its beginnings associated with Orthodoxy and conceptions of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’.

From the sixteenth century, the Churches were connected with European empires in the Americas, Africa and Asia – the Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French Empire and the British Empire. These empires were driven primarily by the pursuit of wealth and power, but they developed Christian and humanitarian missions – women playing prominent roles – including efforts to suppress slavery. The connections between the Bible and the flag were ambivalent; while men and women missionaries sometimes supported empire, they were frequently its greatest critics. Another aspect of empire and its after-echoes was (and still is) the extraordinary mass migration first of European peoples, and then of those they colonized, too, and the resultant growth and diversification of Churches.

The conference will explore the relations of Churches and empires, and Christian conceptions of empire, in the ancient, medieval, early modern and modern periods, as well as the role of empire in the global expansion of Christianity.

Keynote Speakers
Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge)
Tom Devine (Edinburgh)

Proposals of around 200 words should be submitted to ehseditorial@gmail.com by 15 September 2016.