CfP: Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars

Royal Military College of Canada
Kingston, Ontario
8-9 November 2018

Raising armies is more than counting people, putting them into uniform, and assigning them to formations. It was, and remains, an exceedingly complex business. It demands efficient measures and processes for recruitment and selection in voluntary military systems and equally efficient measures for registration and assignment in armies built on conscription. It demands training establishments capable of transforming factory workers and farmers into riflemen, in addition to providing them with officers, staffs, and commanders to lead them. It demands balance between the needs of the armed services, industry, and agriculture. And, often overlooked, it demands medical services to mend soldiers when wounded, and programs and pensions to look after them when demobilised. How did the the British Empire and Commonwealth mobilize manpower for the armed services, agriculture, and industry during the two world wars? And how did they care for veterans, both able-bodied and disabled, when the fighting was over?

“Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars” will bring together a diverse group of distinguished historians, junior scholars and graduate students to undertake a multifaceted examination of army mobilization for Britain, India, and the dominions. Confirmed speakers include: Gary Sheffield (University of Wolverhampton), Richard Grayson (Goldsmiths, University of London), Kent Fedorowich (University of the West of England), Peter Dennis (University of New South Wales), Jessica Meyer (University of Leeds), Kaushik Roy (Jadavpur University), Jonathan Fennell (King’s College London), Daniel Byers (Laurentian University), Ian McGibbon (Ministry of Culture and Heritage, New Zealand), Ian van der Waag (Stellenbosch University), and Meghan Fitzpatrick (Royal Military College of Canada).

The conference organizing committee solicits proposals for papers along the lines of three basic themes:
(1) recruitment/conscription and selection
(2) training, employment and the experience of soldiers
(3) demobilization and veterans’ care.
We would also welcome papers that examine manpower in relation to culture, class, gender, race, or disability.

Proposals should include a 200-300-word abstract accompanied by a one-page CV. Proposals should be emailed to Symposium-Colloque2018@rmc-cmr.ca no later than 22 June 2018. Cornell University Press will publish the proceedings of the conference.

CfP: The First World War at sea: conflict, culture and commemoration

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 8-10 November 2018

Call for papers deadline: 1 March 2018
Conference website

This conference will explore the First World War at sea through wide-ranging themes designed to provide a forum for interdisciplinary research and new perspectives on the subject. Focused on both navies and the merchant marine, the conference will also place the experience of the maritime war within the historical context of the years preceding and following the conflict.

Social history:
The human experience of maritime conflict
Explorations of the war at sea from perspectives of class, rank, race, age, gender or sexuality
Explorations of the war at sea from imperial and global perspectives

Operational history:
The ‘undramatic’ duties of naval warfare: blockade, minelaying, reconnaissance, trade protection, power projection
Naval wartime roles around the globe
The wartime duties of the merchant marine
Technology and the war at sea

Institutional history:
The wartime training of naval officers and ratings
The impact of war on naval hierarchies and ideas of leadership
Institutional lessons learned, and navies in the Second World War
The impact of the war on the merchant marine

Cultural history:
Public opinion and media coverage relating to the navy/merchant marine before, during and after the conflict
Cultural constructions of maritime heroism, and their relationship to pre-war touchstones, from Nelson to Scott

Memory and commemoration:
Remembering the war at sea: memorials, memoirs and material culture
Family history and the legacy of maritime war
Restoring the naval heroic: cinema, novels, pageants and museums
Themes, events and people that commemoration left unremembered

Please submit proposals of 300 words for individual papers, along with a short CV to Lizelle de Jager (Research Department Executive, National Maritime Museum): research@rmg.co.uk

We welcome submissions from academics, local historians and community group projects.

This conference is held in partnership with Gateways to the First World War, an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded centre for public engagement with the First World War Centenary.

CfP: Close Encounters in War Journal – n. 0

Extended deadline to 30th November 2017

Special Issue: “Close encounters in irregular and asymmetric warfare”

Close Encounters in War Journal is a new independent and peer-reviewed journal aimed at studying war as a human experience, through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches ranging from the Humanities to the Social Sciences. The launch issue (n. 0) of Close Encounters in War Journal will be a Special Issue dedicated specifically to irregular warfare and titled “Close encounters in irregular and asymmetric warfare”.

Wars in general are cultural phenomena, among the most ancient and deeply rooted aspects of human cultural evolution: investigating their meaning, by reflecting on the ways we experience wars and conflicts as human beings is therefore essential. Conflict is deeply intertwined with language, culture, instincts, passions, behavioural patterns and with the human ability to represent concepts aesthetically. The concept of “encounter” is therefore fundamental as it involves experience, and as a consequence it implies the idea that the fact of encountering war shapes and develops our minds and affects our behaviour, questioning habits and values, prejudices and views of the world.

One of the most ancient types of warfare is what today is referred to as ‘irregular warfare’, as opposed to ‘conventional warfare’, which is a relatively more recent development. The combat strategies and tactics used by tribal warriors, modern guerrillas, resistance fighters and terrorists have recently been attracting the attention of military historians, strategists and intelligence experts due to the widespread terror threat, but how do human beings experience this particular type of warfare? Does it seem more threatening and scary because it can involve civilians more deeply? or because it blurs the traditional idea of war as open confrontation with a recognisable enemy? What drives non-combatants to arm themselves and become fighters? Is irregular warfare more violent, brutal and dehumanising than conventional warfare and if so, why? What is their cultural, linguistic and anthropological impact? And finally, is irregular warfare adopted also by regular armies? What is the impact of such warfare on the war-experience of the combatants involved?

For the launch issue (n. 0) of Close Encounters in War we invite articles which investigate irregular and asymmetric conflicts from ancient times to modern and contemporary periods, reaching beyond the study of military tactics and strategy and focusing on the way human beings ‘encounter’ with and within this type of armed conflict. Contributions are invited to promote discussion and scholarly research from established scholars, early-career researchers, and from practitioners who have encountered irregular warfare in the course of their activities.

The topics that can be investigated include but are not limited to:

· Irregular, asymmetric and unconventional warfare
· Insurgency and counterinsurgency
· Resistance and partisan war
· Terrorism and counter-terrorism
· Violence and trauma
· Cultural encounters and identity
· Representations of otherness, race, and gender
· Religion and politics
· Testimonies, witness-representations, oral history and memory studies

The editors of Close Encounters in War invite the submission of 3-500 words abstracts in English by 30th November 2017 to the following addresses: simona.tobia@closeencountersinwar.com and gianluca.cinelli@closeencountersinwar.com. Decisions will be made by 2nd January 2018 and the completed articles (6000-8000 words including footnotes, bibliography excluded, in English) will be expected by 15th May 2018. All contributions will go under a process of blind peer-review.

CfP: Sites of Interchange: Modernism, Politics, and Culture in Britain and Germany, 1919-1951

CFP Submission Deadline: 15 November 2017

The Courtauld Institute of Art, conference to be held: 2-3 November 2018

Early twentieth-century Germany was a site of extremes, in which art and architectural production were entangled in the swiftly changing political and social landscape. Radical utopias and pragmatic solutions for art and life were proposed, creating a crossroads of unparalleled burgeoning cultural outpouring in the midst of extreme politics. Britain in the same period could be characterized as comparatively stable, a nation often wedded to established traditions in the face of economic, political and social developments. Yet throughout the period, there remained a lively interchange between the two countries. This conference proposes to look anew at the complicated and entangled cultural relationship between Britain and Germany in the first decades of the twentieth century.

With the end of the First World War, Britain was in the position of victor – yet it was Germany which was given the opportunity to forge a new society and a progressive republic, in which culture was to play a central role. The foundation of the Bauhaus in 1919 became perhaps the most influential articulation of this new optimism – distinctly German, it was nonetheless born from both British Arts and Crafts ideas and a desire to answer British nineteenth-century industrial dominance, as displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851. During the 1920s and ‘30s, British figures from both ends of the political spectrum were drawn to Germany for inspiration. Many from the British art world were fascinated by Germany’s Weimar Republic, with its breaking down of social, cultural and artistic barriers. In the following decade, many in Britain were intrigued by the new National Socialist regime. With the arrival of émigrés fleeing Hitler in the years after 1933, Britain was exposed to a cross-section of German culture, in particular modernism. Britons and international artists – not limited to those holding German passports, but including those who had worked there – formed new groups and collaborations. By 1939 the countries were once again at war. Following World War II, modernism in Britain flourished in the arts with renewed vigour. The Festival of Britain in 1951, in which many of the German émigrés who had settled in Britain were involved, marked a high point of modernism in London.

This conference sets out to explore the connections between British and German culture during the period 1919-1951, in the fields of art, architecture, design and craft, photography, art history and theory, and art pedagogy. How did the British learn from and influence the Germans in these areas? How did the Germans learn from and influence the British? And what is the significance of these cultural connections today? We solicit 20-minute papers from scholars and museum professionals (at any stage of their careers) that set out to explore these questions.

Topics for proposed papers may include but are not limited to:
– The influence of British ideas in the culture of the Weimar Republic, and the extent to which Weimar ideas reached Britain
– Displacement of German artists, architects, designers, photographers to Britain after 1933, and the significance of time spent in Britain (including German émigrés who later emigrated elsewhere)
– The cultural impact of émigrés from National Socialism in Britain
– British official and individual responses to National Socialist cultural policy in the period 1933-1945, and attitudes towards British culture in National Socialist Germany
– The impact of Germany on post-war British culture
– The impact of Britain on post-war German culture, particularly in areas under British occupation
– German practitioners who studied, travelled or worked in Britain, or who drew influence from the country, and vice versa
– The impact of the German experience on a subsequent British work of art, building, or object, and vice versa
– Displays of German culture in Britain, and vice versa (governmental, museum, commercial, private)
– Collectors, patrons and supporters of German culture in Britain, and vice versa
– The awareness and impact of German cultural theory in Britain, and vice versa
– Perception of German culture in Britain, and vice versa
– The prevalence of ideas of “shared cultural heritage”

The conference will take place at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, on Friday 2 November and Saturday 3 November 2018.

Submissions are to be made by midnight GMT, Wednesday 15 November 2017, by email with the subject line “Sites of Interchange” to both of the organisers: Dr Robin Schuldenfrei (robin.schuldenfrei@courtauld.ac.uk) and Dr Lucy Wasensteiner (lucy.wasensteiner@courtauld.ac.uk).

Please combine in a single PDF file:
– A proposed title and abstract (max. 400 words) for a 20-minute paper
– A current CV

The conference is being organised on the occasion of the exhibition London 1938: A Statement for Modern German Art / London 1938: Ein Statement für die deutsche Kunst which will take place at the Wiener Library in London from 13 June to 31 August 2018 and at the Liebermann-Villa am Wannsee in Berlin from 7 October 2018 to 14 January 2019.

Funds will be available towards travel and hotel costs. The accepted papers may be considered for publication in a forthcoming edited volume.

Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

CfP: Meredith College Symposium on World War I

Meredith College and the North Carolina Museum of History announce an interdisciplinary symposium April 6-8, 2017 on the local, national, and global experience of World War I. We seek papers offering multiple perspectives on the conflict, from the front lines to the home fronts, addressing issues of politics, economics, race, gender, class, culture, and the military. We also encourage submissions from both graduate and undergraduate students for specialized panels.

Proposals for papers should include email address, brief CV with institutional affiliation, paper title, and a one-paragraph abstract to guide the program committee in the assembly of panels. Whole panel proposals are also welcome; these should include the titles of each individual paper as well as a title for the panel itself and identifying information (email address and brief CV with institutional affiliation) for all participants.

Please share this information with all interested faculty and students; direct any questions and submit proposals via email attachments to amarritt@meredith.edu.

The deadline for submission is January 15, 2017.
Conference URL

CFP: War and Culture, February 10-13, 2016, Albuquerque

“WAR AND CULTURE”
37th Annual Conference of the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center on February 10-13, 2016 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The chair for the “War and Culture” area at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association invites all interested scholars to submit papers on any aspect of the intersection of war and culture in literature, film, television, comics, and digital media; on cultural aspects of representation, mobilization, and memory in journalism, architecture, music, and painting; on American life and culture during wartime, etc. Especially encouraged are submissions on the culture of war protest, on conscientious objectors, deserters, and anti-war activism.

Please submit abstracts and panel proposals at: http://conference2016.southwestpca.org/

If you are interested in being a presenter, please create a detailed abstract (300-400 words) for a paper of 15 minutes reading time.

If you want to propose a panel with multiple papers, please put each person’s individual paper abstract on a separate proposal form in the database. Each abstract should also contain information such as panel title, panel chair, etc.

If you are interested organizing and/or in participating in a roundtable event, please contact the area chair with questions and suggestions for topics and presenters.

The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2015.

Further information here.

Gender, Women and Culture Seminar, Hilary 2015

The Gender, Women and Culture seminar series will run every other Tuesday of Hilary Term 2015 from 12-1.

Week 2: Tuesday 27th January
Rees Davies Room, History Faculty

Arianne Chernock (Boston) – ‘From the Right to Rule to the Right to Reign: Politics of Queenship in Nineteenth-Century Britain’

Week 4: Tuesday 10th February
Rees Davies Room, History Faculty

Reading group on women and wartime led by Eve Worth and Charlotte Bennett. The following texts will be discussed:

Alison S. Fell, ‘Nursing the Other: the representation of colonial troops in French and British First World War nursing memoirs’, in Santanu Das (ed.), Race, empire and First World War writing (Cambridge, 2011), pp.158-174.
James Hinton,’Lilian Rogers: Birmingham flaneuse’, in Nine Wartime Lives: Mass Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (Oxford, 2010), pp.111-135.

Digital copies available from CGIS Co-ordinator Naomi Pullin: naomi.pullin@history.ox.ac.uk

Week 6: Tuesday 24th February
Lodgings Drawing Room, Exeter College

Susan Grayzel (Mississippi) – ‘Did women have a Great War?’

Week 8: Tuesday 10th March
Rees Davies Room, History Faculty

Matthew Stevens (Swansea) – ‘Married Women and the Law in Late Medieval Northern Europe’