Tag Archives: maritime

CfP: The Great War and the Azores: from naval strategy to trench warfare

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Organisation: Institute of Contemporary History FCSH/NOVA; University of the Azores
Venue: Azores Military Museum, Ponta Delgada (Azores Islands)
Dates: 13 to 16 July 2017
Deadline for proposals: 1 April 2017

The Atlantic Ocean connects the western civilization in its banks, having in its center the archipelago of the Azores. Intensely contested since the discoveries, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, with the mechanical propulsion and the economic and political rise of the USA, this ocean would know a commercial increase, based on a powerful market economy and a strong power of the financial capital, reinforcing even more its paper as a way of supplying the colonial raw materials, to the metropolises. The presence of powerful marines of war as merchants, with a modern naval industry of great capacity of production, becomes more and more its background scene, namely during World War I. By this view, the role of the Atlantic during the Great War would include the importance of maritime commerce and the need to protect commercial traffic from a Europe at war, taking the consequences of disturbing the enemy, as well as the use of a network of submarine cables with branches all over the world. The entry of the United States in World War I marked the end of the world’s hegemony by the European continent, which lasted three centuries, changing the symmetries in the center of the Atlantic.

The organizing committee calls for proposals that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

– The maritime and terrestrial dimension of the Azores, in World War I;
– Naval and submarine warfare;
– The Atlantic and the communications during the Great War;
– Maritime connections in the Trench Wars, or in the colonies;
– The internal front: the impact of World War I in the Azores;
– War and Memory;
– Museology and Military heritage.

Submission process: Please send your identification (name, institutional affiliation and mail address), Paper title, Abstract (maximum 700 words), and academic CV (1 page) via mail to: azoreswar@gmail.com

Working languages: English, Portuguese (no simultaneous interpretation is available).

Further information here.
Download call for papers: 2017-07-13_Great-War-Azores_EN

CfP: Maritime Masculinities, 1815-1940

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Oxford, UK, 19th-20th December, 2016

Keynote speakers include:
Dr Mary Conley, College of the Holy Cross, USA
Prof. Joanne Begiato, Oxford Brookes University
Dr Isaac Land, Indiana State University, USA

The Department of History, Philosophy & Religion, Oxford Brookes University, and the Port Towns and Urban Cultures group, University of Portsmouth, invite proposals for a conference concerning Maritime Masculinities, 1815-1940.

Whilst much has been written about masculinity in the maritime sphere in the eighteenth century, rather less work has been carried out on this domain of research in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century; a period that saw significant changes in both areas.

The period from 1815 – 1940 saw the demise of the sail ship, and the rise of the machine-driven steam, and then oil-powered ships. It began as a period of both naval and maritime supremacy for Britain, which was subsequently eroded during two world wars. After a century of frequent naval warfare, there was the advent of the Pax Britannica, and the phenomenon of navies which barely fought. Moreover, popular navalism emerged in advertising, pageantry, and popular literature, and was the subject of photography and then film.

Cultural ideals of masculinities also underwent considerable shifts in a period that in civilian life advocated differing styles of manliness including Christian manliness, muscular Christianity, and the domestic man, and in the armed forces deployed tropes of masculinity such as bravery, stoicism, and endurance to the extent that military and maritime models of manliness were held up as aspirational models for all men.

Such an immense array of changes shaped perceptions and representations of masculinity within maritime spheres and beyond. This conference seeks to analyse how such changes influenced change and continuity in popular understandings of masculine identity, manliness, and the seafarer.

Conference themes include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

The effect of technological change, eliminating the skill of sailing, but necessitating the engineer
The end of a century of war, the transition to civilian life and the phenomenon of the non-combative sailor
The growth of maritime empires, and cultural contact with indigenous peoples
The maritime man in material culture, fashion, advertising and the press
Exploration and heroism
Photography, art, and film
Fiction, theatre, and music
Sailors in port and at home
Dockyards and shipbuilding
Heritage, memory, and museums

Proposals are invited for short papers (20 minutes) and panel sessions (60 minutes).

Abstracts of up to 250 words are invited, and should be sent to Dr Steven Gray at maritimemasculinities@gmail.com

Deadline for abstracts: Friday, 20 May at midnight (GMT)

Further information here.