Tag Archives: poetry

CfP: America in the Trenches: A centennial exploration of America’s involvement in the Great War – extended deadline

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This Call for Papers is for a conference on WWI at CSU Bakersfield, on Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018.

We invite proposals for either 3-paper panels or an individual 20-minute research presentation (that is, a roughly 10-page paper) from established and emerging scholars, as well as from graduate and advanced undergraduate students. These proposals may come from diverse disciplines, as well as those that take an interdisciplinary perspective. We plan to publish selected conference papers digitally. For more information about the conference, visit http://phi.csub.edu, or follow us on Facebook @CSUB Public History Institute.

Papers may be on WWI itself or on the many ripple effects of the war. Examples include, but are not limited to, art, poetry, music, theater, health issues, new technology, existential angst, the role of women, propaganda, political upheaval, religious reactions, the use of animals in war, life on the home front, and so much more.

The conference will include breakfast and lunch, plus an afternoon keynote address by Dr. Diane M.T. North, drawn from her forthcoming book: California at War: The State and the People during World War I (University of Kansas Press, 2018).

Please email abstracts of roughly 200 words, along with a one-page c.v., to Prof. Miriam Raub Vivian at mvivian@csub.edu by Friday, September 14, 2018. Full paper submissions will be due via email by Monday, Oct. 1.

Conference registration, which is $40 per person, is payable online, and due by Monday, October 1, at http://phi.csub.edu.

Conference: Reflections on the Commemoration of the First World War

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22-23 November 2018 at Tūranga (Central Library) on the corner of Gloucester Street and Colombo Street, Christchurch.

As we approach the end of the centenary of World War One, it is timely to consider the ways in which this conflict has been commemorated. Galleries, libraries, archives and museums around New Zealand and the world have explored old and new narratives of the war and presented these in exhibitions, public programmes and research. Many of these interpretations have been the result of collaborations that have joined repositories with academia, other institutions and the community. This conference invites museum professionals, historians, librarians, academics, students, film makers, artists, writers, researchers, government sector contributors and others to reflect on the commemoration of the war.

Registration is now open. To register click here.

$280 Early Bird Registration (available until 1 August 2018)
$320 Full Registration
$110 Student Registrations (must be currently enrolled in an accredited tertiary institution to qualify) +15% GST = $126.50

A publication featuring a selection of papers from the conference will be produced following the conference.

You can contact the conference committee at ReflectionsWWi2018@gmail.com. An alphabetical listing of all the presentation abstracts is available here.

Keynote speakers:
Dr. Tim Cook, C.M. (Historian, Canadian War Museum)
Entrenched Culture: Soldiers’ Culture in the Aftermath of the First World War

Professor Joy Damousi (Professor of History, University of Melbourne)
Blood, Bodies and Bones: Remembering Violence of the First World War in the 21st century

Dr. Santanu Das (literary and cultural historian, King’s College London)
The Colours of Memory: the racial politics of the centennial commemoration

Further information on conference website.

CfP: A Holiday from War? “Resting” behind the lines during the First World War

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Université Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle
June 22 & 23, 2018
Maison de la Recherche

Organised by Sarah Montin (EA PRISMES) et Clémentine Tholas-Disset (EA CREW)
Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Tim Kendall (University of Exeter)

What do the soldiers do when they are not on the battlefield? The broadening of the definition of war experience in recent historiography has transformed our spatial and temporal understanding of the conflict, shifting the scope away from the front lines and the activities of combat. Beyond the battlefield and its traditional martial associations emerges another representation of the warrior and the soldier, along with another experience of the war.

In order to further our understanding of the historical, political and aesthetic concerns of life at the rear, long considered a parenthesis in the experience of war, this interdisciplinary conference will address, but will not be limited to, the following themes:

The ideological, medical and administrative construction of the notion of “rest” in the First World War (as it applied to combatants but also auxiliary corps and personnel).
Paramilitary, recreational and artistic activities at the rear; the organisation of activities in particular leisure and entertainment, the role of the army and independent contractors (civilian organisations, etc.)
Sociability between soldiers (hierarchy, tensions, camaraderie); the rear area as meeting place with the other (between soldiers/auxiliary personnel, combatants, locals, men/women, foreign troops, etc.), site of passage, exploration, initiation or “return to the norm” (“rest huts” built to offer a “home away from home”), testimonies from inhabitants of the occupied zones
Articulations and dissonances between community life and time to oneself, collective experience and individual experience
The historic and artistic conceptualisation of the rear area, specific artistic and literary modes at the rear by contrast with writings at the front
Staging life at the rear: scenes of country-life, idyllic representations of non-combat as farniente or hellscapes, bathing parties or penitentiary universes, the figure of the soldier as dilettante, flâneur and solitary rambler, in the productions (memoirs, accounts, correspondence, novels, poetry, visual arts, etc.) of combatants and non-combatants;
Cultural, political and media (re)construction of the figure of the “soldier at rest” (war photography, postcards, songs, etc.); representations of the male and female body at rest, constructions of a new model of masculinity (sexuality and sport), and their place in war production

Full details here.

In order to foster dialogue between the Anglophone, Francophone and Germanophone areas of study, the conference will mainly focus on the Western Front. However proposals dealing with other fronts will be examined. Presentations will preferably be in English.

Please send a 250-word proposal and a short bio before November 20, 2017 to :
montin.sarah@gmail.com and clementine.tholas@univ-paris3.fr
Notification of decision: December 15th 2017

THE book review: Geert Buelens on the poetry of the Great War

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Times Higher Education‘s book of the week is Geert Buelens’ Everything to Nothing. Deborah Longworth provides a review of this study of the interrelation of politics and poetry.

Everything to Nothing: The Poetry of the Great War, Revolution and the Transformation of Europe
By Geert Buelens
Translated by David McKay
Verso, 400pp, £20.00
ISBN 9781784781491 and 1507 (e-book)
Published 2 November 2015

For the THE review, please see here.