CfP: Post-War Transitions in Europe: Politics, States and Veterans (1918-1923)

Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin
28-30 March 2019

The Centre for War Studies of University College Dublin is pleased to host an international conference to commemorate the end of the centenary of the First World War. The conference aims to appraise how European WWI ex-service men and officers contributed to the creation of new states in Europe and participated through associative or political activism to the peace process.

Main themes
Papers will broadly deal with the following themes:
-WWI ex-service men and transnational networks in Europe
-WWI ex-service men and the peace process
-WWI ex-service men and politics
-WWI ex-servicemen and paramilitary violence in Europe
-WWI ex-service men and the creation of nation states throughout Europe

As we approach the end of the centenary of the First World War, the organisers invite a widespread multi-disciplinary response. In particular, they welcome proposals offering a transnational approach to the study of the demobilization of European armies. The conference organizer intends to organise a round-table around the work of George Mosse Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (1990). Historians, contributors to the conference, and the audience will debate whether the concept of “brutalisation” still has relevance.

The conference language will be English

Please send your proposal (title and abstract in English, French or German of no more than 500 words) and short CV to the conference organiser Emmanuel DESTENAY: emmanuel.destenay@ucd.ie. The deadline for paper proposals is October 1st 2018.

Download full CfP: CALL FOR PAPER

CfP: The Book as Cure: Bibliotherapy and Literary Caregiving from the First World War to the Present

This one-day conference, part of the annual programme of the History of Books and Reading (HOBAR) research collaboration at The Open University, will take place in the Gordon Room, Senate House, University of London, on 14 September 2018. It brings together early career researchers and advanced scholars with practitioners, policy makers, charities, and representatives from the culture and heritage industries to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue about the curative power of reading during and after the war. What is the legacy of wartime bibliotherapy? How is that curative power understood now? How was it understood in 1914? How has it been managed since in the voluntary sector and in institutions? In what ways does the legacy of First World War bibliotherapy remain active in contemporary policy-making in the charity sector, and in work with veterans and settled refugees?

Keynote speakers:
Jane Potter (Oxford Brookes University)
Peter Leese (University of Copenhagen)

Led by three members of The Open University’s Department of English & Creative Writing, Siobhan Campbell, Sara Haslam, and Edmund King, this event will contribute to and shape understanding of the therapeutic importance of books across disciplines and help to generate further focused research in the Humanities and beyond.

Proposals of 300 words for 20-minute papers by Friday, 4 May 2018 are welcomed from PhD students, ECRs and established scholars working in the field. Topics include: the healing book; creative and expressive writing interventions; reading, writing and trauma; authorbased studies on literary caregiving of any type; hospital, prison, and asylum reading/libraries and mental health/wellness; curating generative archives; documenting resilience and identifying outcomes.

Contact Info:
Please send abstracts to the conference organisers: Siobhan.Campbell@open.ac.uk; Sara.Haslam@open.ac.uk; and Edmund.King@open.ac.uk

Further information here.

CfP: Care After the First World War, University of Leeds

9-11 April 2018, University of Leeds

The end of the First World War saw the demobilisation and return to civilian life of millions of service personnel around the world. Governments, charities, families and individuals attempted to support, rehabilitate and reintegrate those who had served through financial provision, medical treatment and social care. In the final year of the centenary commemorations, this conference looks beyond the war to the lifelong impact of war service.

This conference examines that provision of care to veterans of the First World War and their families. It asks how, where and when care, in its various forms, was provided to and withheld from veterans around the world. It seeks to understand the motivations of those individuals and groups who provided care and to analyse the development of formal and informal networks of care.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Michael Roper and Dr Fiona Reid will be keynote speakers.

Papers discussing care for veterans of any nation after the First World War are welcome and comparative, transnational and entangled histories of care are particularly encouraged. Panel proposals are also welcome and researchers at all career stages are invited to submit a proposal.

Potential subjects for papers and panels include:

Systems of soldier preference (in employment, soldier settlement schemes etc.)
Disability pensions and financial provisions
The development and work of veterans’ organisations and charities
Competition and cooperation between care providers
Caring for the carers: post-war provisions for medical-military personnel
Family reintegration and care within the home
Effects of insufficient care
Care for prisoners of war, the families of veterans and the bereaved
Rehabilitation of disabled veterans
Institutional and in-patient care
Ongoing treatment of disease and physical and psychological wounds
Care as a disciplinary tool
Gender in the giving and receiving of care
The accessibility of care: issues of race, class, gender, empire and distance
Commemoration as an act of care: remembering the disabled soldier
Representations of care and carers in literature and the arts

The conference will include a mentoring scheme within the programme. This will involve postgraduate and early career researchers submitting an expanded draft of their paper (6000 words max.) by 15 March 2018 that will then be pre-circulated to their designated mentor. The mentor will commit to attending the mentee’s paper and then meet with the mentee to provide feedback on developing the paper for publication. Postgraduate and early career researchers will automatically be considered for the scheme. Those returning to academia from a career break and those without institutional support but who no longer qualify as early career researchers are invited to submit an expression of interest should they wish to participate. We also invite established researchers who are willing to act as mentors to contact the organisers.

Following the conference, participants will be invited to submit articles for an edited collection.

Presenters will deliver twenty-minute papers followed by time for questions. Abstracts of up to 300 words, accompanied by a short biography, and expressions of interest in the mentoring scheme should be sent to Alexia Moncrieff (University of Leeds) and Michael Robinson (University of Liverpool) at CareConference@leeds.ac.uk by 15 November 2017.

General enquiries can be sent to CareConference@leeds.ac.uk
Conference website here.

CfP: 1918 – 2018: The End of the War & The Reshaping of a Century

This conference, hosted by the Centre for Historical Research at the University of Wolverhampton in association with the WFA and the FWW Network for Early Career & Postgraduate Researchers, seeks to spotlight the latest research on the events of 1918 as well as the global significances, consequences, and legacy of this watershed year.

It will be held at the University of Wolverhampton on 6-8 September 2018

Keynotes to include: Professor Alison Fell (Leeds), Professor Peter Frankopan (Oxford), Professor John Horne (TCD), Professor Gary Sheffield (Wolverhampton), Professor Sir Hew Strachan (St Andrews), Professor Laura Ugolini (Wolverhampton) & Professor Jay Winter (Yale).

We invite abstracts for 20-minute presentations fitting within the conference topic. Therein we encourage international perspectives and seek a range of historical approaches together with cross-disciplinary insights. Suggested themes may include but are not limited to:

Warfare in 1918
The War in 1918
Women in 1918
Strategy, Tactics & Technology
Victory & Defeat
Winners & Losers
Peace & (Ongoing) Conflict
Revolution(s)
Aftermaths, Legacies & Impacts
Veterans (Male & Female)
Civilians & Consequences
Gender, Class, Race & Ethnicity
Ends & Beginnings
Learning/Understanding the War
Commemoration & Memory
The Centenary

Abstracts of 250 words should be accompanied by your name, affiliation (if applicable) and a brief biographical statement (c. 100 words). Panel submissions will also be considered.

We welcome submissions from scholars, including ECRs & PGRs, as well as independent researchers, organisations, and community projects. We hope (subject to funding) to offer a limited number of bursaries to assist ECRs/PGRs & community groups to participate.

Submissions should be sent to Dr Oliver Wilkinson (O.Wilkinson@wlv.ac.uk) by 3rd January 2018

Conference registration is expected to open in spring 2018

Keep up to date at our website (www.wlv.ac.uk/1918to2018) and follow us on Twitter (@1918to2018)

Conference: Nerves and War. Psychological Experiences of Mobilization and Suffering in Germany, 1900-1933

12-13 October 2017, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin
Organized by Gundula Gahlen, Björn Hofmeister, Christoph Nübel and Deniza Petrova

´Nerves´ enjoyed a central place in German debates about war at the beginning of the 20th Century. Politicians, scientists, the public, and the military discussed the extent to which a future war would strain the nerves of German society. Concepts of ´strength of nerves´ as well as of ´weakness of nerves´ were increasingly used as combat terms during the First World War. The massive scale of experiences of psychological injuries and suffering only added to this phenomenon. The social and political administration of the medical treatment of psychological war disabilities presided over post-war discourses of managing the consequences of war. Simultaneously, a new spiritual mobilization for war followed in the Weimar Republic, which, after 1933, ´synchronized´ almost all aspects of social life in the Third Reich.

Current scholarship has devoted substantial historical research to the treatment and accommodation of psychological war-disabled veterans. This conference focuses on contemporary discourses on nerves in politics, society, science, and the military and aspires to elaborate the interaction as well as their practical consequences of these discourses for the period of 1900 and 1933. At this conference nerves are understood as a code and a construct that are central in negotiating identity. Both, contemporary discourses on nerves as well as individual and collective experiences of psychological mobilization and suffering will be presented and analyzed. The focus of the conference papers is on Germany, but in a wider European context.

Venue: Freie Universität Berlin, Fabeckstraße 23-25, 14195 Berlin, Room: 2.2059

Please register/contact us by October 5, 2017 at: dpetrova@zedat.fu-berlin.de

For further information please visit the conference website: www.nervenundkrieg.de

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

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.