CfP: War and its Aftermath: Veteran Treatment and Reintegration in Post-War Societies

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War destroys everything. Even the lives of those who survive the war are destroyed. Financial hardships, trauma, and the demand for reintegration by peaceful societies are burdens for those who return alive from the battlefield of the former war. However, the post-war societies have to struggle to provide sufficient possibilities for reintegration of veterans into the new peaceful life as well. In all periods of human history political entities and states have tried to find a way for such a reintegration without triggering the violent potential that is represented by former soldiers. Despite such attempts, modern nation states and societies still struggle with the task to find a solution for veteran reintegration in post-war environments. The editors of the planed volume want to analyze the historical aspects of veteran treatment and veteran reintegration — without chronological or geographical limitations — and therefore welcome proposals for chapters that deal with, but are not limited to the following topics:

the veteran as a radical force in post-war societies
veteran education in post-war societies
political movements and veterans
paramilitarism in post-war societies
trauma treatments
medical issues and veterans
economic perspectives on veteran reintegration
veterans and memory in post-war societies
veteran rights movements
veterans and the post-war state
veterans and social relations

Proposals (ca. 300 words) and a short CV should be sent to fjacob@qcc.cuny.edu and stefan.karner@uni-graz.at until July 15, 2016. Final chapters, 7,000-10,000 words, using footnotes (Chicago Manual of Style) are due by October 15, 2016.

Contact Info:
Frank Jacob, History Department, CUNY-QCC, 22205 56th Ave, Bayside, 11364 New York

Film screening: 66 Men of Grandpont 1914-1918, 22 June 2016, 14.00, Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College

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A film screening of 66 Men of Grandpont 1914-1918: A Short Documentary Film by Simon Haynes and Liz Woolley will take place on Wednesday 22 June 2016, from 14.00-15.45 in the Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College.

DVD cover, front, back and spine

66 Men of Grandpont 1914-1918 is a community history project, which commemorates the 66 men who are named on the First World War memorial in St Matthew’s Church in Grandpont, South Oxford.

The project, which has been part-funded by the University’s Community Fund, has involved the development of a large website, a touring exhibition, a poppy trail around the streets of Grandpont and, most recently, a 40-minute documentary film which was launched at the Town Hall recently. The film explores the impact of the First World War on one small and ordinary suburban community, but also describes Oxford during the period and emphasises the links between local and international history. It is therefore of interest not only to local residents, but to a much wider audience as well. One of the project coordinators’ additional aims is to provide a model for other groups wishing to carry out similar projects, by explaining how they went about the research.

Talk: Armenia: Life and Study of an Enduring Culture, 9 June 7:00pm – Harold Lee Room, Pembroke College

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Silence can be full of words
and words full of silence

Suzan Meryem Kalayci
(PhD Candidate, European University, Florence)

Reminiscent of John Cage’s 4’33, Suzan Meryem Rosita will read a blank book in complete silence for 19 Minutes and 15 Seconds (19’15). We will be reminded that sometimes silence speaks louder than words. After the reading, the book will be passed around and the audience will be able to fill its pages, or leave them as empty and silent as they are.

Suzan Meryem Rosita will also tell us about her The Silent Book initiative which revolves around the premise that “silence can be full of words, but words can be full of silence.” She believes that the absence of voices can offer a powerful space for atonement, redemption and grief in the context of national trauma.

This initiative distributed blank but marked books (that is marked with page numbers) with the title [armenian genocide] to private and local libraries or educational initiatives and aimed at encouraging their readers not only to participate in discussions about the Armenian Genocide but also to challenge common notions of reading and writing — the way we read and accept certain ‘truths’ presented within published texts. The project was censored in Turkey but nevertheless gained momentum locally and internationally as an anonymous movement of reading and writing about the genocide. Reading and discussion groups were formed, student exchanges (with Armenian and Turkish students) organized and art exhibitions curated.

http://civilnet.am/2015/04/18/armenian-genoside-silient-book-suzan-meryem-rosita/#.Vq-d_2QrJxi
(Report by Civilnet about the publication of the first official silent book)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2T3MN1w2T0&feature=youtu.be
(Video of the “The Silent Book”, Performance at the Gazing Through Memory Festival, 22. April 2015, Cafesjian Center for the Arts, Yerevan.)

Suzan Meryem Kalayci: biography

Poster: 06. TT16 AGBU KALAYCI

This is the sixth lecture in a series sponsored by the Armenian General Benevolent Union, London Branch. The series commemorates the Armenian Genocide begun in 1915 and celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the Calouste Gulbenkian Professorship in Armenian Studies at Pembroke College, University of Oxford in 1965.

Doctoral fellowships

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PSL Research University Paris and the Program Global Studies offer two doctoral fellowships, to start in 2016-7. Candidates can be from every field in the humanities and social sciences. Their projects must express a clear global topic and analysis related to the main axes of the program (hereafter).

Global studies is an international program lead at PSL Research University Paris a community of 25 Parisian Universities, Research Centers and Institutes among which the Collège de France, ENS, EPHE, EHESS, EFEO, Paris Dauphine, Mines ParisTech, CNRS. Complete list here:
https://www.univ-psl.fr/en/main-menu-pages/3801

Global studies stimulates ways of thinking about humanities and social sciences and their methodologies in new ways, across conventional boundaries. It acknowledges a broad variety of different perspectives and aims to explore non-Eurocentric or multi-centric views of the global past and present.

Global studies includes both research and teaching in all fields in the humanities and social sciences; it recasts global studies as a global enterprise, creating a space for graduate students to formulate ideas and refine research strategies collaboratively across institutional boundaries and national traditions.

Global studies associates an international board made of scholars from Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, Oxford, SOAS, London, Humboldt, the University of Tokyo (Todai), the German Historical Institute in Paris, Delhi University, Dakar University, the Graduate Institute, Geneva, the Institute of Human Science, Wien, the City University of New York, the University of Michigan.

Selected students will formally prepare their PhD at PSL in one of the members Universities and Institutes and will receive a PhD entitled ‘Doctorat PSL (PSL PhD) prepared at xxxx University (the name of the institution belonging to PSL) at which they prepared their PhD’.

All PSL PhD candidates, regardless of their home institution, have access to the full scope of PSL services (student and campus services, events, sports, culture, etc).

To this aim, candidates must identify a potential supervisor in one of the institutions members of PSL, contact her/him for potential agreement to accept to supervise in case of successful candidature.

List of the Institutions: https://www.univ-psl.fr/en/main-menu-pages/3801
(then click on the web site of the selected one to identify professors and scholars).

Priority will be given to students with a master degree from outside France and from the “Global South” in particular.
Students are required to have a good level in both English and French (written, spoken).

Applications include:
CV
Master degree certificate
Summary of the master dissertation
Research project, about 10-15 pages max
Time schedule
Letter from a PSL supervisor.

Applications must be sent to:
etudes.globales@listes.univ-psl.fr
By June the 15th.
Results: by July the 10th.

The Rt. Hon. Vere Sidney Tudor Harmsworth Postdoctoral Research Fellowship on the History of the United States and World War One

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The Rothermere American Institute (RAI) and Corpus Christi College seek to appoint a stipendiary Junior Research Fellow on the United States and World War One, tenable for three years with effect from 1 October 2016.

The Fellowship forms part of the Institute’s programme of scholarship and events to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War One. The RAI has been endorsed by the US WWI Centennial Commission as a partner organisation.

The appointee will be expected to engage in research at postdoctoral level and also to teach for up to 4 hours per week each term. The Fellow will also be required to conduct special research on Lord Northcliffe’s involvement with the United States during the war years and especially as leader of the War Mission in 1917, which research should lead to an in-depth study suitable for publication. In making this appointment, the College’s decision will be based primarily on the quality of each candidate’s research and on his/her potential for an academic career.

The salary will be £28,143 per annum. The Fellow will also be entitled to full lunching and dining rights and will receive a research allowance (£2,024), and hospitality allowance (£415).

Applicants will normally be expected to have submitted for a higher research degree before taking up a Junior Research Fellowship.

Those interested in applying should download the further particulars. Applications should be submitted, by email, to college.office@ccc.ox.ac.uk and should include a completed cover sheet, a letter of application, a c.v., list of publications, and a 1,000-word description of present and future research interests. Applications should be received by noon on 5 July. Referees should be asked to write directly, by email, to: college.office@ccc.ox.ac.uk; their references to be received by not later than 5 July.

The College is an equal opportunities employer.

CfP: Between Realpolitik and Utopia: A Century with the Balfour-Declaration

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We call for potential contributors to the conference “Between Realpolitik and Utopia: A Century with the Balfour-Declaration”, to take place at Basel University, 1-3 November 2017.

Coordinators and conveners of the conference are Alfred Bodenheimer and Erik Petry (Center for Jewish Studies) and Maurus Reinkowski (Seminar of Middle Eastern Studies), University of Basel, in cooperation with Hans-Lukas Kieser from The Centre for the History of Violence, University of Newcastle, Australia.

The Balfour Declaration is a major stepping stone in the construction of new order of the Middle East after the demise of the Ottoman Empire, but it is also a notion of what Palestine, Europe and the Middle East might and or should – not – have been. The conference will address the various utopian and dystopian aspects and interpretations of the declaration. The Balfour Declaration has multiplied the projective dimensions of Palestine in the European imagination and has made it part of Europe’s history of identity by embedding the Zionist vision into Western imperial ‘Realpolitik’. A main rationale of the conference is to argue that the Balfour Declaration is emblematic for how convoluted the two entities are that we still conceive today as ‘Europe’ and the ‘Middle East’.

For an extended abstract of the conference’s rationale please see here: balfour-conference_2017_11_1-3_basel

It is the intention of this conference to bring together researchers from various disciplines and fields who, based on free and substantial research (including archival historical research) can contribute to an innovative and responsible thinking on the complex issue of the Balfour Declaration.

Scholars interested to participate are requested to send by 30 June 2016 an exposé (1000 words) and a CV (1 page) to Maurus Reinkowski (maurus.reinkowski@unibas.ch) and Erik Petry (erik.petry@unibas.ch).

Universitaet Basel
Middle Eastern Studies
Maiengasse 51
4056 Basel
Switzerland
Tel. +41 (0)61 267 28 60
Fax +41 (0)61 267 28 64

Symposium: Nova Scotia and the Great War Revisited: Cultural Communities, Memory and the First World War

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It has been 100 years since the “war to end all wars”, from 1914 to 1918. Come hear academic, museum, community and youth speakers share ideas and discuss new research on the little-known contributions of cultural communities in Nova Scotia to the conflict. Explore different community views on the importance of commemoration and memory of the experience of the First World War. See how local Nova Scotian contributions fit in the larger Atlantic Canadian, national and international contexts.

Presentations Include
• No. 2 Construction Battalion in July 1916: Importance for African Nova Scotians
• Experiences of the Mi’kmaq, Acadian and Gaelic Nova Scotian communities
• Child soldiers
• The Jewish Legion at Fort Edward in Windsor

Youth Panels
Vimy Foundation participants and Avon View High School

Why is the memory of the Great War still important to students and youth today?

Keynote Speakers
Jonathan Vance, University of Western Ontario
The First World War, Memory and Popular Culture in Canada

Sean Cadigan, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Myth, Memory and the First World War in Atlantic Canadian communities

Friday, June 10th 2016, 12pm to 7:30pm and Saturday, June 11th 2016, 9am to 7pm

Hants County War Memorial Community Centre, 78 Thomas St., Windsor, NS

Full program: http://www.smu.ca/webfiles/Symposiumschedule.pdf

Free Admission, All welcome.

Register in advance:
Online: http://www.smu.ca/NSFirstWorldWar
Phone: 902-420-5668
Email: gorsebrook@smu.ca

Contact Info:
Organized by the Nova Scotia Museum, Saint Mary’s University Gorsebrook Research Institute, Centre d’études acadiennes, Université de Moncton, Army Museum Halifax Citadel, and Parks Canada.