CFP: Edith Wharton Symposium: 22 and 23 August 2013, Liverpool Hope University, UK

Posted by franziskaheimburger on April 22, 2013
Posted in Call for papers

Edith Wharton Symposium:  22 and 23 August 2013, Liverpool Hope University, UK

Organisers: William Blazek and Laura Rattray

Keynote Speakers: Pamela Knights and Gary Totten

Call for Papers: extended deadline 27 May 2013

 

We warmly invite papers on the life and work of Edith Wharton for an international symposium, co-sponsored by the Wharton Society, to be held in Liverpool in August 2013. 

The symposium marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Wharton’s much-read and much-analyzed novel The Custom of the Country.  Described as the writer’s “greatest book” by Hermione Lee in her 2007 biography, and listed by Wharton herself at the end of a long and prolific career as one of her own favourite works, The Custom of the Country arguably remains the author’s most complex and controversial novel. To mark the centenary, many of the panels and keynotes will be devoted to topics pertaining specifically to this landmark text.

However, we also warmly welcome papers on any aspect of Wharton’s life and work, and the work of her contemporaries, male and female, canonical and non-canonical, European and American. As another centenary approaches, we particularly seek papers treating Wharton and her contemporaries in the contexts of World War I.  Papers for these panels might consider Wharton’s relief work; her propaganda; visits to the frontline; journalism; her fiction written during the years of conflict.

We are delighted to confirm that the keynote speakers for this event will be esteemed Wharton scholars Pamela Knights (Durham University) and Gary Totten (North Dakota State University). Pam, who has published very extensively on Wharton, is perhaps best known as the author of The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton, while Gary is the immediate past president of the Society and editor of Memorial Boxes and Guarded Interiors: Edith Wharton and Material Culture.

The symposium will be held on the Hope Park campus of Liverpool Hope University, located within five miles of the Liverpool city centre.  Moderately priced, ensuite campus accommodation will be available to delegates for the duration of the symposium.  Day rates are also available.  For those wishing to stay on and explore Liverpool after the symposium, an additional night’s accommodation will be available and we will be arranging a morning tour of the city, followed by lunch together before departing. Please send any queries and 250-word abstracts for 20-minute papers (indicating any equipment/technical requirements), and a brief biographical note by 27 May 2013 to Laura and Bill via e-mail: custom@hope.ac.uk  Registration will open at the beginning of June. Further information and updates will be posted on the symposium website: www.hope.ac.uk/custom

We hope you’ll join us for this friendly and timely gathering of Wharton and early twentieth century scholars in August.

WWI cfp

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“Letter from America” – Mike Neiberg on the upcoming centenary

Posted by franziskaheimburger on March 28, 2013
Posted in Members' Projects, WW1 in the News

Society member Mike Neiberg recently attended the International Centennial Planning Conference entitled “A CENTURY IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT WAR” , held at the National World War One Museum in Kansas and gave a keynote speech entitled: “”The Outbreak of War in 1914: A New Look at an Old Problem”". Here a some thoughts he put together for our website on the upcoming centenary, as seen from the US:

I recently had a rather surprising discussion with a European-based editor who told me that, the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I notwithstanding, he was reluctant to sign any more books on the war. He was, he told me, afraid that by 2016 or 2017 European readers would be tired of reading about the war. His comments took me aback, given the general lack of interest American publishers have been showing in the war. Two different American publishers have recently told me that they, too, do not want to sign World War I books, but, unlike their European colleague, they were not worried about reader fatigue. They were worried that general American indifference toward the war would lead to poor sales.

In light of those discussions, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that the United States is far behind Europe in its planning for the centenary. Besides America’s usual lack of interest in the war, in 2013 we face a government sequester that has blocked access to even modest resources and distracted attention even further from plans to educate citizens about the war. Unlike Great Britain, there has been no sustained effort in the United States to dedicate money or show support from the highest levels of government. The federal government has made clear its opposition to the construction of a World War I memorial on the National Mall, and the post office has agreed to issue a commemorative stamp, but otherwise little of substance has yet come out of Washington. The United States Senate has tasked the White House with forming a twelve-person commemorative committee, but the committee still does not exist. A distracted Congress has really only made one important decision: designating the National World War I Museum at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City to be the lead organization for commemoration activities.

In late March, the museum hosted a conference dedicated to beginning the commemorative process. Given the general lack of support and interest it faces, the challenge could be formidable. Nevertheless, the museum has a talented staff, a fantastic venue, and an international reputation that make it a logical choice to lead the commemoration. It is likely to do so, however, with little to no federal money. Thus this conference had two goals: to share ideas and to create networks of people interested in commemorative efforts.

Given the lack of governmental interest, much of the support for educational and outreach efforts will have to come from the private sector and from dedicated groups like the Western Front Association and the American Friends of Blérancourt, as well as the wide variety of museums and libraries planning local commemorative projects. Notably, much of the energy for this American conference came from Europe, including the assistance of the government of Flanders and the participation of the French and German consulates, as well as the Alliance Française.

The conference brought together academics, government officials, private citizens with an interest in the war, and representatives of organizations like AFS Intercultural Programs that trace their origins to the war. It will likely take an effort of all of us pushing together to build momentum if we are to take maximum advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to commemorate, educate, and explain. Otherwise we face one of two futures for the centenary, and both are typically American. In the absence of hard work, resources, and planning, Americans will either ignore the war or make a flurry of activity in 2017, cobble something together quickly, then claim victory. The choice is ours.

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CFP: The Academic World in the Era of the Great War, Dublin, 2014

Posted by Pierre Purseigle on February 7, 2013
Posted in Call for papers

 The Great War could neither have been fought nor won without scientific knowledge. Academic expertise in various fields, from history and law to chemistry and medicine, proved crucial to its prosecution. New links were forged with government that would alter forever the ways in which universities functioned and their relationship with the state. As communities, universities were at the heart of the societal and cultural mobilization for the war (through the activities of their staff, the roles played by students and alumni and the use of university facilities for hospitals, public meetings and war-time education). In some cases they sheltered opposition to the war. Academics and universities also played an important role in defining the meaning of the war and refashioned the very notion of international communities of scholarship in order to take account of the polarization produced by the conflict. In this, they foreshadowed the political engagement of learning that would become a marked feature of the ‘short twentieth century.’ For all these reasons, the war cast a long shadow over attempts to return to some kind of ‘normality’ once the conflict was over.

The Academic World in the Era of the Great War is a major international conference that will address these issues. Co-organised by the Centre for War Studies at Trinity College Dublin and the Centre canadien des études allemandes et européennes at the Université de Montréal, it will be held at Trinity College Dublin on August 15th-16th 2014 to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War. It will be the first attempt to examine this subject systematically and in a comparative and trans-national fashion. It is hoped that it will result in an innovative edited volume. The conference will be inter-disciplinary, and the organisers welcome submissions from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.

Continue reading "CFP: The Academic World in the Era of the Great War, Dublin, 2014" »

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CFP: “The Advocates of Peace, 1899-1917″ – Paris, 15th-17th January 2014

Posted by franziskaheimburger on February 6, 2013
Posted in Call for papers
To mark the centenary of WW1 at the beginning of 2014, the University Paris-Est and the German historical Institute suggest to reflect on the downfall of peace and the failure of those who wanted to prevent a general European war from breaking out or who tried to interrupt its course. The time span we have chosen shows that we mean to take into consideration the very first years of the twentieth century (starting in 1899, date of the first Hague Conference) and those of the ‘pre-war’ period but also the war years themselves. This means we can study the actions taken in favour of peace in neutral countries or amongst late partakers in the conflict (Italy, USA, etc), as well as the actions of those in favour of negotiated peace. Defining 1917 as a limit is a way to mark the renewed strength of claims for peace, their revolutionary dimension in Russia and their different forms of expression. At the same time, with the US entering the war, the failure of the Stockholm Conference and the radicalisation of the governments on both sides, year 1917 puts an end to any last hope of restoring peace through negotiation and tolls the bell for the pre-war world.
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“Encountering the Other in Wartime: The Great War as an intercultural moment?” 7th Society Conference, Paris 26th & 27th September 2013

Posted by franziskaheimburger on December 19, 2012
Posted in Call for papers, Society notices

After very successful conferences in Lyon, Oxford, Dublin, Washington D.C., London, and Innsbruck, the International Society for First World War Studies is pleased to organise its seventh conference in Paris on 26-27 September 2013. The German Historical Institute in Paris, The University of Birmingham (UK), and the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration are supporting this event.  

Encountering the Other in Wartime:

The Great War as an intercultural moment?

 

Up to the present day, the multinational nature of the First World War has mainly been conceptualised as the interstate confrontation of major allied powers. The Other is first and foremost the enemy; militarily and culturally the opposition. However, the Great War was also a time of unprecedented intermingling and circulation within the coalitions. Metropolitan and colonial soldiers, civilian workers, refugees and displaced persons left their familiar frame of reference by the millions. The conflict thus also constituted a change of scene for good or bad, a confrontation with social and cultural otherness, with different landscapes, at all scales for the belligerent societies (empires, nation states, local communities). How were the necessary movements conceptualised and organized in the logic of the multinational conflict? What forms did contacts between people of different origins take when they were confronted by the war? How were they experienced? How does the idea of belonging to a community, crucial to recent research on combat endurance, fit into the intercultural logic at all scales? To what extent did constructions of identity which feed on the perception of the other, evolve as such contacts occurred? How were they represented? Finally, what was the heritage of these contacts in the medium or long term?

In this perspective, transnational and comparative approaches are encouraged.

Papers might consider the following aspects:

  • Military and operational issues (coalition warfare, multinational armies, colonial troops, mixed regiments)
  • Imperial and colonial frameworks (race-thinking, contingents…)
  • The experience of contact and interculturality
  • The confrontation of different communities (age, gender, social class, regional origins, national identities, urban or rural origins…)
  • Perceptions of otherness and their categorisation
  • Nostalgia and uprootings
  • Communitarianism, segregation

Continue reading "“Encountering the Other in Wartime: The Great War as an intercultural moment?” 7th Society Conference, Paris 26th & 27th September 2013" »

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“Altérités en guerre. La Grande Guerre comme moment interculturel ?” 7e colloque international de la société, Paris 26-27 septembre 2013

Posted by franziskaheimburger on December 19, 2012
Posted in Call for papers, Society notices

Après le succès des rencontres précédentes organisées à Lyon, Oxford, Dublin, Washington, Londres et Innsbruck, la Société Internationale d’Etude de la Grande Guerre tiendra son septième colloque à Paris les 26 et 27 septembre 2013, grâce au soutien de l’Institut Historique Allemand de Paris, de l’Université de Birmingham et de la Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration.

Le thème retenu pour cette édition est :

Altérités en guerre.

La Grande Guerre comme moment interculturel ?

 

Le caractère multinational de la Première Guerre mondiale a principalement été pensé à travers la confrontation interétatique des grandes puissances coalisées. L’Autre, c’est d’abord l’ennemi, celui avec lequel on s’oppose militairement et culturellement.

Pourtant, la Grande Guerre a aussi été un moment de circulations et de brassages inédit au sein des coalitions. Soldats métropolitains ou coloniaux, travailleurs civils, réfugiés et déplacés, quittèrent par millions leur cadre de vie. Le conflit fut donc aussi une expérience de dépaysement et de confrontation à l’altérité – sociale, culturelle ou paysagère – au sein des sociétés belligérantes (Etats-nations, Empires, communautés locales). Comment les déplacements furent-ils pensés et organisés dans la logique d’un conflit multinational ? Quelles formes prirent les contacts entre les populations d’origine différente mises en présence par les mobilités du temps de guerre ? Comment ces contacts furent-ils vécus ? Comment les logiques communautaires, très importantes pour l’endurance combattante, se sont-elles articulées avec les logiques interculturelles à toutes les échelles ? Dans quelle mesure les constructions identitaires, qui se nourrissent de la perception de l’autre, ont-elles évolué à la faveur de ces contacts ? Comment ont-elles été représentées et mises en scène ? Enfin, quelle fut la postérité de ces contacts à moyen ou long terme ?

Dans cette perspective, les approches comparées et transnationales seront encouragées.

 

Les communications pourront notamment porter sur les thèmes suivants :

  • Enjeux militaires et opérationnels (coalitions, armées multinationales, troupes coloniales, régiments mixtes…)
  • Logiques impériales et coloniales (pensée raciale, contingents…)
  • L’expérience du contact et de l’interculturalité
  • Confrontation des communautés (d’âge, de genre, de classe, régionales, nationales, urbains et ruraux…)
  • Perceptions et cadres de pensée
  • Dépaysement, territoires et paysages
  • Nostalgie et déracinement
  • Entre soi, communautarisme, ségrégation …

Avec ce colloque, nous entendons poursuivre la tradition de rassembler des chercheurs, qu’ils soient doctorants ou chercheurs établis, autour de nouvelles approches de la Première Guerre mondiale. Nous espérons à travers ce colloque contribuer au développement des approches comparées et interdisciplinaires de la Grande Guerre et encourager les collaborations internationales et les échanges entre différentes générations de chercheurs en sciences sociales.

Afin d’encourager le débat, les communications seront diffusées avant le colloque puis discutées lors de sessions thématiques. Après un temps de réponse des auteurs, le débat sera ouvert à l’assistance. Les langues de travail seront l’anglais et le français et nous disposerons de traductions simultanées dans ces deux langues (à confirmer). Comme lors des colloques précédents, une sélection de communications sera publiée.

Les propositions de communications, en anglais ou en français, doivent être soumises sous forme d’un résumé de 300 mots et accompagnées d’un curriculum vitae.

Le dépôt s’effectuera avant le 30 janvier 2013 sur notre plateforme de gestion du colloque, http://isfwws2013.sciencesconf.org.

Procédure :

1-     Créer un compte en cliquant sur « S’inscrire » dans la colonne de gauche

2-      Activer le compte à partir du lien reçu par mail

3-     Déposer la proposition de communication dans « déposer un résumé » dans « Mes dépôts »

4-     Déposer le CV dans « données supplémentaires »

Les candidats seront informés de la décision du comité organisateur d’ici le 1er mars 2013.

La version définitive des communications sélectionnées (de 8000 mots maximum) est attendue pour le 1er juin 2013 au plus tard.

Le colloque aura lieu à la Cité Nationale de l’histoire de l’Immigration (Paris 12ème) et à l’institut Historique Allemand (Paris 3ème). Nous essaierons dans la mesure du possible d’aider les chercheurs qui ne pourraient pas être financés par leur institution de rattachement dans leurs frais de déplacements et de logement.

Pour plus d’informations, contactez firstworldwarstudies@ehess.fr

Comité organisateur :

Emmanuelle Cronier (Centre for War Studies, University of Birmingham).

Victor Demiaux (EHESS Paris/IEP Lille).

Franziska Heimburger (EHESS Paris).

Elisa Marcobelli (DHI Paris/EHESS Paris).

Claire Morelon : (IEP Paris/University of Birmingham).

Clémentine Vidal-Naquet (EHESS Paris).

 

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Statement on position in relation to Open Access

Posted by Pierre Purseigle on December 5, 2012
Posted in Journal, Society notices

A number of leading history journals have produced a joint statement on the open access policy proposed by the UK Government in response to the publication of the Finch report. First World War Studies is among the signatories to this statement.

We, as editors of the History journals listed below, would like to make our views clear in relation to the government’s planned implementation (in conjunction with RCUK and HEFCE) of the Finch Report. We fully support initiatives to make scholarship as widely and freely available as possible, above all on line. However, we have serious concerns about several aspects of the proposed implementation of the policy, which we believe will have a serious effect on the reputation of UK scholarship internationally, on peer review, and on the rights of authors.

Continue reading "Statement on position in relation to Open Access" »

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Podcasts: First World War: New Perspectives

Posted by Pierre Purseigle on November 6, 2012
Posted in Members' Projects, Online sources

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the First World War this series of short talks presents new perspectives on the world’s first experience of Total War. Produced by the University of Oxford, and presented by renowned experts in the field, the series explores topics such as ‘conflict culture’, ‘surplus women’ and the role of the historian in the centenary.  A world class resource that is set to grow in the coming years, be prepared to move beyond the mud of the Western Front and reconsider the the varied impact of one of the largest conflicts in history.

The Historian and the Centenary by Pierre Purseigle

Rethinking British Volunteerism in 1914: A Rush to the Colours? by Catriona Pennell

The Indian Sepoy in the First World War by Santanu Das

Surplus Women by Rosemary Wall

The Better Part of Valour by Edward Madigan

Conflict Culture by Matthew Leonard

A project run by Katharine Lindsay, Manager for Discovery and Engagement | Director, World War One Centenary: Continuations and Beginnings | Learning Technologies Group | IT Services | University of Oxford

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg

On Oxford Podcasts

On iTunes

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News: Ireland and the First World War

Posted by Pierre Purseigle on November 6, 2012
Posted in Members' Projects, WW1 in the News

Project to bridge the gap between academic and public activity surrounding Ireland and the First World War

With Ireland’s ‘Decade of Commemorations’ underway, historians at Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Exeter have created a special website to gather information and knowledge about Ireland’s involvement in the First World War.

The www.irelandWW1.org website project will collate research and event information and act as a networking forum to allow academics, and members of the public and various organisations to introduce themselves to each other.  Continue reading "News: Ireland and the First World War" »

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Doktorandenstelle: „Rechtshistorische Aspekte des Ersten Weltkriegs“

Posted by Pierre Purseigle on November 6, 2012
Posted in jobs, PhD Funding

Das Institut français d’histoire en Allemagne (IFHA) ist eine französische staatliche Forschungseinrichtung, die seit 2009 an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt beherbergt ist. Es betreibt Forschung zur deutschen bzw. deutsch-französischen Geschichte und bringt sich aktiv auf verschiedene Art und Weise (Stipendien, Übersetzungen, Tagungen und Workshops, Publikationen, Konferenzen und Vorträge) in die Förderung von Initiativen und Begegnungen zwischen Historikern Frankreichs und Deutschlands ein (www.ifha.fr). Das Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte (MPIeR) ist ein international anerkanntes Forschungsinstitut und betreibt Grundlagenforschung auf dem Gebiet der europäischen Rechtsgeschichte (www.rg.mpg.de).

Im Rahmen des gemeinsamen Forschungsprojektes „Rechtshistorische Aspekte des Ersten Weltkriegs“ ist zum 01.04.2013 eine Doktorandenstelle (E 13/2 TVöD Bund) für zunächst 2 Jahre zu besetzen. Continue reading "Doktorandenstelle: „Rechtshistorische Aspekte des Ersten Weltkriegs“" »

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