The Great War, a Hundred Years On: Origins, Lessons and Legacies of the First World War
6-8 November 2014
Georgia Gwinnett College
Lawrenceville, Georgia
Extended deadline for Proposals: 16 June 2014
Sponsors: Alpha-Omicron-Gamma Chapter, Phi Alpha Theta Honors Society Delta Upsilon Chapter, Sigma Iota Rho Honors Society, School of Liberal Arts, Georgia Gwinnett College
Conference website will be attached to http://www.ggc.edu
The First World War (1914-1918) was a transformative event in modern history. That conflict would usher in the era of modern “Total War,” involve multiple continents, result in nearly 10 million dead, help to spark the Russian Revolution, and result in the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. It also had a great impact in other spheres as well by beginning to change the role of women in society, encouraging the spread of democratic values, shifting the cultural consciousness of the countries involved, and giving momentum to the development of minority rights. Through the Paris Peace Settlement it led to the rise of new national states in Eastern and Central Europe, fundamentally shaped the development of the modern Middle East and other parts of the non-Western world, and brought about new norms in international relations with the development of key concepts like “collective security” and the so-called “new diplomacy.” It was, in other words, “the seminal catastrophe” that shaped the remainder of the twentieth century, as George Kennan famously argued. The centenary of the beginning of that war arrives in 2014.
The sponsoring organizations at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) invite proposals from scholars examining topics related to the Great War. As the conference is commemorating the outbreak of World War I in 1914, papers exploring its origins will form one point of focus for the conference. But the organizers also envision panels investigating other major topics that fit within the wider theme of the lessons and legacies of the Great War broadly construed, including—but not limited to—collective memory and memory politics, gender and minority experiences, trauma and “brutalization,” cultural approaches to the war and its representation, and the broader impact of the conflict on the non-Western world. Presentations dealing with approaches to teaching the First World War in the classroom are also greatly encouraged. The committee will consider proposals for individual papers or entire panels (3-4 papers) that will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary group of scholars. The organizers plan to undertake the publication of selected papers in either a scholarly journal or in book form after the conference.
Submission details:
The conference committee is especially interested in approaching this topic from an interdisciplinary perspective and envisions presentations from both junior and senior scholars with a terminal degree in their field. Ideally, accepted papers will represent a diverse array of disciplines across the humanities and the social sciences, including but not limited to Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, History, International Studies, Literary Criticism (American, British, World and Comparative Literature), Political Science and Psychology (e.g., trauma studies). As the sponsoring organizations include the GGC chapters of Phi Alpha Theta and Sigma Iota Rho—student honors societies in the disciplines of History and International Studies—a select number of student panels will also be included on the program. Proposals from budding undergraduate and graduate students interested in the First World War will therefore be welcomed by the committee.
Paper proposals should be sent by 16 June 2014 to the chair of the conference committee, Dr. Nathan N. Orgill (norgill@ggc.edu). Submissions should include an abstract for the proposed paper (ca. 250 words), as well as a copy of a current cv and a brief biography in narrative form (ca. 150-200 words) for inclusion in the conference program. If submissions are for a full panel, please include these materials for all participants. The committee will send out notifications shortly thereafter.
Conference location:
Founded in 2006, Georgia Gwinnett College is the newest four-year college in the University System of Georgia and the first four-year public college founded in the United States in the 21st century. Located 30 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta in Lawrenceville, Georgia, GGC currently enrolls over 10,000 undergraduate students per semester and maintains a rigorous Liberal Arts curriculum with a special focus on internationalization.