Cultures and Commemorations of War

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This interdisciplinary seminar series ‘Cultures and Commemorations of War’ brings together early career researchers and advanced scholars working on the memory of war in a range of disciplines with practitioners, policy makers, charities, and representatives from the media and culture and heritage industries. Through a series of three one-day workshops held in Oxford and London in 2017-18, this series aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue about the history and nature of war commemoration across time and its cultural, social, psychological and political iterations.

Funded by a British Academy Rising Stars Engagement Award for Alice Kelly

 

The first seminar, Why Remember? War and Memory Today, was held at the Rothermere American Institute on 10 November 2017. You can follow the seminar on Twitter: #whyremember

The second seminar, Lest We Forget? Reconsidering First World War Memory, was held at the Imperial War Museum, London, on 11 December 2017. You can follow the seminar on Twitter: #FWWmemory

The third seminar will be held at St. Peter’s Chapel, Radcliffe Humanities, on 25 May 2018.

 

Twitter: @cultcommwar

 

Contact:
Alice Kelly
alice.kelly@rai.ox.ac.uk

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Cultures and Commemorations of War

 

cultures

Seminar series ‘Cultures and Commemorations of War’ brought together early career researchers and advanced scholars working on the memory of war in a range of disciplines with practitioners, policy makers, charities, and representatives from the media and culture and heritage industries.  Three one-day workshops held in Oxford and London in 2017-18.  The series aimed to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue about the history and nature of war commemoration across time and its cultural, social, psychological and political iterations. 

Why Remember? War and Memory Today (November 2017) 
Keynote speaker: David Rieff 
Speakers: Adrian Gregory, Layla Renshaw, Sara Haslam, Hanna Smyth, Jennifer Iles, Lyndsey Stonebridge, Emma Login, Kevin Waite, James Wallis 

 

Lest We Forget? Reconsidering First World War Memory (December 2017) 
Keynote speakers:  
Paul Cummin, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red; 
Jeremy Deller, We're here because we're here 
Participants: Paul Cornish, Emma Hanna, John Horne, Anna Maguire, Lucy Noakes, Catriona Pennell, Pierre Purseigle, John Horne, Glyn Prysor, Jane Potter, Ross Wilson, Anna Maguire, Lucy Noakes 

 

Cultures and Commemorations of War: An Interdisciplinary Seminar Series (May 2018) one day workshop 
Seminar:  Postgraduate and ECR seminar run by Laura Harrison, Rob Page, and Chris Kempshall 
Panel: on 'Visualising War', with the photographer Jason Larkin discussing his project Past Perfect and the writer Robert Schultz talking about his collaborative project on memory of the American Civil War. 
Keynote:  Marita Sturken is on 9/11 memory, considering the the 9/11 memorial and the Flight 93 memorial comparatively 
Roundtable: Mike Hammond (film historian) 
 
 

Costs of War – Impact, Meaning and Perceptions (April 2018) 

A conference to explore how the costs of war have been defined by policymakers, combatants, and societies, as well as by scholars and commentators. 

Session 1 |Chair:  Guillaume Piketty 
Mary Cox (Oxford), ‘Non‐combatants and the Costs of War: Continuity and Change between the two World Wars’  
Roderick Bailey (Oxford), ‘Cultural Heritage and the Costs of War’  
Mark Harrison (Oxford), ‘Mitigating the costs of war: medicine and conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries’   

 

Session 2 |Chair: Mark Harrison 
Jakob Vogel (Sciences Po), ‘The disputed costs of national conscription. The German Government and the claim for a "Honorary pension" for the veterans of the 1870/71‐war in the Kaiserreich’  
Clément Collard (Sciences Po), ‘The blood money – Evaluating financial, economic, social and moral costs of Great War disabled soldiers (France, 1914‐1930s)’  
Michael Joseph (Oxford), ‘Caribbean Veterans and the Colonial “Welfare State” Between the Wars’ 

 

Session 3 | Chair:  Mario Del Pero 
Nick Stargardt (Oxford), 'The Price of "Sacrifice": German Preoccupations in WW2'  
Guillaume Piketty (Sciences Po), ‘From the 1940 disaster to decolonization: French military through the World War II rolling mill’ 
Camille Mahé (Sciences Po), ‘“A world‐wide catastrophe:” the impact of WWII on French children’ 

 

Session 4 | Chair:  Nicholas Stargardt 
Mario Del Pero (Sciences Po), ‘The Lessons of Bosnia and the Rediscovery of Good and Just Wars’    
Richard Caplan (Oxford), ‘Out of the Ashes: Assessing East Timor’s Reconstruction Needs after the 1999 Crisis’ 5.00‐5.30  

 

Plenary Discussion | Chair: Peter H. Wilson 

 

CultCommWar Workshop Four: American Wars, American Memory (November 2018) 
A one-day interdisciplinary workshop considering the distinctively American practices and politics of war. 
Keynote speaker:  Sarah Wagner, who discussed will her book Bringing Them Home: The Identification and Commemoration of Vietnam War MIAs. 
Participants: John Horne, Layla Renshaw, Sam Edwards, Jan Tattenberg, Kristin O’Donnell and Robert Cook. 

 

Workshop Five - Drawing Wars: Art and Cultural Memory (May 2018) 

The event featured a keynote conversation with the world-famous graphic novelist Joe Sacco (Palestine, Safe Area Goražde, The Fixer, Footnotes in Gaza, Journalism), as well as talks by the Yemeni street artist Murad Subay, Bram Ttwheam, Monica Bohm-Duchen, Steve Dixon, Johnny Magee and Tony Crowley.  

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