Call for papers
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European conference in First World War Studies
In September 2001, an international conference on the First World War will be held at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Lyon. Its aim is to bring together an international group of scholars working in this area who are at the beginning of their careers.
The enclosed call for papers outlines a series of themes through which we intend to group our speakers. It is hoped that the breadth of these themes will enable researchers working on a wide range of topics to come together to discuss their particular research within the context of the extensive historiography of the First World War. To facilitate this the format of the conference will combine the usual opportunity for specific questions after each paper with a more widely ranging discussion of each theme chaired by a leading historian in that field. We would be most grateful if you could forward a copy of our call for papers to any postgraduate or postdoctoral researchers who might be interested insuch a conference.
Organized by the C.E.R.P, Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Lyon, the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King's College, London, with the support of the Historial de la Grande Guerre, Peronne.
The re-kindling of annual commemorations of the First World War in particular, and the upsurge in memorialisation in general, are demonstrative of renewed interest in 1914-18. This renewal is mirrored in the vitality of academic activity in this area. This is illustrated both by the large increase in publications, and by shifts in methodology and areas of study. Indeed, Pierre Nora has suggested that the Great War has undergone the kind of reappraisal applied to the French Revolution a decade ago.
Nowhere have these shifts been better illustrated than in the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Peronne in France. It epitomises what could be dubbed the second upheaval of the Great War: the academic upheaval which has meant that isolated study of the military, cultural, social or economic facets of the war is no longer possible.
Amidst such reappraisals, how are the newest scholars responding? This conference aims to bring together an international group of young scholars - postgraduate and postdoctoral - who work on the Great War in order to assess the influence of these historiographical shifts upon our work, to foster international collaboration and comparative history, to share our preliminary or more polished findings, and to scrutinise our works in progress in a broader context.
This conference, to be held at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Lyon on the 7th and 8th September 2001, will address the following themes in four consecutive sessions:
1- Waging war:
To what extent have cultural and military historians truly colonized each other's areas as the epigraph to the Cambridge University Press series "Studies in the social and cultural history of modern warfare" suggests? Can the social history of war be studied without a thorough engagement with events at the front or vice versa? Does the recent and provocative Niall Ferguson's Pity of War point to an original and proper way to combine military, economic, diplomatic, political and cultural history?
2- Communities at war:
>From the individual to the state, how did the different levels of social organisation deal with the conflict and its consequences? What kind of solidarities, discrimination & mobilisation processes were at work in 1914-18? What relationship was established between military and civilian needs? Can new light be shed in this way upon the economic and political life of the belligerent societies?
3- The First World War and the intimate:
The "totalizing logic" of the Great War meant that it pervaded the most intimate spheres of the belligerent societies. How did the conflict impinge on sexual morality and gender relationships, on individuals and families? >From shellshock to home front anxieties and mourning process, how were the variegated sufferings faced? How did contemporary medical science and practices cope with the war?
4- Intellectual responses to the war:
What kind of artistic, literary & scholarly responses did the war provoke? Where did the dividing line run through these different responses? What should be deemed as paramount: degree and qualities of participation in the war effort, nationality, or intellectual generation?
We welcome proposals germane to any of these topics as well as related to any geographical areas affected by the First World War. The official languages of the conference will be English and French. Abstracts of no more than 350 words and a short CV should be submitted by 15 February, 2001 to either: Dr Jenny Macleod, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King's College London, 28 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DS, UK <jennymacleod@hotmail.com>(in English)
or
Pierre Purseigle, Universite Toulouse Le Mirail, Departement d'Histoire, 5 allees Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 1, France <purseig@univ-tlse2.fr> (in French)
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