Funded by a British Academy Rising Stars Engagement Award

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.

The first workshop on Friday 10 November seeks to assess the current field of war and memory studies and consider the impact of recent centenary commemorations, such as the ongoing First World War commemorations and the removal of confederate statues across the US. The morning workshop is led by ECRs and will include discussion of readings circulated a week before the event. To give you an indication of some of the things we might be talking about, here’s a short public history piece from Kevin Waite, one of the speakers, on why we should put Confederate statues into a museum: theconversation.com/a-museum-of-confederate-statues-could-help-end-the-american-civil-war-82934

It would be great to have some undergraduate and postgraduate historians involved in that session, as well as in the afternoon session. The keynote speaker in the afternoon is David Rieff, author, journalist and Susan Sontag’s son.

Registration is free and open to all. Please register here: bit.ly/2ihZd02

10am: Coffee and Registration
10.30-12.30pm: Workshop led by ECRs – Kevin Waite, James Wallis, Emma Login, Alice Kelly
12.30-1.30pm: Lunch
1.30-1.45pm: Opening Remarks for Afternoon Session – Alice Kelly
1.45-3pm: Panel: The Materiality of Remembrance – Jennifer Iles & Layla Renshaw, chaired by Hanna Smyth
3-3.30pm: Coffee
3.30-4.30pm: Keynote – David Rieff, in conversation with Alice Kelly
4.30-5.30pm: Closing Roundtable – Elleke Boehmer, David Rieff, Adrian Gregory, Sara Haslam
5.30pm: Drinks, followed by dinner in college

Any questions, please email: alice.kelly@rai.ox.ac.uk