Online conference, hosted by Durham University 12-16 July 2021 . The tendency of the modern state is to wipe out the freedom of the intellect, and yet at the same time every state, especially under the pressure of war, finds itself more and more in need of an intelligentsia to do its publicity for it. George Orwell, ‘Poetry and the Microphone’ (1943) Writing in 1943, George Orwell reflected upon the challenges posed for both governments and intelligentsia by the rapid growth in wartime propaganda production. If the British government had begun the war ‘with the more or less openly declared intention of keeping the literary intelligentsia out of it […] after three years…

19th-20th July 2021 Hosted by the IWM Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict and the Cardiff University AHRC funded project ‘Strange Meetings: Enemy Encounters 1800-2020’, this event seeks to explore views of enmity and allegiance in modern warfare. The conference focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries but we also welcome pro-posals relating to the nineteenth century which look forward to that era. We are interested in a broad, interdisciplinary range of approaches to experiences and representations of the enemy, with a particular focus on how the ‘other’ side is presented in museums, in first person writings, journalism, literature, art, performance, film and photography.  While the 1914…

**Image: Czech policeman, Matren Ondraçka, trains new Liberian National Police (LNP) recruits in riot control as part of the United Nations Civilian Police (CIVPOL) restructuring plan. Monrovia. Liberia. May 2004. © IWM (DC 64131 The first event for the AHRC-funded ‘Tim Hetherington collection and conflict imagery network’ take places on: Date: 22 April 2021Time: 3-5pm (UK time (BST))Price: FreeLocation: Teams/Zoom (link will be sent to those who register via Eventbrite) Eventbrite link The Tim Hetherington collection is based at the Imperial War Museum, and this AHRC-funded research network aims to explore Hetherington’s approach to recording conflict and to examine his legacy in the broader historical context of conflict imagery. For our first…

An online workshop for early career researchers   Friday 18th June 2021  The Journal for War and Culture Studies has been at the forefront of the cultural turn in war studies from its first issue in 2008. Since then it has expanded beyond its original base in Modern Languages and twentieth-century European Studies to become truly global and to encompass research from the late eighteenth century to the present day from both the Arts and Humanities and the Social Sciences.   Throughout this time it has taken great pride in being a forum in which both established and new voices are heard. To continue this work, it will be hosting an online workshop to discuss…