Sharing War Memories – From the Military to the Civilian
24, 25 & 26 June 2020 (Le Mans University, France)
War narratives are subject to emphases, orientations and points of view
that give a particular flavour to wars fought by populations (anonymously,
individually and/or hidden in an organisation, secret or not) and by the
military (from high command to the ‘unknown soldier’). Such accounts evolve
with the benefit of hindsight, the writing of history textbooks and the
constant (re)interpretations of archives (new or not) and the official version
a country wishes to put forward according to its political agendas and visions
of patriotism, citizenship and human rights, or its diplomatic or international
policy objectives. The narratives of wars vary with the context and the need
for men and women to express their inner feelings when faced with the torments
and human atrocities of war; they also reflect the place of individuals within
a group and the implications of group cohesion within the larger community.
Civilians’ knowledge of the war effort and the involvement of the
military is informed by two types of documents: primary sources (letters,
emails, photographs, videos, testimonies, trench gazettes, blogs, etc.) provide
direct information about the war experienced at an individual level, whereas
secondary sources mediate these artefacts by incorporating them into another
narrative.
The artefacts of war become the original materials which museums and
memorials turn into places of memory, while feature films provide a less direct
approach as they often (re)mediate the original accounts of first-hand
witnesses through documentary, ethno-fiction, docudrama or more generally
through fiction. These documents show a possible encounter between the military
and civilian spheres, especially when the two are separated either in time or
space.
Civilians learn about past and distant wars through the narratives built
on them and through the images produced either by the military themselves, by
news reporters embedded with them or following in their footsteps, or by
historians. Journalistic records often frame the understanding of war by
shining light on events hidden from the public gaze, by illuminating the
conflicts or the complicity between civilian witnesses and members of the
military. Whether intended to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the indigenous
populations or to denigrate the enemy by reductive stereotyping, military strategies
condition how armed forces regard the ‘Other’. Humanitarian groups approach war
with a different goal in mind; their representations of war emphasize the
dangers for civilian populations trapped by an ongoing conflict and reintroduce
human concerns where war technology erases them. The case of civilian hostages
is of particular relevance in this context.
This conference aims to explore zones of contact between the military
and the civilian worlds – be they real or virtual. Zones of contact extend beyond
the battlefields to civilian areas, where the enemy is sometimes conflated with
undeclared combatants (especially in the age of terrorism). Soldiers may also
find respite in the civilian life that wars disrupt but cannot completely
annihilate. The contacts between the military and the civilians are often
channeled by professional relationships. Doctors, nurses, drivers, journalists,
artists… provide a link between two worlds that outsourcing has brought closer
together in the contemporary era.
Both volunteers and conscripts undergo a change of status when they join
the armed forces. The transition from the civilian to the military world may be
a life-changing event, but it may also become part and parcel of one’s daily
rhythm as war can increasingly be pursued without even leaving the home country
(for example, with the development of drone technology). How do the military
manage to attract civilians into donning the uniform? How do the veterans
reintegrate into civilian life and overcome the trauma of waging war,
especially when serious injury makes them unfit for further service.
The study of the relationships between the civilian and the military
implies research into the artefacts of war, conveying the perception of combat
by the military themselves or by the civilians observing them. This
relationship is founded on a variety of objects aiming at boosting admiration
for war heroes or condemnation of war criminals.
Reality turns into fiction as it becomes a political or romanticized
narrative in film and on television, in literature and in the arts – and this
transformation illuminates the civilians’ perception of war as well as
soldiers’ perception of themselves.
In 2020, to mark the tenth year anniversary of the active and fruitful
collaboration on the theme of war memories, our research groups - ACE (Rennes),
the Royal Military College of Canada (Kingston, Ontario) and 3L.AM (Le Mans) –
would like to offer researchers and members of civil society the opportunity to
participate in workshop discussions on the subject of sexual violence and abuse
perpetuated as a weapon of war, and on the fate of children in wartime, in
addition to the themes in the non-exhaustive list given below.
Other possible workshops:
- Remembering, transmitting war (commemorations, textbooks (paper or e-learning), museums…) and narrating war (children’s literature, graphic novels, essays, short stories, drama, poetry…)
- Drawing, photographing or filming war (documentaries, docu-fictions, ethno-fiction)
- Medialization of war (news bulletins, news reports, blogs, social media, websites…)
- War and the human dimension: testimonies of trauma and the management of emotions (from military to civilian points of view)
- Childhood in wartime: mobilization of children in armed conflicts; staging children characters in, fictional and non-fictional, war narratives; writing or representing war for a young public
- Women civilians and the military in war; women as war weapons and victims
A vibrant homage will be delivered to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr.
Denis Mukewege and his fights in Democratic Republic of the Congo
Submission deadline: 20th January 2020
All submissions will be considered after the deadline of 20th January
2020.
Please send your abstract (350 words) and biography (200 words) directly
to the conference website. You will need to create an account in the Submission
section before filling up the fields required and uploading your document (see
information on the conference website).
We will not be able to give you any news concerning the acceptance of
your work before 20th January 2020.
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