Conflict, Healing, and the Arts in the Long Nineteenth Century

27 mai 2017, Durham

Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies
Durham University, UK          
CFP Deadline: 31 January 2017
Conference Website
Keynote Address: John Morgan O'Connell (Cardiff University)

Call for Papers

The ‘long nineteenth century'—from Hobsbawm's ‘Age of Revolution' beginning in 1774, through the ‘Age of Empire' and end of the First World War in 1918—witnessed a multitude of military conflicts and wars that shaped and reshaped identities, communities, nations, and empires. While individuals' and nations' artistic responses to these wars have been well documented by those working in art history, musicology, ethnomusicology, and literature, such work tends to operate exclusive of each other. Often it focuses on the specifics of artistic activities and outputs of individuals and groups rather than seeking out theoretical principles by which to conceptualise artistic practices, responses, and discourses during war. As this conference seeks to explore, healing is one such conceptual model for arts and conflict which can bridge regional and disciplinary foci within the arts and humanities, while simultaneously engaging with medical humanities, social science, and the history of medicine.

This conference will investigate the ways in which the arts—materially, sonically, and aesthetically—promoted, transformed, and negated experiences of healing for soldiers, civilians, and communities between 1774 and 1918 across European Empires, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. We consider ‘healing' in terms of both the physical and psychological, occurring at personal and inter- and intra-cultural levels. Participants from a range of disciplinary perspectives are welcome.

For suggested topics and abstract submission information, please see the conference website (above) or send inquiries to michelle.meinhart -at- durham.ac.uk.

This conference is supported by Durham University's Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, Centre for Medical Humanities, and Centre for Death and Life Studies, along with the US-UK Fulbright Commission.

University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS: 20 January 2017