Methodologies in the Study of War: Trinity College Dublin, 2010/11

The organising committee is pleased to announce its call for papers for the inaugural 2010-11 session of its monthly seminar series - this year to be held on the theme of “Methodologies in the Study of War in the Twentieth Century”.

The seminar series is primarily, although not exclusively, aimed at early-career researchers and aspires to provide an international, interdisciplinary and informal forum in which key aspects and ideas relating to study of warfare can be presented, analysed and discussed. This year, the main focus is on the theme of parallel and conflicting thematic and methodological approaches to the study of war in the 20th century. These, for example, include social, economic, political, cultural and military discourses.

Seminars in the series will be held in the opening weeks of every month (October 2010 – May 2011) and will take the form of eight two-hour monthly seminars in which two accepted candidates will present 20 minute papers on the following sub-topics:

Autumn Session:

1. Expectations and Experience.

2. Communities: Cohesion and Disintegration.
3. Violence: Legitimacy and Illegitimacy.

Spring Session:
4. Organisation: Chaos and Control.
5. Everyday Life: Continuity and Disjuncture.
6. Belligerency and Neutrality.
7. Victory and Defeat.
8. Remembrance and Amnesia.

After the first 40 minutes of presentations of pre-circulated papers, the remaining time will be dedicated solely to informal debate and discussion between speakers and audiences and will aim to bring together different approaches to the study of conflict in the century in order to create new dialogues between students and researchers of different subject areas and fields. While the main focus of the series will be on the First World War, papers dealing with other twentieth century conflicts are welcomed.