War and Portrayal: The Expression of the Unbearable in Modern and Contemporary Art - Anthology

Dr. Mor Presiado (Ramat-Gan, Israel)
Dr. Frank Jacob (New York)

The experience of war often creates an unbearable trauma. The trauma of war not only present in direct victims, but in greater society, as a community’s perception of an atrocious event leaves lasting scars upon their group consciousness. The arts are a powerful vehicle for expression, reflection and witness on human experience, including war. Thus, signs of trauma of war are highly visible within the conventional boundaries of visual art, i.e.: paintings, sculptures, sketches, cartoons, graffiti, installations and performances. The creation of art on war enable cathartic processing of trauma and modeling its remembrance. Especially the two World Wars were impacting the creation of numerous individual art works that were able to create a wider perception of its cruelties; and later influencing artists to response on local wars and confrontations. Artists and spectators alike were entering the war experience again through the object itself. We would like to highlight this interrelationship between warfare and modern and contemporary art and therefore ask scholars in history, art history and all related fields to send in proposals that could deal with, but are not limited to, the following topics:

- War, art, and commemoration
- War, art, and therapy
- Soldiers as artists
- War, art and gender
- Terror and art
- The impact of war on art
- War art and portrayal of the enemy
- Art audiences in war time
- Art theory and war
- Artist experiences of and in war

Interest scholars are asked to send a short proposal (around 300 words) and a short CV to Mor Presiado
mor.presiadobiu.ac.il and Frank Jacob fjacobpratt.edu until October 30, 2016.
Final chapters, ranging from 6,500 to 10,000 words and using footnotes (Chicago Manual of Style) will be due by March 31, 2017.