Varieties of Experience: Views of the Two World Wars / Regards croisés sur
les deux guerres mondiales

A workshop conference at the University of Caen, France, 29-30 November 2007

The study of narratives and representations of the two World Wars has long
been a subject of considerable scholarly interest. Experience acquired over
a number of conferences and seminars in Caen and elsewhere leads us to
believe that a number of colleagues would welcome an extension of existing
multi-disciplinary approaches to the subject as well as contributions on
those areas of experience and theatres of war that are, perhaps, less often
discussed in a Western European academic context.

We propose to widen the debate by

Formalizing comparative exchanges on World War 1 and World War 2
in subject areas such as propaganda, photography, art, poetry,
fiction, journalism, life-writing, women's experience, the home
front, colonial involvement etc. There is also much to be done in
the comparative study of the work of individuals who were
actors/witnesses of both wars.
Inviting wider comparisons in these areas by encouraging
contributions from scholars working on the two Wars in theatres
other than Northern France and Belgium and on perspectives brought
to the Wars not only by Francophone and English-speaking writers
and artists, but also by those of other cultures and nations
involved in the conflicts. We would, for example, welcome the
contributions of specialists working on the Far East, the Middle
East, North Africa, the Balkans and Eastern and Southern Europe.
* Considering the manner in which belligerent and neutral
governments presented the Wars. We would like to examine the
public's reaction to these presentations, the motivations of the
people who give their lives to the cause of war and the way in
which periods of tremendous human sacrifice are related after the
conflict.

We take this workshop conference to be an opportunity to promote exchanges
between scholars with a view to initiating research partnerships. It is
intended to pursue the work of this meeting in a series of annual
conferences and seminars on the comparative study of various aspects of the
two World Wars and, indeed, in the long term, of other wars of the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries.

Peer review publication of the papers presented at the November 2007
workshop conference is anticipated.

Further information is available from the organizers to whom proposals
should be sent by 30 April 2007.

Organizing committee:

Claire Bowen bowenclaireaol.com

Renée Dickason Renee.Dickasonwanadoo.fr

Jennifer Kilgore jennifer.kilgoreunicaen.fr