April 30-May 3, 2020
Arlington, VA
Policy By Other Means
The Submission deadline has passed.
Soldiers and Civilians in the Cauldron of War
Society For Military History Conference 2019
Columbus, OH
May 9-12, 2019
Sign up and learn more here.
Convergences: The global south and the global north in the age of great acceleration.
22-26 July, 2019
Florianopolis, Brazil
More info here.
Florianopolis, Brazil, 20–21 July 2019
Conveners: Christof Mauch, Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich
Javier Puente, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Warfare seldom affects humans alone. While inflicting devastating effects on societies, armed conflicts also shape economic, cultural, sociopolitical, and ecological transformations. As violence territorializes, armed conflicts begin to affect the ecologies and livelihoods that once sustained them. Environmental transformation thus emerges as an inextricable correlate of human conflict. With the dawn of the Cold War, the environmental impacts of human conflict unfolded alongside the same geopolitical trends that engulfed the Global South. Decolonizing movements, guerrilla warfare, rural insurrections, and other forms of intrastate conflict developed from within ecologically fragile areas and eco-sensitive zones, including savannahs, valleys, watersheds, islands, mangroves, forests, plateaus, and jungles. Over the years, emerging and consolidated republics such as Ethiopia, Colombia, the DRC, Vietnam, Peru, Liberia, Mexico, Myanmar, the Philippines, Nepal, Uganda, Sri Lanka, and Nigeria, among others, have become gruesome epicenters of armed conflict in sensitive ecosystems and precarious agrarian landscapes.
The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) and the Armed Conflict and Environment Research Network (ACERN) invite paper proposals for a two-day workshop focused on the interaction between guerilla warfare and social and environmental transformations in the Global South, with a special focus on the last three decades. We invite papers on questions that include, but are not limited to, the following:
• How has irregular warfare transformed or conserved environments?
• How has it reconditioned everyday life?
• What impact has it had on livelihoods and food access?
• How were chemical cycles changed through irregular warfare?
Paper proposals (300 words) should be submitted by 15 December 2018 to
<CarsonCenter@lmu.de>.
Upon acceptance, full manuscripts (2000–3000 words) should be submitted by 15 June 2019 for pre-circulation. Successful applicants will receive travel support from the RCC. They will join a group of RCC alumni and ACERN members in Florianopolis, Brazil, on the eve of the Third World Congress of Environmental History (22–26 July 2019).
Second World War Research Group, North America Workshop
Mississippi State University
23-24 September 2018
A workshop organised the Second World War Research Group, North America, in conjunction with the Department of History, Mississippi State University, MSU-Meridian, The National World War II Museum, New Orleans, and the Society for Military History.
Keynote Speaker: Dr Robert Citino
Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian at the National World War II Museum
War is shaped by the environments – physical and human – in which it takes place. At many points during the Second World War, the struggles of armies, navies, and air forces against environmental factors were as fierce as any campaign waged against an enemy. The complexities of the global war provide a rich background for the evaluation of the intersections between the environment and other categories of analysis, such as race, gender, politics, disease, and the changing tactical landscapes of the clash of arms. The Second World War Research Group, North America invites interested scholars, students, and members of the public to attend our workshop and help explore these questions in September 2018.
The keynote address will be given by Robert Citino, award-winning military historian and author of ten books including The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943 (2012), Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 (2007), and The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (2005). In addition to Dr. Citino’s keynote, papers will be presented by distinguished World War II scholars from the United States and Canada. Confirmed speakers include Conrad Crane (US Army Heritage and Education Center), Benjamin Jones (Dakota State), Robert Engen (Royal Military College of Canada), Robert Jefferson (New Mexico), Kristin Mulready-Stone (Naval War College), Philip Rutherford (Marshall), and Katrin Paehler (Illinois State) The workshop is hosted by the Second World War Research Group, North America, in conjunction with the Department of History, Mississippi State University, MSU-Meridian, The National World War II Museum, New Orleans, and the Society for Military History.
Registration Rate: Free. Attendees are still asked to register for the workshop in advance, sending the following information to the listed contact email:
Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
Email Address:
Phone number:
Special Accessibility Requirements:
Contact Information:
Dr. Kathryn Barbier, Professor of History, Mississippi State University
Email: kathryn.barbier@msstate.edu
May 23-25, 2019
The Center for Cross-Cultural Study (Spanish Studies Abroad) in Seville, Spain
Abstract submission deadline: October 1, 2018
Submission info can be found here.
Over millennia, warfare, environmental degradation, and social inequality have brought much suffering to humankind. In an effort to facilitate interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, WESIPS brings together a cadre of internationally recognized scholars to address the underlying causes of warfare, environmental degradation, and social inequality from a host of interdisciplinary and theoretical perspectives. Setting the stage for the cumulation of knowledge, this symposium seeks to uncover effective solutions which foster peace, altruism, cooperation, social equality, and sustainable use of natural resources.
More info here.
July 2-7, 2018
Péronne, Somme, France
APPLICATION DEADLINE IS FEB 15
The Centre International de Recherche de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre in France, in cooperation with several other institutions, invites applications for a summer school for an international group of 20-30 MA and PhD students, on July 2-7. This year’s theme is The Environmental History of the First World War. The languages of the summer school are both French and English. A participant’s French need not be fluent.
More info and registration can be found here.
Oxford, 18 July 2018
Organisers: Anita Klingler, Dr Ismini Pells, Jan Tattenberg, Louis Morris
It is now more than a half-century since ‘new military history’ began to challenge the traditional orthodoxy among historians of war, and successive waves of social and cultural history during the intervening decades have made an indelible impact on the changing face of the subdiscipline. Despite several methodological revolutions, however, many aspects of the field remain little changed. These include the dominant focus on Western theatres of conflict and the twentieth century, the preponderance of male historians on panels and faculty rosters, and the marginal position of history of war within the academy.
This one-day conference aims to bring together diverse representatives of a new generation of researchers, and use their cutting-edge work as a starting point for discussions regarding the future of the history of war as a broad interdisciplinary enterprise. We invite doctoral students and early career researchers, including those working in other fields who have an interdisciplinary connection to the study of war, to submit papers on any aspect of warfare across all periods and places.
Potential themes include, but are not limited to:
• Past and future developments in the historiography of war
• Transnational networks as military actors
• Cultural and artistic depictions of warfare
• War and peace as evolving concepts in political thought
• Comparative global approaches to conflict
• Soldiers as case studies within the history of gender and race
• New approaches to operational military history
The day will conclude with a plenary discussion of the best way to advance the field and to increase the diversity of its approaches and participants.
The conference will be held at All Souls College, Oxford, on Wednesday 18th July 2018, with the generous financial support of the Pembroke College Annual Fund and the Oxford Centre for European History.
Abstracts (maximum 300 words) for papers of 20 minutes should be submitted to the organisers at newvoicesconference2018@gmail.com along with a CV or brief biographical text by 18th June 2018.
We aim to offer travel subsidies for speakers, and full details will be announced with the start of registration on 21st June 2018.
Dear fellow scholars of militaries and the environment,
Over the last two ASEH meetings we have had fruitful panels on disease and the aftermath of World War I, war, nationalism and natural resources (2017), and strategic planning and civil wars between the world wars (2018). Based on these excellent panels, talk has emerged about pulling together a collected volume on the military environmental history of the interwar years, akin to The Long Shadows and the forthcoming multi-author volumes on World War I and on World War II in the United States. At the 2019 conference, it is high time we take the next step towards a volume on the years between the two global wars.
For the conference here in Columbus in 2019, I would like to propose that those of us interested broadly in the interwar years should develop a roundtable or panel that looks broadly at the major themes in interwar military environmental history. From the past panels I have observed three (possibly four) broad themes that we could collectively consider in this session: 1. environmental impacts of demobilization; 2. strategic planning of resources and resilience; 3. environmental preparation/remobilization for World War II (or lack thereof). The fourth potential theme could include civil wars, empires and colonial wars. Such a session would allow us to consider the meaningful impact of the environment in a historiography that has been dominated by a political and economic focus. Given the theme of the conference on “Using Environmental History” a discussion of strategic planning of resources and the lessons this history teaches us seems particularly timely and relevant.
If you are interested in participating in the roundtable, please send me a short email here describing your particular area of interest and how it fits into one or more of the aforementioned themes and I will put together a proposal contingent on sufficient interest.
Jim Harris
Ohio State University
The organizers would like to invite you to consider submitting an abstract in consideration for the 2019 Warfare, Environment, Social Inequality and Pro-Sociability (WESIPS) Biennial Conference to be held at the Center for Cross-Cultural Study in Seville, Spain (see attached conference flier).
This symposium will take place on May 23-25, 2019.
This interdisciplinary conference seeks papers addressing one or more of the following topics: prehistoric/modern warfare, ritual violence, biodiversity, natural resource utilization, past and present cases of environmental degradation/sustainability, egalitarianism, advent of social complexity, social inequality, conflict resolution, and prosocial behavior.
Please note that the deadline for submitting an abstract is October 1, 2018.
To submit an abstract or for more information go to:
http://www.spanishstudies.org/wesips-conference.html
Please note that ALL submitted abstracts will be sent out for anonymous review. Therefore, an invitation to submit an abstract should not be considered as a guarantee of acceptance.
Additionally, participants are expected to make their own travel and lodging arrangements.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.
Looking forward to your participation.
Sincerely,
Richard J. Chacon
Co-organizer of WESIPS 2019
Riverside, CA
March 14-18, 2018
Please join us for the Environment and Military breakfast on Thursday morning.
More info here.
St. Charles, Missouri
May 20-23, 2018
SUBMISSIONS DUE FEB 1
From the Rivers to the Oceans:
Inland Maritime History and the Nexus of Fresh and Salt Water
North America’s many navigable lakes and rivers have played defining roles in the history of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. War, commerce, exploration, recreation, and leisure, all played out over time on their banks and waters. Under the theme “From the Rivers to the Oceans,” the 2018 annual conference of the North American Society of Oceanic History (NASOH) seeks paper and panel proposals that explore the rich history of inland waters and spaces of convergence between fresh and salt waters. The program committee is particularly interested in papers and panels that address questions of freshwater environments, the relationship between inland water-borne commerce and urban growth, the place of rivers and lakes in the inland transportation system of indigenous and colonial peoples, the movement of people, goods, and ideas in the making of the West and other regions, the history of science, exploration, and mapping, the marine archaeology of shipwrecks and inland cultural sights obscured and revealed by dynamic river systems, and the place of war, military, and naval affairs. While the program committee will assign preference to these themes, it will also give full consideration to papers and panels focusing on oceanic environments.
Individual papers are welcome, but full sessions with three papers and a chair are preferred. A complete proposal must include a brief 500-word abstract for each paper and a one-page panel abstract (for complete panels), and a brief bio for each participant, including panel chairs. Graduate students are strongly encouraged to submit proposals. NASOH offers travel stipends to partly defray the cost of graduate student travel. The conference will provide accommodations for PowerPoint presentations, but any other special requirements, including audio-visual equipment, special outlets, or accommodations for disabilities should be noted in the proposal. Scholars interested in chairing sessions are welcome to send a brief bio to the Program Committee. All participants must register for the conference and be members of NASOH in good standing.
Please send paper and panel proposals to NASOH2018 @ gmail . com no later than February 1, 2018.
More info here.
Washington, D. C.
May 4-5. 2018
From Dumbarton Oaks:
Among various human interventions in the landscape, war has left one of the most lasting and eloquent records, literally inscribed in the face of the earth. Military landscapes can assume different forms and functions: vertical, as the Great Wall of China, or horizontal, as the Federal Interstate Highway System; overground and geometrically controlled, as the earthworks of the Renaissance trace italienne, or sunken and disguised by local topography, as the trenches of the First World War. They can be high-security sites, as the Pentagon, or tourist attractions, as Himeji Castle in Japan; curated, as the Gettysburg Battlefield, or neglected, as the outskirts of the Savannah River nuclear reservation site. In their most familiar form, they are national memorials as sites of remembrance and commemoration, which continue to have powerful emotional, political, and cultural resonance as places where historical memory is translated into myth.
This symposium aims to reevaluate the role of war as a fundamental form of human interaction with the land and a decisive factor in the ongoing transformation of the natural environment. What are the challenges and theoretical implications of understanding military infrastructure as a landscape from the disciplinary perspectives of cultural geography, architectural history, and environmental studies? And what is the role of the practice of landscape architecture in shaping, curating, and giving meaning to such landscapes?
Learn more here.
21-25 August 2019
Tallinn, Estonia
Hosting institution: Estonian Centre for Environmental History (KAJAK), University of Tallinn
The Next ESEH Biennial Conference will be held in Tallinn!
To build on the discussions at the 2017 biennial conference in Zagreb, the 2019 Tallinn conference will operate under the notion of “boundaries in/of environmental history”, and will expand the idea of natures in-between to reach out for boundaries between humans and non-humans, environment and technologies, transcorporeality, transboundary agents, planetary boundaries as well as disciplinary boundaries and boundaries of science and arts, activism, popular science, etc. Keep posted for a Call for Papers to be released in 2018! The CfP would include a specific call for inter-area/border-crossing panels to encourage cross-European comparison. We are excited to have Prof. Finn Arne Jørgensen as the head of Programme Committee.
ESEH Tallinn team has committed to an ambitious diversification policy that seeks to encourage different session formats that diversify the ways we transmit knowledge, and promote gender and age balance at our conference. We are also dedicated to seeking low-cost accommodation for participants with limited financial support. If you still cannot make it to Tallinn, don’t worry – we are hoping to live-stream some of the sessions!
See you in Tallinn!
Local organizing committee
Prof. Ulrike Plath (University of Tallinn)
Prof. Karsten Brüggemann (Tallinn University)
Prof. Tiiu Koff (Tallinn University)
Ass. Prof. Linda Kaljundi (Tallinn University)
Dr. Kati Lindström (KTH Royal Institute of Technology/ University of Tartu)
Ass. Prof. Marten Seppel (University of Tartu)
Dr. Erki Tammiksaar (Estonian University of Life Sciences and University of Tartu)
Dr. Kadri Tüür (Tallinn University and University of Tartu)
MA Liisi Jääts (Estonian National Museum)
Presented by World Beyond War
Just following the International Day of Peace, and in the tradition of No War 2016: Real Security Without Terrorism, and the best speech any U.S. president ever gave, this year’s conference will focus on activism, including activist planning workshops, addressing how the antiwar and environmental movements can work together.
We encourage and can help you to hold similar events in other locations, and this event will be livestreamed so that other events can watch it.
WHO: Speakers will include: Gar Smith whose forthcoming book is The War and Environment Reader, and Max Blumenthal, Kevin Zeese, Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, Bruce Gagnon, Peter Kuznick, Ray McGovern, David Swanson, Dale Dewar, Nadine Bloch, Richard Tucker, Pat Elder, Mike Stagg, Natalia Cardona, Lindsay Koshgarian, Suzanne Cole, Eric Teller, Robin Taubenfeld, Alice Day, Lincoln Day, Brian Trautman, Rev Lukata Mjumbe, Anthony Rogers-Wright, Jill Stein, James Marc Leas, Jonathan King, Diane Wilson, Donnal Walter, Tony Jenkins, Medea Benjamin, Will Griffin, Alice Slater, Susi Snyder, Emily Wurth, Elizabeth Murray, Annie Machon, Tim DeChristopher. Read speakers’ bios.
Music by The Irthlingz Duo: Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz, and by Emma’s Revolution, and by Bryan Cahall.
WHERE: American University Katzen Art Center
4400 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016
All events in the Recital Hall. Workshops on Sunday in the Recital Hall, and in Rooms 112, 115, 123, and 128.
WHEN:
Friday, Sept 22: 7-10 p.m.
Saturday, Sept 23: 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Sunday, Sept 24: 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
AGENDA
Friday, Sept 22
7-8 p.m. Conference Opening Plenary: David Swanson, Jill Stein, Tim DeChristopher, plus music by Bryan Cahall.
8-10 p.m. our friends from the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence will present their annual award. Past recipients have included Coleen Rowley, Katharine Gun, Sibel Edmonds, Craig Murray, Sam Provance, Frank Grevil, Larry Wilkerson, Julian Assange, Thomas Drake, Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Fingar, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, William Binney, and John Kiriakou. Presenting this year will be Elizabeth Murray and Annie Machon. Recipient(s) yet to be announced.
Saturday, Sept 23
9-10:15 a.m. Understanding the intersection of pro-environment and anti-war activism, with Richard Tucker, Gar Smith, and Dale Dewar.
10:30-11:45 a.m. Preventing domestic environmental damage of militarism, with Mike Stagg, Pat Elder, James Marc Leas.
11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m. catered lunch by D.C. Vegan
12:45 p.m. – 1 p.m. welcome back music by The Irthlingz Duo: Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz.
1-2:15 p.m. Combining movements globally, with Robin Taubenfeld, Rev Lukata Mjumbe, Emily Wurth.
2:30-3:45 p.m. Financial tradeoffs, budgets, and conversion, with Lindsay Koshgarian, Natalia Cardona, and Bruce Gagnon.
4-5:15 p.m. Divestment from fossil fuels and weapons with Jonathan King, Susi Snyder, and Suzanne Cole.
5:15-6:45 dinner on your own
Here is a map showing restaurants and coffee shops on campus (PDF). There are many more options just up Nebraska Avenue to Wisconsin Avenue and the area of the American University / Tenleytown Metro stop. A shuttlebus makes it easy to get there and back.
6:45-7:30 Music by Emma’s Revolution.
7:30-9:00 Screening of episode 7 of Untold History of the United States, followed by discussion with Peter Kuznick, Ray McGovern, and David Swanson.
Sunday, Sept 24
9-10:15 a.m. Creative activism for the earth and peace, with Nadine Bloch, Bill Moyer, Brian Trautman.
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Breakout workshop strategic planning sessions in Recital Hall, and in Rooms 112, 115, 123, and 128, and possibly outdoors.
Workshop 1: How the Internet Changes Activism with Donnal Walter.
Creating a culture of environmental responsibility, social justice, and peace requires viewing our individual efforts in continuity with the past and in cooperation with each other, all of us. What has greater potential for bringing the planet together than the World Wide Web? How can we as activists use the Web and social media to foster such collaboration? How do we tell a new story? And how do we use the global vision to motivate local action? The Internet is also known to contribute to division and polarization. How do we as activists resist this tendency? Yes, bring your laptop.
Workshop 2: Creative activism with Nadine Bloch and Bill Moyer.
Workshop 3: Educational Approaches to Foster Political Engagement for Peace and Planet, with Tony Jenkins.
How do we move people from concern to engagement and action? This is a fundamental challenge of both the peace and environmental movements. This interactive workshop – intended for both educators and activists – will introduce practical, formal, and non-formal transformative educational theories, strategies and approaches intended to foster active social and political engagement.
Workshop 4: Don’t Bank on the Bomb: Divestment Campaign from Corporations Involved in the Manufacture and Maintenance of Nuclear Weapons, with Jonathan King, Alice Slater, Susi Snyder, Suzanne Cole, and Eric Teller.
These campaigns, which can be carried out by a small group, educate the public to the profits that are one of the driving forces for the continuation of nuclear weapons programs, and offers the possibility of bringing economic pressure in support of nuclear disarmament. The “Don’t Bank on the Bomb” campaign was developed in the Netherlands and operates throughout Europe.There the focus is on requesting investment funds to exclude corporations making nuclear weapons from their portfolios. Since the launch of that Campaign, 122 nations with a mandate from the UN General Assembly voted for a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons which bans them and outlaws any prohibited activities related to nuclear weapons, including use, threat to use, development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquiring, possession, stockpiling, transferring, receiving, stationing, installation, and deployment. In the U.S. the nuclear weapons corporations are a much more significant component of the economy.The first successful campaign in the US was requesting the Cambridge City Council to ask its Municipal Pension Fund to divest from such corporations, in particular Lockheed-Martin. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has adapted a supportive resolution. Such campaigns can be directed at Pension Funds, College and University endowments, Church holdings, and related investments. The Future of Life Institute is leading the effort to make it easy for individuals to move their retirement and other personal investments out of funds that includes nuclear weapons manufacture in their portfolio.
Workshop 5: Closing Military Bases with Medea Benjamin, Will Griffin.
The U.S. has 800 bases around the planet. These bases are provocations to the rest of the world. With so many bases the Department of Defense should be called the Department of Offense. U.S. military bases don’t just provoke other militaries, but they also displace entire communities, break democratic systems, violate human rights, destroy their environments, and so much more. But in response to these bases, struggles around the world have risen up and are fighting back against US imperialism. These are the struggles we can learn about and support to create an international citizens movement to close all foreign bases.
12-1 p.m. catered lunch by D.C. Vegan
1-2 p.m. Reporting back and discussion in Recital Hall
2:15-3:30 p.m. Halting the environmental damage of distant U.S. wars, with Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, Max Blumenthal.
3:45-5:00 p.m. Building a Joint Peacenvironmentalist / Envirantiwar Movement, with Kevin Zeese, Anthony Rogers-Wright, Diane Wilson.
5:00-6:30 p.m. dinner on your own
Here is a map showing restaurants and coffee shops on campus (PDF). There are many more options just up Nebraska Avenue to Wisconsin Avenue and the area of the American University / Tenleytown Metro stop. A shuttlebus makes it easy to get there and back.
6:30-7:15 Music by The Irthlingz Duo: Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz.
7:15-9:00 p.m. Film screening and discussion: Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives: The Environmental Footprint of War, with Alice Day and Lincoln Day.
ASEH Conference – 2017 – Sessions on War and Environment
Conference info here
Thursday, March 30
8:30 to 10:00: The Cold War, the American West, and the Environment
A Comparative Analysis of the Environmental Effects of Cold War: Uranium Mining in Grants, New Mexico. Robynne Mellor, Georgetown University
Incident at Galisteo: The 1955 Teapot Series and the Mental Landscape of Contamination. Leisl Carr Childers, University of Northern Iowa
A Military-Industrial Cleanup: The End of the Cold War and the Remediation of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Curtis Foxley, University of Oklahoma
Chair: Richard Tucker, University of Michigan
10:30 to 12:00: The Struggle for Survival: War, Nationalism, and Natural Resources
Germany’s ‘Wooden Walls’: Timber as a Strategic Raw Material during the First World War. Jeffrey K. Wilson, California State University, Sacramento
Global Trading Giant or “Have-Not” Country? Natural and National Resource Anxieties in 1930s Japan. Eric Dinmore, Hampden-Sydney College
Serving His Nation: Carl Schenck, the Timber Trade, and German Remilitarization, 1918-1945. Scott Moranda, SUNY Cortland
A Member of the Food Chain: Primary Productivity from the Third Reich to the International Biological Program, 1930- 1974. Adam Lawrence, University of California, Los Angeles
Chair: Richard Tucker, University of Michigan
3:30 – 5:00: Strategic Nature: World War II and the Mobilization of the American Environment (Roundtable)
Kellen Backer, Syracuse University; Jean A. Mansavage, U.S. Air Force Historical Studies Office; Kent Curtis, Ohio State University; Ryan Edgington, Independent Scholar; Chris Rein, U.S. Army, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Moderator: Tom Robertson, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Friday, March 31
8:30 – 10:00: Drained, Dumped, and Despoiled: War and Peace in the Great Lakes of Europe
The “Peaceful Conquest” of Kopaïda. David Idol, University of California, San Diego
Dumped Munitions in Swiss Lakes – A Historical Perspective on Military Waste Management. Elodie Charrière, Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, and Rémi Baudouï, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Geneva School of Social Sciences, University of Geneva
The European Great Lakes: A Divided History. Simo Laakkonen, University of Turku
Chair: Sarah R. Hamilton, Auburn University
Saturday, April 1
8:30 – 10:00: Incidental Landscapes of War: Military Manipulation, Commodification, and Utilization of Nature
“To leave delightful fields for barren wilderness”: Ordering Wilderness Landscapes during the American Revolution. Daniel S. Soucier, University of Maine
Ecological Imperialism in a European Context: The Incidental Landscapes of War in Napoleonic Italy. Joseph Horan, Colorado School of Mines
Growing Patriots: Victory Gardens, Children, and Civic Identity in World War II. Anastasia Day, University of Delaware
Chair: Lisa Brady, Boise State University
10:30 – 12:00: Disease and the Transition from War to Peace in Europe, 1918-1923
Environment, Disease, and Red Army Triumph: from Civil War to NEP, 1918-1921. John P Davis, Kentucky Community and Technical College System/Hopkinsville Community College
Fighting War, Fighting Flu: The British Battle with Pandemic Influenza during and after the First World War. James Harris, Ohio State University
‘Postwar’ Relief to Wartime Poland: The ARAEFC and Poland’s Battle Against TB, 1919-1923. Paul Niebrzydowski, Ohio State University
Chair: Richard Tucker, University of Michigan
Commentator: Colin Duncan, Queens College
2017 conference – Chicago
Winds of Change: Global Connections across Space, Time, and Nature
Dates: March 29 – April 2, 2017
Location: Drake Hotel, downtown Chicago (Magnificent Mile)
Host: University of Illinois-Chicago
More info here.
We are looking for contributors to a panel for ASEH 2017 on war (or geopoltical conflict more broadly), nationalism, and the international trade of natural resources. In particular, we are interested in conflicts between national interests, resource conservation, and liberal trade regimes. How do nationalists mobilize notions of the natural or the organic in their conceptualizations of national or international economies? How do they draw on ideas of Darwinian resource competition or national survival in discussions of mining, logging, or agriculture? Jeff Wilson plans on contributing a paper on World War One, Germany, and timber supplies. Scott Moranda aims to contribute a paper on forester Carl Schenck and Germany’s engagement with the international timber trade in the Weimar and Nazi periods.
UPDATE: The submission deadline has passed. Thank you for all of your submissions.
“The Nature of War: American Environments and World War II”
Workshop at Ohio State University, February 25-27, 2016
“Smoke ‘Em if You’ve Got ‘Em: Environmental, Agricultural, and Industrial Implications of
Cigarette Consumption during World War II,”
Joel R. Bius, Air Command and Staff College, Alabama joel.bius@us.af.mil
“Fueling the ‘American Century’: Establishing the U.S. Petroleum Imperative during the WWII
Brian Black, Penn State University, Altoona bca4@psu.edu
“On Nuclear Landscapes and Nuclear Science“
Kate Brown, University of Maryland, Baltimore kbrown@umbc.edu
“Alloys and Allies: World War II, Mineral Scarcity and Post-war Foreign Policy”
Kent (Kip) Curtis, Ohio State University, Mansfield kip.curtis@bmail.com
“Growing Factories: Employee Victory Gardening Programs in World War II”
Anastasia Day, University of Delaware anastasiaday@me.com
“The Nature and Business of War: Drilling for Oil in Wartime Los Angeles”
Sarah Elkind, San Diego State University selkind@mail.sdsu.edu
“The Biologists’ War: Biological Warfare and the Limits of Environment Annihilation during
World War II”
Gerard J. Fitzgerald, George Mason University gfitzge@gmu.edu
“’Germicidal Gold Rush’: The Invention, Promotion and Legacy of Hexachlorophene in American
Hygiene Products”
Martha Gardner, MCPHS University, Boston MA martha.gardner@mcphs.edu
“For Land’s Sake: Acquiring and Using Property for National Defense during World War II”
Jean A. Mansavage, U.S. Air Force History Office, Washington D.C. mansavag@rcn.com
“Protecting the Shoreline: Marine Woodborers, Coastal Landscapes, and Shifting Baselines,
1920 – 1960”
Derek Lee Nelson, University of New Hampshire dekesn@gmail.com
“Total War and the Total Environment: World War II and American Conservationists”
Thomas Robertson, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester MA tbr@wpi.edu
“Soldiers of the Soil: Labor, Nature, and American during World War II”
Kendra Smith-Howard, SUNY-Albany ksmith-howard@albany.edu
“Automobiles, Trucks, and Planes: World War II, American Transportation, and the
Environment”
Christopher Wells and Thomas Robertson. Christopher Wells, Macalester College MN
wells@macalester.edu
World War I and the Environment: Global Resource Allocation, Militarization, and the Nature of Raw Materials
Ottawa, April 14 – 17, 2016
*** UPDATE ***
Friday, April 15, 10:30 – 12:00
Roundtable: THE “NEW” MILITARY HISTORY: INTERSECTIONS WITH THE HISTORY OF THE ENVIRONMENT, GENDER, AND RACE
Chair: James Grossman, Executive Director, American Historical Association
Beth Bailey, University of Kansas
Lisa M. Brady, Boise State University
Jennifer Mittelstadt, Rutgers University
Commentator: Jeffrey Grey, President, Society for Military History/University of New South Wales Canberra
***
Harvest for War:
Fruits, Nuts, Imperialism and Gas Mask Manufacture in the United States During World War I
Gerard J. Fitzgerald (George Mason University)
Wood Goes to War:
World War I and American Lumber and Lumber Policies
James Lewis (Forest History Society)
World War I and the Transformation of the Fossil Fuels Economy
Richard Tucker (University of Michigan)
–
For more information visit the conference site here.
At the annual conference of the American Society for Environmental History, in Seattle on March 30 – April 3, our annual War and Environment breakfast will be on Friday morning. Everyone is welcome to participate, to meet colleagues and join a brief discussion of our network.
The conference program includes three sessions on war and environment:
War and Environmental History (Friday, 8:30 a.m.)
Chair: Gabriella Petrick (University of New Haven)
Presenters: Michael O’Hagan (Western University): “In the Midst of the Canadian Bush”: German Prisoners of War in Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park
Sean Halverson (San Joaquin Delta College): Conquering an Unforgiving Countryside: How America’s Environment Shaped Confining Prisoners of War in the American Revolution
Gerard J. Fitzgerald (George Mason University): Harvest for War: Fruits, Nuts, Imperialism, and Gas Mask Production in the United States During World War I
Saturday, April 2 10:30 am – 12:00 noon — Two sessions:
State, Rebels, and Nature: War and the Environment from a Chinese Perspective
Chair: Tait Keller (Rhodes College)
Presenters: Brian Lander (Harvard University): Warfare, Resource Mobilization and State Formation in Qin, 481-208 BCE
Jack Hayes (Kwantlen Polytechnic University and University of British Columbia): Walls, Bootprints, Ashes, and Floods in the Landscape: Environmental Effects of Banditry, Small Scale Conflict(s), and Insurgencies in China’s Military Environmental History, 1720s-1931
Yan Gao (University of Memphis): Corridors of War: Waterway Transportation during the Taiping Era
Environmental Impacts of World War II in the Pacific Northwest
Moderator: Richard Tucker (University of Michigan)
Presenters: Katherine Macica (Loyola University Chicago)
Paul Hirt (Arizona State University)
William L. Lang (Portland State University)
Joseph E. Taylor (Simon Fraser University)
Tina Adcock (Simon Fraser University)
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For more information and to register for the conference, visit the ASEH site here.
The next biennial ESEH meeting will be held June 28 – July 2, 2017 in Zagreb, Croatia.
UPDATE: Submission deadline passed. Thank you for your submissions.
The theme will be “Contact/Conflict Environments – Environments in areas of contact among states, economic systems, cultures and religions”. Because of unusual shape of Croatia’s territory and because of its historical development as a contact or conflict area of different worlds – Christianity and Islam, maritime and continental tradition to name a few – Croatia is a great place to study contact environments. Different cultures and different economies have different ways of using the environment and its resources. Such heterogeneity can be seen in present and past landscapes. Croatia is also a prime example of a conflict environment due to its characteristic of a “border-country”: due to historical circumstances and conflicts of major European powers during the last 500 years, it is shaped as a crescent and there is no place within Croatia that is located more than 70 km from an international border. Borders between different cultural groups and historical political entities have created visible marks in the landscape, including in urban and peri-urban areas. Excursions planned for the conference will highlight zones and places of contact and/or conflict.
For more information on the conference or to submit proposals, go to the Conference Website.
Dates: 10-12 September 2015
Location: Trento and Padova, Italy
Sponsor: International Society for First World War Studies
See: H-net, 4 September 2014
Program: Not yet announced, as of January 2015
Dates: 29-30 May, 2015
Location: German Historical Institute, Washington, D. C.
Convenors: Astrid Mignon Kirchhof (Georgetown U. and German Historical Institute) and John McNeill (Georgetown U.)
Information: ak1353@georgetown.edu
Dates: 29-30 May, 2015
Location: Center for Cross-Cultural Study, Seville, Spain
Information: Prof. Richard J. Chacon, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC 29733. chaconr@winthrop.edu
Date: 1 May, 2015
CUNY Graduate Center, New York City
The program includes: Roy MacLeod, “Geography, Geology and Strategy: Scientific Goals and Military Operations, 1914-1918”; Martin G. Clemis, “The Geography of the Second Indochina War: Irregular War, the Environment, and the Struggle for South Vietnam”; Swen Steinberg, “Mountains and Woods in Two Wars: Forestry and Mining Science in Germany and the US between National Military Utilization and the Development of a Global Knowledge on Resources (1914-1918/ 1939- 1945)”; and Richard Tucker, “Mass Conflict, Refugee Movements, and Environmental Dislocation.”
The biennial conference of the European Society for Environmental History will be in Versailles on 30 June – 3 July. It will include panels on the environmental history of the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, as well as other sessions on war and environment that will be announced shortly. The call for papers and sessions is already closed, but posters can be submitted until February 20th. Early registration ends on March 31st. Watch for further news of the program and field trips here
The annual conference of the American Society for Environmental History will be in Washington, D.C. on 18-21 March. Early registration will end on February 28th, so be sure to sign up soon.
We will hold our annual War and Environment breakfast on Thursday morning the 19th at 7:15, to discuss our network’s activities and pursue networking. Following the breakfast, at 8:30 that morning, there is a panel on “Empire, Revolution and Local Governance: Military-Environmental Convergence.” On Sunday there will be a field trip to Antietam National Battlefield and Harpers Ferry led by Lisa Brady, Tim Silver and Gerry Fitzgerald. To register for the breakfast and/or the field trip, Find more information at the conference website here.
The Global Environmental Dimensions of World War I
Roundtable for American Society for Environmental History Conference, March 12-16, 2014
Joseph Hupy, “The Battle of Verdun: The Legacy a Century Later”
Tait Keller, “Nature and War on the Frontiers of Empires, 1914-1918”
Thaddeus Sunseri, “Environmental Dimensions of World War I in Africa”
Jack Hayes, “Ecosystems and World War I in East Asia”
Environmental Dimensions of World War I
Panel at Society for Military History, April 5, 2014
Tait Keller, “The Global Reach of the Great War: An Environmental Approach”
Byron Pearson, “An Organization of Splendid Efficiency: The Incredible Accomplishments of the
Engineers during World War I”
Gerard J. Fitzgerald, “The Chemists’ War: Medical and Environmental Consequences of Chemical
Warfare during World War I”
World War I and the Environment: Extracting Global Natural Resources
Panel for World Conference on Environmental History, July 7-11, 2014
Tait Keller, “A Baneful Harvest: Agriculture and the Arming of Nations in the First World
Richard Tucker “Caffeine, the Indispensable Stimulant: Tea and Coffee Production for
Dan Tamïr, “Enter Petroleum: The War and the Debut of Oil on the Global Stage”
Discussant: Roger Chickering
Environmental History and World War I
Rachel Carson Center Workshop, Washington, D.C., August 4-5, 2014
First panel: Extracting Global Natural Resources
Roy MacLeod: “The ‘Minerals Sanction’: The Great War and the Conservation and Use of
Dan Tamir: “Something New under the Fog of War: World War I and the Debut of Oil on the
Jack Hayes: “World War I Environments, Military Actions, and Resource Management in East
Tait Keller: “Extracting the Energy of Empires”
Second panel: Agro-ecosystems, Food Supplies and Animals
Alice Weinreb: “Beans are Bullets, Potatoes are Powder: Food as a Weapon of War during the
Ernst Langthaler: “Dissolution before Dissolution: Agro-Food Chains in Austro-Hungary in the
Ingo Heidbrink: “World War I: The Unexpected Stimulus for the Beginning of Global Over-
Gene Tempest: “Horses Have No Country: American Equines and the Global Military
Marketplace, 1899-1917”
Third panel: The Middle East – Ecosystems, Resources, Refugees, and Famine
Maria Six-Hohenbalken: “Upper Mesopotamia during World War I: Humanitarian Catastrophes
and Commercial Intentions – Sources from Austrian Archives”
Steven Serels: “Starving for Someone Else’s Fight: The First World War and Famine in the Red
Zachary Foster: “Why are Famines so Deadly in the Modern Period? Syria during World War I”
Graham Pitts: “The Famine of World War I and the Creation of Lebanon”
Fourth panel: Additional Dimensions
James Lewis: “Foresters at War: World War I and the Transformation of American Timber
Anna-Katharina Wőbse: “Disruption and Recommencement: International Conservation
Networks and World War I”
Gerard Fitzgerald: “The Chemist’s War: Edgewood Arsenal, World War I, and the Birth of a
Militarized Landscape”
Frank Uekoetter: “Memories in Mud: Reflections on the Environmental Legacy of the Great
Roger Chickering: Concluding Observations
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Lisbon, 27, 28 February and 1 March 2014
Keynote speakers: Paul Preston, Benjamin Stora, Joanna Bourke, Catherine Lutz, Chen Alon, José Manuel Pureza, Fernando Rosas, João Freire, Aniceto Afonso
The twentieth century witnessed the substantial intensification of the phenomenon of total war. The distance between the front and the home vanished as the difference between combatants and civilians became tenuous; the society as a whole became engaged in war, with each individual considered responsible to contribute to the war effort. This was true not only of the two world wars but also of such conflicts as civil wars, colonial wars, or wars of independence. In response to the nature of total war, the universe of resistance to war also became broad and diverse, employing a variety of means not limited to armed resistance. We are interested in the concrete acts of resistance as well as in the broader sweep of the impact and meanings of resistance: of its mobilization, its confrontation with participants in the conflict, and the ways in which it has been remembered.
This congress intends to promote debate about the multiple kinds of resistance to war as well as explore the different academic approaches taken to studying it, especially but not exclusively in history, anthropology, sociology and political science as well as literary, cultural, artistic, subaltern and gender studies.
We call for empirical, theoretical or methodological papers that discuss the issue of resistance to war in the twentieth century in its multiple performances and visions, in different observation scales. We hope to see studies highlighting different actors, institutions, practices and speeches and also hegemonic or counter-hegemonic collective representations.
We invite colleagues from all disciplines and professions to send presentation proposals that address, however we will consider other topics, these general questions or the following themes:
Great World Wars
Civil Wars
Independence Wars
Empires in question/Empire’(s) war (s)
Total war: technology and control
Nationalism, colonialism and independence movements
War against war: subversion and guerrilla
Deserters, dislocates and refugees
Peacebuilding and conflict resolution
International organizations and movements
Social movements and collective action
Ideology and engagement (intellectual)
Gender experiences
Trauma.
War representations and War culture (Visual and cinematic representations, material culture, literature, propaganda, etc.)
War memory
Contact information:
Instituto de História Contemporânea – Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Av. de Berna, 26 C 1069-061 Lisboa, Portugal
E-Mail: resistingwar2014@gmail.com
Site: http://resistingwar2014.wordpress.com