Appel à contribution pour un colloque qui se tiendra en avril 2004 à Manchester

War, Culture and Humanity: From ancient to modern times.
An interdisciplinary conference to be held at Manchester University
Hulme Hall, Oxford Place, Manchester, M14 5RR

15-17 APRIL 2004

CALL FOR PAPERS

The new Research Centre for the Cultural History of War at
Manchester in conjunction with the European Review of History/Revue
européenne d'histoire invite proposals for an international conference
on the history of state violence, the cultural responses it has evoked,
and humanity's response to cultures of violence.  Our objective is a
genuine historicisation of state violence that counters the tendency to
treat twentieth-century practices as a prism through which to interpret
organised violence in previous centuries.
We are seeking to open a series of dialogues: between established
and younger scholars, between historians from North America and their
counterparts in Europe, between historians of the ancient, mediaeval
and modern world, and between history and other disciplines.  

Confirmed Speakers: Jay Winter (Yale), Jacques Semelin (Directeur
de recherches au CADIS/EHESS), Hans van Wees (UCL), Ido de
Haan (Amsterdam)

We would particularly welcome papers that develop the following
themes:

State violence: the practices, techniques and representations
associated with genocide and 'ethnic cleansing', forced migration,
incarceration, enslavement and cultural devastation (and the
significance of race, religion, ethnicity and historical precedent in these
contexts). Perpetrators & Victims: the attribution of individual
responsibility, criminality and guilt; the contested ascription and
appropriation of 'victim' status and problems of powerlessness,
'voicelessness' and justice; and experiences of exclusion,
statelessness or refugeedom engendered by state violence.
Humanitarian Responses: the legitimacies of inter-state intervention,
from notions of international 'religious brotherhoods' to universal
Human Rights; the construction and representation of 'humanitarian
crises'; the theoretical and practical dilemmas associated with
international policing and armed humanitarian intervention.  
Aftermaths: the possibilities of redress, restitution and reconstruction,
either at state level (e.g. in modern times through international war
crimes tribunals) or personally (e.g. through testimony, or oral or written
histories); the process of historicising, memorialising, and
commemorating state violence and humanitarian intervention, and the
significance of these practices for both agent and subject in terms of
citizenship, community or national identity.

Please submit 500 word proposals for panels or individual papers by
the end of December 2003 to the addresses below.  Individual papers
should last 20 minutes.

Papers will be published on the Centre for the Cultural History of War's
website, and may be selected for a 'special edition' of the European
Review of History/ Revue européene d'histoire.

Contact: Rebecca Gill and Jo Laycock, History Department, University
of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL