Studies of World War One is a vast and still expanding area of world history. However in terms of general surveys and indeed military especially naval studies Japan’s contribution has not been fairly and positively acknowledged. Japan is given minimal attention in various historical WW1 and Naval Survey Histories surveys and in recent TV and journalistic coverage programmes on WW1. Evaluations tend to range between Japan as a ‘hyena state’ feeding off the spoils of war at worst or an ally driven mainly by self-interest and opportunism. Recent major books focusing on Japan such as Dickenson’s excellent War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War, which focuses more on the China dimension of the war, and Frattolillo and Best’s new Japan and the Great War which looks at the impact of WW1 on Japan itself are very important studies using multi-archival sources. While they do add considerably to the corpus of excellent existing diplomatic studies of the conflict they do not address the need to provide a more balanced evaluation of Japan’s contribution globally to the war and especially the existing overly narrow focusing on the capture of Shandong or the capture of the German Micronesian islands with passing references to Japanese naval activity in the Mediterranean in 1917-18 as too little too late.
Ian Gow OBE is Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Glasgow. He was previously Inaugural Principal of the Sino-British College USST Shanghai (2009-2014). From 2003-2007 he was Founding Provost and CEO of the multi-award winning University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China, China’s first independent foreign university campus. He was Dean of the Nottingham University Business School from 1998 to 2003. He is a former Deputy Principal, University of Stirling and Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Sheffield and was Head of Management Studies at both these institutions concurrently with Director of the Scottish Centre for Japanese Studies (Stirling) and Chairman of the School of East Asian Studies (Sheffield). Professor Gow holds a PhD in Japanese Studies and has published in both Japanese and English on Japanese Business and Japanese Defence Policy. He has also has been a visiting professor at Tokyo and Saitama universities in Japan and a member of the UK –Japan 21st Century Group.
Monday 15 February 2016 6.45pm
The Swedenborg Society 20-21 Bloomsbury Way (Hall entrance on Barter St) London WC1A 2TH
The Centre for Hidden Histories is proud to announce a two day Conference and Community Showcase, entitled Beyond the Western Front: The Global First World War to take place at the Albert Hall Conference Centre, Nottingham, 1st and 2nd July 2016
Two young Belgian girls greet their father outside their home on his return from work, as their mother looks on from the doorway. Birtley-Elisabethville, Co. Durham, 1918. IWM Q 27746
Through a combination of academic papers, workshops and creative performances, this free conference will examine different understandings of the war and seek to provide a broader cosmopolitan context in which to place the British First World War orthodoxy. We seek representation from a variety of national, faith and other emerging communities whose histories are rarely considered, and for whom the traditional Armistice Day celebrations may have strikingly different meanings.
The existence of a First World War beyond the Western Front is a critical element of the Centre’s thematic interest and the conference would be intended to examine this in an open and discursive manner. We are actively seeking contributions from community groups and academic researchers.
It is hoped that the debates at the event will prompt further research and collaboration between academics and communities. Where possible, prompts to the AHRC Connected Communities, Care for the Future and Global Uncertainties themes will be made.
The conference will explore four major themes:
The Lives of ‘Others’
We are looking for contributions that examine the experiences of those whose war was fought outside the western trenches; at home and around the world. This embraces not only the combatant roles of Asian and African troops in European and non-European theatres but also the important contribution of labour. All the combatants enlisted labour for the myriad heavy duties to supply and maintain front lines. There are few monuments to labourers. The Great War was also a global war at sea, and a large number of merchant seamen were non-Europeans.
The War as Global Revolution The war was one of the most significant moments of change in recent history. We want to examine the global impact of these changes, in the destruction of old orders, the raising of new ones and in the development of new ways of living. This raises the question of periodisation e.g. the ‘1914-18 war’ so often projected; or, in the language of the UK Allied Victory medal ‘The Great War for Civilisation 1914-1919’; but what of the perspective from other parts of the world, eg. Turkey – should it be 1911 to the Treaty of Lausanne 1923? What is rather obvious is that the Great War did not end with the ‘Armistice’ or with the Paris treaties, but turned to revolution with sustained violence and destruction on a large scale across a large part of the world.
We Are Making a New World: The lives of those who survived In remembering the fallen, did we forget the even greater numbers who came home? We are interested in proposals that will examine the challenges faced by the men, women and children who lived into the peace. There were not many ‘memorials’ for those who survived the war, but there were memories and psychological damage on a large scale.
Different Memorial Cultures With the war now lost to living memory, cultures of remembrance are the primary methods by which people engage with it. We are looking for contributions that illuminate and explore the very different cultures of remembrance across national, ethnic and social groups.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
The impact of defeat
The impact of victory
The questioning of religious belief as a result of war
From 1914 to When? The question of periodisation
‘Enemy aliens’ and the impact of war on minority communities
The concept of the refugee from 1914 to the present day
Migration and resettlement
The First World War and the founding of nation states
War and the growth of the power of the State
Total war and attempts to retreat from this in the early 1920s.
Postwar independence movements
The First World War and the creation of the modern Middle East
The impact of continuity on British national attitudes
The First World War in the twenty first century
Unknown Warriors: the creation of mass memorials
Memorial traditions in different cultures and territories
The changing heroic ideal
War and the changed roles and positions of women, and not just in the industrial states.
Influenza, a pandemic and the single largest demographic disaster of the 20th century. To what extent the flu was a result of the war?
Format
We invite proposals for workshops, 20-minute papers, performances, or posters. Other creative responses or discussion and debate formats will also be considered.
Persian man posing for a photograph. Note a truck with British troops in the background. The Service of the 9th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the Persian Campaign, 1918. IWM Q 73032
We accept applications from individuals, community groups and academic researchers from any discipline, with an interest in relevant topics. The Centre would particularly welcome proposals that involve collaborations between community groups and academics.
Please send a brief description of no more than 300 words outlining the topic you wish to share and your preferred format of presentation.
Studies of World War One is a vast and still expanding area of world history. However in terms of general surveys and indeed military especially naval studies Japan’s contribution has not been fairly and positively acknowledged. Japan is given minimal attention in various historical WW1 and Naval Survey Histories surveys and in recent TV and journalistic coverage programmes on WW1. Evaluations tend to range between Japan as a ‘hyena state’ feeding off the spoils of war at worst or an ally driven mainly by self-interest and opportunism. Recent major books focusing on Japan such as Dickenson’s excellent War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War, which focuses more on the China dimension of the war, and Frattolillo and Best’s new Japan and the Great War which looks at the impact of WW1 on Japan itself are very important studies using multi-archival sources. While they do add considerably to the corpus of excellent existing diplomatic studies of the conflict they do not address the need to provide a more balanced evaluation of Japan’s contribution globally to the war and especially the existing overly narrow focusing on the capture of Shandong or the capture of the German Micronesian islands with passing references to Japanese naval activity in the Mediterranean in 1917-18 as too little too late.
