Images of War
TOY SOLDIERS: Playing at war.
Courtesy of Horia Varlan. 
EMBARKATION 1914. A ship possibly containing members of the Expeditionary Force bound for New Guinea being boarded by soldiers. Courtesy of Don Shearman.'A Game That Calls Up Love and Hatred Both':
The Child, the First World War, and the Global South
An International Interdisciplinary Conference
1-3 December 2011, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED
War ain’t no giddy garden feete – it’s war:
A game that calls up love an’ ‘atred both …
~ C. J. Dennis, The Moods of Ginger Mick (1916)
The Australian conference in December 2011 at the University of Technology Sydney will explore the impact of the First World War on childhood from the perspective of the global south. It will bring together researchers and practitioners to explore verbal and visual representations of war in the children’s culture of Australia and the global south, with special reference to the First World War but also considering other wars of the 20th century. Papers on any topic relating to the figure of the child and childhood cultures and war, with a particular focus on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, are welcome. We welcome papers from a variety of disciplines, including English, Education, Film, History, Modern Languages, Sociology, and Geography, amongst others.
Participants are invited to submit 250 word abstracts for 20 minute papers on the conference themes. Panels of three linked papers are also very welcome. Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:
- Children's and young adult literature
- National and global ideas of childhood and nationhood
- Gender, the child and war
- Intersection of cultures of war and childhood cultures
- Constructing Empire
- Concepts of 'home'
- Constructing otherness
- Changing histories and geographies
- The spread of conflict in Europe, Asia, the Far East
- War and federation
- Child/adult relationships
- Mother Country and 'sons'
- Ambivalence and war
- Multimodal representations of friends and foes
The project seeks to further scholarship on countries drawn into the conflict by virtue of their connections to the British Empire, particularly those which have been under-represented in First World War studies. Conference papers from scholars in such countries are particularly welcomed, and some bursaries are available for those working in countries where support for international conference attendance has traditionally been low. Some bursaries are also available for postgraduate speakers from any institution.
Deadline for abstracts: March 1st 2011
Notification of outcome: April 1st 2011
Abstracts should be submitted via email to: info@fww-child.org.
Shareable copies of this CFP are available for download. Feel free to circulate to interested parties.
- CFP 2011: Word format
- CFP 2011: PDF format
