Symposium

Armistice & Aftermath:
A World War I Symposium

September 28-29, 2018

Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI

Call for Papers • Full Program • Conference Proceedigns

Logings and Logistics • Reserve Dinner/Lunch

The fall of 2018 will mark the centennial celebration of Armistice Day – the day that officially concluded the Great War. Commonly referred to as the first “Total War,” it took an enormous human and economic toll. The Great War also paved the way for social change, from Prohibition to Women’s Suffrage that followed in its aftermath.

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Call for Papers

In commemorating World War I, this symposium invites papers that explore its engagement with and impact on the American Heartland. In probing the global-national-local trajectory, it encourages but is not limited to comparative approaches that link narratives about rural communities and small towns to an International war of incommensurable magnitude.

Accepted papers will be published in the Michigan Tech Digital Commons and selected papers will be included in a proposal for a published collection.

Please upload a 350-500 word abstract and a brief biography at ww1cc.mtu.edu/cfp by April 2nd, 2018. Graduate students are encouraged to submit.

Suggested topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • The consequences of the Armistice at the international and domestic levels
  • Domestic and regional mobilization and the aftermath of war
  • Technologies and Industry of war (especially social implications and uses)
  • Demobilization and reintegration
  • Cultural industries and post war impacts
  • The peace and anti-war movements
  • Social and political legacies of international policy negotiations
  • Homefront social and cultural shifts in gender, class, and labor relations
  • Contributions of regional universities and industries to the war, whether focused on troops or research
  • Cultural representations of the war (arts and popular culture)
  • Memories of war in cultural production (literature, film, drama, art, graphic arts)
  • Social and political configurations of family and domestic life
  • Civil rights and social stratifications (diversity, social rights)

A series of exhibits and installations will take place on the Michigan Tech campus and Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw. These events will be open and free to the public:

  • Friday evening keynote speaker Dr. John Morrow Jr., University of Georgia
  • “An Evening with James Reese Europe’s Music,” MTU Superior Wind Symphony
  • Evening of silent film, featuring Charlie Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms (1918) with live musical accompaniment, Rozsa Theater
  • Interactive WWI Trench with battle soundscape, readings from soldiers’ memoirs, and war poetry
  • “American and French Propaganda Posters and the Great War” exhibit, Rozsa Gallery (on loan from the Marquette Regional History Center)
  • Battlefield Film Installation with student-designed soundscape in the Rozsa Gallery
  • Multimedia Screens Exhibit: The Philosophy of Technology and Warfare, Immersive Visualization Studio, MTU
  • “Soldier Stories: The UP in World War I” exhibit, Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw (on loan from the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center, Northern Michigan University)
  • “World War I & the Copper Country Homefront,” Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw

The conference will feature cuisine from WWI-era recipes.

World War I in the Copper Country (WWICC)

Conference Committee: Dr. Patty Sotirin (gender and the homefront), Dr. Sue Collins (the film industry and the Great War), Dr. Stefka Hristova (security and militarization), and Dr. Steven A. Walton (military and technological history).

Contact Information: Dr. Patty Sotirin, Dept. of Humanities, Walker Bldg.,
Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931 • ww1cc@mtu.edu • ww1cc.mtu.edu