Call for Papers
When East Meets West: The Second World War in Global Perspective
Second World War Research Group Annual Conference, 22-23 June 2017
Waterloo Campus, King’s College, London
Keynotes: Professor Richard Overy (Exeter) and Professor Rana Mitter (Oxford)
The Second World War was the largest conflict the world has ever experienced. The war drew in combatants from nearly every continent, affected the lives of hundreds of millions, fundamentally changed societies and rewrote the global balance of power. It was, as Richard Overy has argued, ‘a truly global war’. Nevertheless, scholarship on the war frequently remains confined to the boundaries of national history. Moreover, many of the most creative and well-researched analyses have focused exclusively on the conflict either in the West or in the East. Over seventy years on from its end, there is an opportunity to integrate analyses of the wars in Europe, Africa and Asia and the numerous home fronts in order to explore the complexities of waging a multi-national, multi-front war at supra-state, state and sub-state levels.
The conference aims to explore the changes in perspective that emerge from a global rather than national approach to studying the Second World War. With that aim in mind, we invite paper proposals on themes including, but not limited to:
The meeting of different cultures and ideologies - Alliance and coalition warfare - Grand strategy - Propaganda and diplomacy - Mobilisation - Neutrality and belligerence - Intelligence - Political and social change - Empire - Writing the history of the Second World War - Inter-theatre and inter-combatant learning
Paper proposals should include an abstract of no more than 300 words and a one-page CV. Panel proposals for groups of three to four speakers are also welcomed; they should, in addition to individual paper abstracts and CVs, include a brief description of the panel theme (no more than 500 words). The deadline for proposal submissions is 31 January 2017. Submissions, queries and expression of interest to attend should be addressed to richard.hammond@kcl.ac.uk.
The Call for Papers can be downloaded here.