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The Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War invites you to join us for the inaugural event in our exciting new seminar series for the 2021-22 academic year entitled ‘New Directions in the History of War and Violence’.
Join this roundtable discussion between Professor Susan Carruthers; Professor Tarak Barkawi; Professor Kim Wagner; and Dr Matthew Ford to reflect on some of the big changes over the past several decades in the way we conceptualise the study of the history of war and violence. In particular, they will discuss how we can think about more global histories of war and violence that draw upon insights and methodologies from histories of culture, gender, and race.
Bios
Susan Carruthers is a Professor in American Studies at the University of Warwick, where she has taught since 2017. Her work focuses on representations of war and the ways in which individuals, and societies more broadly, make sense of conflict and its aftermath. She is the author of several books, including The Good Occupation, The Media at War, Cold War Captives and Winning Hearts and Minds. Her expertise in the media and war, cold war culture, and colonial counterinsurgency spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Professor Tarak Barkawi uses interdisciplinary approaches to imperial and military archives to re-imagine relations between war, armed forces and society in modern times. He has written on the pivotal place of armed force in globalization, imperialism, and modernization, and on the neglected significance of war in social and political theory and in histories of empire. His most recent book, Soldiers of Empire, examined the multicultural armies of British Asia in the Second World War, reconceiving Indian and British soldiers in cosmopolitan rather than national terms.
Professor Kim Wagner completed his PhD in South Asian history at the University of Cambridge (2000-03), supervised by the late Professor Sir C.A. Bayly. This was followed by a four-year Research Fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge, and a two-year Research Associate post at the University of Edinburgh. He was subsequently employed as Lecturer in Imperial and World History at the University of Birmingham, before joining Queen Mary in 2012. Between 2015 and 2018, he had a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship working with Dane Kennedy at George Washington University, DC.
Dr Matthew Ford joined the University of Sussex as a Lecturer in International Relations in August 2013. Prior to this he was a lecturer in War and Security at the University of Hull (2010-2013), a Sessional Lecturer in International Security at Birkbeck College London (2008-2009) and a Teaching Assistant at King's College London (2006-2008). Matthew has also occasionally taught as a Sessional Lecturer in History at the University of Birmingham (2009-2011). Matthew has a PhD from the Department of War Studies at King's College London (KCL); an MA in War Studies from KCL and a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from the University of Reading.
Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Department of War Studies by Sir Michael Howard, and provides an important opportunity to both reflect and build upon his remarkable achievements and legacy. Sir Michael Howard’s greatest contribution to the history of war was his insistence on moving beyond the battlefield in order to examine the wider political and social contexts in which wars were fought. He also wrote about the legal, moral, and philosophical implications of war, and throughout his distinguished career sought to develop new approaches to understanding the impact of war on society.