Conference ‘Narratives of War’ (Huizinga Institute)

On February 24-26 2016, the Huizinga Institute organises the conference ‘Narratives of War’ in Amsterdam. At this conference, several members of the Centre for Historical Culture will present a research paper: prof.dr. Kees Ribbens, Laurie Slegtenhorst MA, Pieter Van den Heede MA, Tina van der Vlies MA and dr. Susan Hogervorst. In addition, prof.dr. Maria Grever will chair two of the sessions.
 

The Huizinga Institute (Research Institute and Graduate School for Cultural History) is the national Dutch research network for Cultural History in the broadest sense, and in 2015-16 it is celebrating its twentieth birthday. As part of the celebrations it will host this international conference on ‘narratives of war’, partly in commemoration of the Great War 1914-18.


At the conference, the distinguished war historian John Horne (Professor of Modern European History and Director of the Centre for War Studies at Trinity College Dublin) will deliver the keynote lecture ‘Narrating Battle in the Great War’.

On February 24, Tina van der Vlies will discuss her paper ‘Fights and Flashbacks. Narrating War in History Textbooks’.
On February 25, Kees Ribbens, Laurie Slegtenhorst and Pieter Van den Heede will hold a session on the narration of World War II in popular culture. During this session, they will talk about the representation of perpetrators and ‘enemies’ within the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (Kees Ribbens), the popular Dutch musical ‘Soldier of Orange’ (Laurie Slegtenhorst) and commercial video games (Pieter Van den Heede).
On February 26, Susan Hogervorst will discuss her paper ‘Holocaust soundbites. The uses of WWII survivor testimonies in educational contexts’. On that same day, Maria Grever will chair a session about 'The Power of Memory' (session 18), and one about 'War and Violence in Visual Culture' (session 22).


Practical information:
Date: February 24 – 26 2016
Location: University Library, University of Amsterdam (Singel 425, 1012WP Amsterdam)