CONSIDERING VIETNAM: Call for Papers
17th-18th February 2012
Imperial War Museum, London
with Don McCullin, Philip Knightley and other guest speakers
The Vietnam War is evolving from contemporary memory into history. Fifty years on, it still serves as a benchmark in the history of war reporting and in the representation of conflict in popular culture and historical memory. This conference seeks to explore the legacy of the US involvement in South East Asia and the resonances it still has for the coverage of contemporary warfare. In particular, the conference will reassess the role of the media in covering the war and the implications this has had for the coverage of subsequent conflicts, the impact of the war on popular culture, the ways that wars and their aftermaths are experienced on the ‘home front,’ and issues around memorialisation and memory, particularly in museum culture. The conference will bring together practitioners, academics and curators in an interdisciplinary engagement with this complex but important issue.
This conference is organised by the Imperial War Museum and the University of the Arts Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC) in support of IWM’s major exhibition SHAPED BY WAR: PHOTOGRAPHS BY DON McCULLIN.
We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers discussing the representation of the Vietnam War across the following areas:
- Photography
- Film & television
- Written journalism
- ‘Mythologizing’ the Vietnam War in cultural memory
Please send a 250 word abstract and one-page c.v. to Dr. Jennifer Pollard at considering.vietnam@arts.ac.uk by September 30th 2011. Notifications will take place by October 28th 2011.
A special issue of the journal Photography and Culture is planned in response to the conference, including selected papers from the event.
Discussion