University of Manitoba - Faculty of Arts - German and Slavic Studies - Representations of War - Research Cluster
Representations of War - Research Cluster

About the Cluster

The Institute for the Humanities research cluster Representations of War brings together faculty from departments spread across the Arts and Social Sciences with a view to stimulating research and teaching on the subject of the representation of war. It was established in March 2006 and received funding from the Institute for the Humanities in 2006-07 and 2007-08. In light of recent world events, which have revealed the divergence of perspectives on the political legitimacy, efficacy, and morality of war, the need to understand what wars are and how they work and may be assessed has, has become more urgent than ever.

The phrase "the representation of war" encompasses the great variety of ways war is understood by those working in such academic disciplines as philosophy, languages and literature, film, sociology, strategic studies, and the visual arts.

In addition to academic perspectives, we intend to identify and assess the views on war (and the representation thereof in the popular media, government correspondence, the Internet, and so on) of the general public, of soldiers, and of governments at home and abroad.

Questions thus central to our project include, but are not limited to, the following: What is a "war," and how may it reasonably be distinguished from other forms of aggressive human interaction? Is there a specifiable "aesthetics" of warfare, one which constrains, however minimally, the substance of war's representation or the genre(s) to which these representations are assigned? In what way(s), and to what extent, does our present understanding of war depend for its salience on our interpretations of the past? How do we assess wars' moral costs, and thus settle the troubling matter of their overarching legitimacy? Given the disruptions, dislocations, and contingencies of modern warfare, what may be said of wars' effects on our social identities? If war is, as Clausewitz has said, "merely the continuation of politics by other means," then is the representation of war necessarily political?

The cluster started a book and film collection on Representations of War that is hosted by the English Multimedia Lab in University College.

It is currently working on an anthology book project based on the research workshop "Depiction and Definition: Representing War Across the Disciplines."

The workshop developed in its Final Discussion a list of questions which are relevant for discussing "Representations of War": transcription of discussion questions.

For a transcript of the roundtable "Representations of War across the Disciplines" click on the following link: transcription roundtable.

Past Activities in 2007-08

Past Activities in 2006-07

Members of the Research Cluster

(new members - graduate students and faculty - are always welcome, please contact Dr. Adam Muller)
  • Dr. Elena Baraban (Russian and Slavic Studies)
  • Dr. James Chlup (Classics)
  • Monique Dumontet (Graduate student in English)
  • Dr. Stephan Jaeger (German)
  • Dr. Adam Muller (English)
  • Emily Muller (Graduate student in Philosophy, Cornell University / Research Affiliate Institute for the Humanities)
  • Dr. Rob Shaver (Philosophy)
  • Dr. Jessica Senehi (Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice)
  • Dr. Myroslav Shkandrij (Ukrainian and Russian Programs, German & Slavic Studies)
  • Dr. Michael Stack (Philosophy)
  • Dr. Lasha Tchantouridze (Centre for Defence and Security Studies/Political Studies)
  • Dr. Andrew Woolford (Sociology)

The contact person for Representations of War research cluster is Dr. Adam Muller of the Department of English, Film & Theatre.


Reading / Discussion Group 

The cluster meets for reading workshops during the academic year. Texts discussed include theoretical and fictional texts on the representation of war, as well as texts / drafts of selected by a cluster member who leads the discussion, toward the presentation of the cluster members' own work in combination with other texts. If you are interested to join the discussion group, please contact Dr. Adam Muller.


Events and Activities in 2007-2008


a.) Discussion Meetings 
  • Ian Macgregor Morris: “’Shrines of the Mighty’: Rediscovering the Battlefields of the Persian Wars” / Edith Hall: “Aeschylus’ Persians via the Ottoman Empire to Saddam Hussein,” moderated by James Chlup (Sept. 17, 2007)
  • Martin Shaw: What is Genocide, moderated by Andrew Woolford (Oct. 15, 2007)
  • Roger W. Barnett: Asymmetrical Warfare: Today’s Challenge to U.S. Military Power, moderated by Lasha Tchantouridze (Nov. 5, 2007)
  • Siegfried Sassoon: “Memoir of an Infantry Officer” / Paul Fussell: The Great War, moderated by Monique Dumontet (Nov. 26, 2007)
  • Gary Saul Morson: Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in ‘War and Peace’ & Tolstoi: War and Peace (excerpts), moderated by Myroslav Shkandrij (Jan. 21, 2008)
  • James Dawes: The Language of War: Literature and Culture in the U.S. from the Civil War through World War II, moderated by Adam Muller (Mar. 31, 2008)


b.) A public International War Film Series in 409 Tier, November 6, 7, 13 & 14, 2007, each time 6:30- approx. 9:30 p.m.

15 minutes of introduction will be followed by the film screening and a public discussion on the film & and its relation to representations of war. Open to the Public, everybody is welcome.
  • Tuesday, 6 November 2007: The 300 Spartans, feature film, USA, 1962, dir. Rudolph Maté, moderated by Dr. Adam Muller (English/Film): A colorful action film about the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. in which the Spartans defend themselves for a Persian invasion against overwhelming odds.
  • Wednesday, 7 November 2007: Rome, episodes 7 "Pharsalus" (dir. Tim Van Patten) and 18 "Philippi" (dir. Robert Young), BBC/HBO TV series, GB/USA, 2005/2007, moderated by Dr. James Chlup (Classics): A richly layered look at history and the building of an empire, Rome sets the stage for modern politics - infighting, corruption, party lines and the struggle to define collective values.
  • Tuesday, 13 November 2007: And the Cranes are Flying, feature film, Soviet Union 1957, dir. M. Kalatozov, moderated by Dr. Elena Baraban (Slavic Studies): With her boyfriend Boris on the front lines in World War II, Veronica is raped by Boris's cousin during an air raid, and tries to work through war's traumatic experiences and rebuild her life.
  • Wednesday, 14 November 2007: Little Dieter needs to Fly, documentary, Germany/GB/France 1997, dir. Werner Herzog, moderated by Dr. Stephan Jaeger (German Studies): The tale of the imprisonment and escape of Dieter Dengler, a native German who experienced the Allied air-raids in World War II and became an American pilot in the Vietnam War


c.)  Public Roundtable Representations of War across the Disciplines

in 409 Tier on 7 March 2008, 5:00-6:30 p.m.

Roundtable participants 

Moderator Elena Baraban (German and Slavic Studies, Manitoba)

Questions that were discussed:
1. Is there a specifiable “aesthetics” of warfare?
2. Is the representation of war necessarily political?

For a transcript of the roundtable "Representations of War across the Disciplines" click on the following link: transcription roundtable.

The roundtable was followed by a reception (Senior Common Room, University College, 6:30-7:30 p.m.)

Financial support is gratefully acknowledged from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as from the University of Manitoba’s Vice President of Research, Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, and the Departments of AnthropologyClassics, English, German & Slavic Studies, History, Philosophy, Political Studies, and Sociology.


d.) A two-day research workshop on March 8/9, 2008, Hotel Fort Garry

Depiction and Definition: Representing War across the Disciplines  

The workshop will feature 16 participants, 10 speakers from the UofM and six invited experts on the representation of War from other North-American universities.

The five sessions of the workshop - Identities, Memory, Ideology, Phenomenology of Atrocity, and Unrepresentability - provide a forum for the examination of the nature of war, the historical, social, and political contexts of conflicts, and the place of art, literature, the media and film in representation of the experience of warfare.

This workshop will bring together scholars from diverse disciplines in order to exchange views on the way in which war and its attendant phenomena are remembered, witnessed, discussed, and understood. The terms "witnessing," "remembrance," "depiction," and "understanding" are here deliberately broadly construed so as to accommodate participants' desire to attend to the great range and variety of their application in disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences, in the stories told by academics, eyewitnesses, and others about the nature of wars and their effects.

We are intending for the workshop presentations, in revised form, to form the nucleus of a critical anthology which we expect to place with a university press in 2009.

Program

All workshop participants are expected to have read the long versions of the 16 workshop papers (15-20 pages) beforehand. The organizers will send an electronic workshop package shortly after the submission deadline on February 11. A hard-copy workshop package can be sent out upon special request. Please contact Dr. Stephan Jaeger for further information, to register for the workshop and to receive the workshop package.

Session 1: National Imaginaries

  • Helena Goscilo (Slavic, University of Pittsburgh): “Slotting War Narratives into Culture’s Readymade
  • Andreola Rossi (Classics, Amherst College): “Ab urbe condita - Roman history in the shield of Aeneas

Session 2: Meta-representation

  • Stephan Jaeger (German, University of Manitoba): “’Is there an overall story to be told?’: Preliminary Observations towards Narratological Analysis of War Histories"
  • Adam Muller (English, University of Manitoba): “Seeing Through the Eyes of Monsters, Part I: Walter Genewein and the Photographic Representation of Atrocity

Session 3: Rewriting of History

  • Andrew Woolford (Sociology, University of Manitoba): “The Führer Gives the Jews a Town: The Art of Impression Management in Theresienstadt
  • Elena Baraban (Slavic, University of Manitoba): “Set in Stone: The Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet Film
  • James Chlup (Classics, University of Manitoba): “Identity and Ideology in Josephus’ Jewish War, the Arch of Titus, and the War Scroll

Session 4: Ethics and Tactics

  • Brian Orend (Philosophy, University of Waterloo): “Jus Post Bellum: A Just War Theory Perspective
  • Emily Muller (Philosophy, Cornell University/University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities): “Supreme Emergency and the Moral Authority of States
  • Lasha Tchantouridze (Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba): “Asymmetric War and State-building in Afghanistan

Session 5: Politics and Publicity

  • Michael Stack (Philosophy, University of Manitoba): “The Morality of the Aesthetics of War

  • Robert Calder (English, Universiy of Saskatchewan): “Writers at War”

Session 6: Testimonies

  • Alexander Hinton (Anthropology, Rutgers University): “Truth, Representation and the Politics of Memory after Genocide in Cambodia
  • Myroslav Shkandrij (Slavic, University of Manitoba): “Reconciling Narratives of Suffering: The German Occupation of Kyiv, 1941-43, in Dokia Humenna’s Postwar Novel
  • Brad Prager (German, University of Missouri-Columbia): “War Rolls into the City: A Woman in Berlin and the Ends of Violence in 1945

The workshop developed in its Final Discussion a list of questions which are relevant for discussing "Representations of War": transcription of discussion questions.

Financial support is gratefully acknowledged from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as from the University of Manitoba’s Vice President of Research, Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, and the Departments of AnthropologyClassics, English, German & Slavic Studies, History, Philosophy, Political Studies, and Sociology.


    Events & Activities in 2006-2007


    1. Discussion Meetings 
    • Michael Walzer: Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, moderated by Adam Muller (Oct. 5, 2006)
    • Catherine Merridale: Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia, moderated by Elena Baraban (Oct. 12, 2006)
    • Mahmood Mamdani: When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, moderated by Andrew Woolford (Nov. 23, 2006)
    • Marcel Beyer's Karnau Tapes and Oliver Hirschbiegel's film Downfall, moderated by Stephan Jaeger (Feb. 1, 2007)
    • Diverse excerpts and sources on the prisoner's dilemma and philosophical applications, moderated by Michael Stack (Feb. 22, 2007)
    • Jeff McMahon: "The Ethics of Killing in War," & Daniel Statman: "Supreme Emergencies Revisited," moderated by Emily Muller (March 15, 2007)
    • Jonathan F. Vance: Death so Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War, moderated by Monique Dumontet (April 5, 2007) 

    2. Public Roundtable "Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on the Representation of War"
    on Nov. 1, 2006, 4:30-6:30 p.m., 409 Tier; presentations by James Chlup, Michael Stack, and Andrew Woolford, moderator Elena Baraban, respondent Stephan Jaeger  

    3. Representations of War-Symposium
            - March 23 / 24, 2007

    The Representation of War research group organized a symposium that will gave an opportunity to the participants as well as to the UM faculty and students to discuss issues of war representations with two historians of culture, Dr. Serguei Oushakine(Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton) and Dr. Dominick LaCapra (Comparative Literature/Jewish Studies, Cornell).

    Dr. Oushakine's work in anthropology, political science, and sociology deals with the aftermaths of the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and the 1990s wars in Chechnya. His book, The Patriotism of Despair: Communities of Loss in Contemporary Russia, is forthcoming at Cornell U Press.

    Among many books written by Dr. LaCapra, several deal with the problems of representing war in literature and historiography: Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma (1994), History and Memory after Auschwitz (1998), and Writing History, Writing Trauma (2001).

    Symposium Schedule

    Friday, March 23

    10:30-12:00 -- graduate student and junior faculty roundtable (409 Tier) led by Serguei Oushakine and Dominick LaCapra,
    for readings and further information, please send an e-mail to Stephan Jaeger.

    13:30-15:15 --Public lecture by Serguei Oushakine(Princeton): "Traumatic Rituals: Writing History With Song", 
    Moderator: Myroslav Shkandrij (German and Slavic, UofM)
    Moot Court (Rm. 200), Robson Hall, Faculty of Law.

    15:15-15:30 -- coffee break, Common Room, Robson Hall, faculty of Law

    15:30-17:15 -- Public lecture by Dominick LaCapra(Cornell): "Trauma, Witnessing, and the Sublime",
    Moderator: Mark Libin (English, UofM)
    Moot Court (Rm. 200), Robson Hall, Faculty of Law

    17:30-18:30 -- Public Reception, Senior Common Room, University College

     

    Saturday

    9:30-11:30 a.m. -- Internal research cluster meetingwith Serguei Oushakine and Dominick LaCapra (Hotel Fort Garry,Salon A)

     

    We gratefully acknowledge support for the Symposium on March 23/24, 2007 from the The Institute for the Humanities, the Distinguished Visitor Lectureship Committee (President's Office), the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, the Centre for Defense and Security Studies, and the Departments of Classics, English, German and Slavic Studies, History, Philosophy, and Sociology, at the University of Manitoba.