The Medical History of the First World War in Europe
The medical history of the First World War has often been written within national parameters. As Leo van Bergen has pointed out, this has led to a skewing of perspective in the medical historiography as "More has been published about the British and their Great War than about the French, Belgians or Germans." (Before My Helpless Sight, 2009, 28-9). Van Bergen"s own work is among the few to have attempted to tackle the medical history of the war in terms of the recent trend towards transnational history in First World War studies.
This workshop aims to begin to fill this gap in the historiography of the First World War. By bringing together scholars working on aspects of medical history and the war across Europe, it presents an opportunity to explore transnational relationships within medical history of the period, as well as develop deeper comparative understandings of national histories. It is intended that the workshop will lay the foundations for a network of researchers examining a range of topics relating to the history of medicine and warfare across Europe. These may include, but are not limited to, developments in the treatment of wounds and disease; the role and status of medical services, both military and voluntary; the gendering of medical care in wartime and questions of women"s service; cultural representations of disease, wounding and medical care; the impact of war on civilian medical care; civil and military sanitation; and disability, rehabilitation and long-term medical care.
The workshop will run for a day and a half and will be co-hosted by the Centre for Medical Humanities and the Brotherton Library Special Collections at the University of Leeds. It will include presentations from scholars from across Europe and North America on their current research in the field, as well as a session designed to introduce scholars to the archival resources available in Leeds, including the Liddle Collection, a renowned collection of papers and artefacts relating to Britain and the war, the Bamji Collection of books and material relating both to medico-military history and the holdings of the Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Thackray Museum.
Conference Venue:
The workshop will be held in two venues over the course of the two days.
Thursday, 17th October: Centre for Medical Humanities - The Centre for Medical Humanities is located in the basement of the School of English, with the entrance in the School of English foyer.
Friday, 18th October: The Brotherton Room, Special Collections - Special Collections is located on the first floor of the Brotherton Library which is entered via the Parkinson Building. A list of participants will be held at the entrance desk of the Brotherton Library on Friday morning. Please give your name and you will be directed to Special Collections.
To register for the conference please visit: http://arts.leeds.ac.uk/medicineww1/register/
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Programme
Thursday, 17th October, 2013
9:00 Registration
9:45 Welcome – Jessica Meyer
10:00 Wounds and Wounding
Sophie Delaporte (University of Picardie Jules Verne): Title TBC
Fiona Reid (University of Glamorgan): Wounded Men: the battle-stained hero, the cheery chap and "base fellows".
Bérangère Soustre de Condat (Université d"Aix-Marseille): L'arme terrible. Evolution of weapons, wounding, wounds, ballistics and forensics during the First World War (France, Great Britain).
11:30 Coffee
12:00 Caregiving
Emily Mayhew (Imperial College London): Transforming the Battlefield: the creation and operation of a specialist stretcher bearer corps on the Western Front.
Christine Van Everbroeck (Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History, Brussels): War-related psychiatric distress in the Belgian army during the First World War.
David Durnin (University College Dublin): "A Slack Response?": The Irish Medical Profession and the First World War
1:30 Lunch
2:30 Aftermath
Ana Carden Coyne (University of Manchester): Title TBC
Wendy Gagen (Independent Scholar): Rehabilitating the Disabled Male Body in Britain
Felicita Ratti (Independent Scholar): Rewriting the history of the Spanish Influenza pandemic
4:00 Tea
4:30 Cultural Intersections
Alison Fell (University of Leeds): Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of First World War nursing
Sara Haslam (The Open University): Alcohol and the First World War
5:30 Session ends
6:30 Workshop Dinner (Venue TBC)
Friday, 18th October, 2013
9:30 Archives at Leeds
Richard High (Special Collections)
Claire Jones (Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine)
Lauren Ryall-Stockton (Thackray Museum)
11:00 Coffee
11:30 Round Table: The medical history of the First World War in the centenary years
1:00 Workshop ends
(This programme is preliminary only and may be subject to change.)
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Contact:
Dr Jessica Meyer
School of History
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
+44 (0)113 343 4194