At 11am on November 11, 1918, the armistice that effectively ended the First World War was signed. What came to be known as “The Great War” had a profound and lasting impact on the cultural fabric of the nations involved: as Paul Fussell wrote, “its dynamics and iconography proved crucial to the political, rhetorical, and artistic life of the years that followed; while relying on inherited myth, war was generating new myth.” Over the course of the 20th century, the concept of war evolved beyond historically traceable moments and events to include the consideration of war as site and influence shaping every aspect of lived experience. This conference seeks to examine ways in which literature and the arts have taken up and taken apart war and the myths surrounding it -- grappling with it both as subject and context while also considering the ways in which the experience of war molded, mutilated, and morphed artistic forms. Though the word “centennial” often rings of monolithic celebration, it is equally an opportunity to highlight the attempts of writers and artists to contain, contend, or survive war and to question and problematize preconceptions and existing views of war by investigating their inherently bipolar nature.

November 10, 2018 (Day 2)
SCHEDULE:

• 9 – 11am - 2nd PANEL
  Chair: Jennifer Scappettone (University of Chicago, Associate Professor)
   
• Aubrey Knox (CUNY, PhD Student)
  "The Regulated Body: The Grand Palais as Military Hospital in World War I"
• Joanna Fiduccia (Reed College, Assistant Professor)
  "A Destructive Character: Alberto Giacometti’s Crisis of the Monument"
• Hadrien Laroche (INHA, France, Philosopher and Researcher)
  "Duchamp's waste: Trauma, Violence and Aesthetics"
   
• 11 - 11.30am – COFFEE BREAK
   
• 11.30am - 12.45pm – KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Jay Winter (Yale University, Emeritus Professor)
"All the Things We Cannot Hear: Silences of the Great War"

• 12.45am – 2pm – LUNCH BREAK
   
• 2 - 4.30pm - 3rd PANEL
  Chair: Peter Stansky (Stanford University, Emeritus Professor)
   
• Martin Löschnigg (University of Graz, Austria, Professor)
  "‘The extreme fury of war self-multiplies’: First World War Literature and the Aesthetics of Loss"
• Ron Ben-Tovim (Ben Gurion University, Israel, Post-Doc), Boris Shoshitaishvili (Stanford University, PhD Student)
  "Re-Enchanting the World after War: J. R. R. Tolkien, David Jones, and the Revision of Epic"
• Anna Abramson (MIT, Post-Doc)
  "Atmospheric Myths of The Great War"
• Isaac Blacksin (UC Santa Cruz, PhD Student)
  Senseless Encounter, Immutable Sense: The Contradictions of Reporting War

• 4.30 – 4.45pm – COFFEE BREAK
   
• 4.45 – 6pm – KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Alexander Nemerov (Stanford University, Professor)
"A Soldier Killed in the First World War"

For more info,  please email: massucco@stanford.edu

Sponsored by:  the Division of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures;  Stanford Department of Art and Art History; Theater and Performance Studies; Stanford Humanities Center; The Europe Center; Dept. of French and Italian; Dept. of History; Dept. of German Studies; and the Dean's Office of Humanities and Sciences.