Programme Summer School
‘Cultures of War and Peace’
The Hague and Utrecht University, 17 – 20 June 2013
Coordination: Dr. Lotte Jensen, Radboud University Nijmegen: [email protected]
For more information and registration: www.huizingainstituut.nl
Description
This Summer Course seeks to explore key moments in the cultural history of war or peace. It
sees ‘war’ and ‘peace’ not as mutually exclusive phenomena in history, but as closely related
occurrences. The conference therefore concentrates on the special interactional dynamic of this
nexus as it determines our lives, and as it explores how the relationship has affected individual,
national, religious, scientific, and aesthetic cultures.
The Summer Course consists of two introductory meetings, attending the international
conference, four masterclasses, and a final meeting in August (note: this final meeting is only for
ReMa students). The introductory meetings are designed to extend the student’s knowledge on
cultural-historical approaches towards war and peace, developing their understanding of the
papers presented at the international conference. The masterclasses are led by specialists in the
field, who will introduce students to specific approaches, topics and themes.
Participation and assignment
Active participation is essential to this course. PhD candidates and ReMa students need to reflect
on the work of others as well as on their own research. Assignments include scrutinizing
methodological articles and case studies, preparing assignments and an intervention. (note:
always bring a printed version of your assignment to class!). Participants will be provided with
literature in digital format. ReMa students will complete the Summer Course by writing a paper
of ca. 3,000 words, focussing upon one of the themes addressed in the conference. These papers
will be graded by the course coordinator.
Credits
5 ECTS. Certificates available on request.
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Summer school I: Introductory classes
Friday 24 May
10.00-15.00 - Radboud University Nijmegen, Erasmus Building, room E. 2.72
Preliminary reading:
I Theoretical Background/Approach
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Peter Parret, ‘Clausewitz’. In: Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear
Age. Edited by Peter Paret, with the collaboration of Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert.
Princeton/New Yersey 1986, 186-213.
Julian Reid, ‘Life Struggles. War, Discipline and Biopolotics in the Thought of Michel
Foucault’. In: Foucault on Politics, Security and War. Edited by Michael Dillon and Andrew
W. Neal. New York 2008, 65-92.
Frank Tallet, War and and society in early modern Europe, 1495-1715. Londen and New
York, 1992, ‘Introduction’, 1-20.
Martin van Creveld, The Culture of War. New York 2008, xi-xvi (‘Introduction’), 64-83
(‘Games of war’ ).
II Twentieth Century/Europe
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Rebecka Letteval, Geert Somsen and Sven Widmalm, ‘Introduction’. In: Neutrality in
Twentieth-Century Europe. Intersections of Science, Culture, and Politics after the First
World War. Edited by Rebecka Lettevall, Geert Somsen, Sven Widmalm. London and New
York 2012, 1-15.
Spiering, M., & M.J. Wintle, 'European Identity, Europeanness and the First World War:
reflections on the twentieth century'. In Ideas of Europe since 1914: the legacy of the First
World War, edited by M. Spiering & M.J. Wintle. London 2002, 1-13.
Michael Wintle, ‘Ideals, Identity and War: the Idea of Europe, 1939-70’. In: European
Identity and the Second World War, edited by M. Spiering & M.J. Wintle (London,
Macmillan/Palgrave, 2011), 1-20.
Assignment:
While reading the articles, reflect upon the following question: do we wish to study the cultural
interconnection between war and peace from the point of view of Clausewitz, who saw war as
the continuation of diplomacy by violent means? Or do we prefer to approach the connection
from the angle adopted by Michel Foucault, who argued that peace is, instead, to be seen as the
continuation of war by non-violent means? Using the articles, write down two arguments in
favour of Clausewitz, and two in favour of Foucault. Please bring a printed version of your
assignment to class.
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Friday 7 June
10.00-15.00 - Radboud University Nijmegen, Erasmus Building, room E. 2.70
Preliminary reading:
I Before 1900:
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Olaf van Nimwegen, ‘The transformation of army organisation in early-modern western
Europe, c.1500-1789’. In: Frank Tallett en D.J.B. Trim (eds), European warfare, 13501750. Cambridge 2010, 159-180.
Lotte Jensen, ‘Dutch Resistance The Dutch against Napoleon. Resistance literature and
nationalidentity, 1806-1813’. In: Journal of Dutch Literature 2 (2011) 2, 5-26.
http://www.journalofdutchliterature.org/jdl/vol02/nr02/art01
II After 1900:
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Michael Kemper, ‘The Changing Images of Jihad Leaders. Shamil and Abd al-Qadir in
Daghestani and Algerian Historical Writing’. In: Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative
and Emergent Religions 11 (2007) 2, 28–58
Selma Leydesdorff, ‘How Shall we Remember Srebenica? Will the Language of Law
Structure Our Memory?’ In: Y. Gutman, A.D. Brown, A. Sodaro, Memory and the Future,
Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society. London, New York 2010, 121-141.
David Pascoe, ‘The Cold War and the “war on terror”’. In: Cambridge Companion to War
Writing. Edited by Kate McCloughlin. Cambridge 2009, 239-249.
Frank van Vree, ‘Indigestible images. On the ethics and limits of representation’. In: Karin
Tilmans, Frank van Vree and Jay Winter (eds.), Performing the Past. Memory, History, and
Identity in Modern Europe. Amsterdam2010, 257-283.
Assignment:
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ReMa students: Write down one question for each article; we will use these to prepare
an intervention for the conference. Bring your questions to class.
PhD candidates: please relate the themes discussed in the articles to your own PhDproject. Bring a written version of your ideas to class (max. one A 4).
ReMa students and PhD’s will (partly) be taught separately in today’s class.
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Summer school II: International Conference and masterclasses ‘Cultures of War and Peace’
Monday 17 June 2013: Cultures of War and Peace I: Keynotes
Afternoon 14.00 – 18.00 - Peace Palace, The Hague
14.00 Jay Winter (Yale University): Writing war
15.00 Selma Leydesdorff (University of Amsterdam): Beyond the language of the courtroom: the
narratives of the survivors of Srebrenica
16.00 Coffee & tea break
16.30 Frank van Vree (University of Amsterdam): The imagery of war. Screening the battlefield
in the twentieth century
Tuesday 18 June: Cultures of War and Peace II
Morning 9.30-13.00 - Sweelinckzaal, Utrecht University
9.30
10.15
11.00
11.30
12.15
Lotte Jensen (Radboud University Nijmegen): War and peace in shaping early modern
Dutch identity
Hans Cools (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven): Princes of peace. Princely discourses on
peace from Charles V to Louis XIV (16th-17th centuries)
Coffee & tea break
Olaf van Nimwegen (Utrecht University): The enigma of firepower c. 1500-1900
Micha Kemper (University of Amsterdam): Cultures of jihad: Islamic civil war
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
Afternoon 14.00-17.00 – Drift 25 102, Utrecht University
Masterclass Prof. Dr. Jay Winter (Yale University): Commemorating war
Jay Winter is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History at Yale University, where he focuses
his research on World War I and its impact on the 20th century. His other interests
include remembrance of war in the 20th century, such as memorial and mourning sites,
European population decline, the causes and institutions of war, British popular culture
in the era of the First World War and the Armenian genocide of 1915.
Note: the masterclasses are for registered PhD candidates and ReMa students only.
Readings:
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Jay Winter, Sites of memory, sites of mourning: the Great War in European cultural history.
Cambridge 1998, ‘War memorials’ (chapter 4).
Jay Winter & Emmanuel Sivan, ‘Setting the framework’. In: War and remembrance in the
20th century. Cambridge 2000, 6-39. (chapter 1)
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Antoine Prost, ‘The Algerian war in French collective memory’. In: War and remembrance
in the 20th century (Cambridge University Press 2000, 161-176 (chapter 8).
Assignment:
1. What do these three war memorials have in common: Kathe Kollwitz's memorial to her
son at Vladslo; Lutyens's memorial to the missing of the Somme at Thiepval; Lutyens's
Cenotaph in London?
2. Why was the naming of the dead so important a part of commemorative practices in the
aftermath of the Great War?
Wednesday 19 June: Cultures of War and Peace III
Morning 9.00 – 13.00 - Kanunnikenzaal, Academiegebouw, University of Utrecht
9.00
9.45
10.30
11.00
11.45
12.30
13.00
Michael Wintle (University of Amsterdam): War and European identity in the twentieth
century
Gerhard Hirschfeld (Stuttgart Universität): The memory of the 'Great War' in Germany
Coffee & tea break
Geert Somsen (Maastricht University): The sciences were never at war’: ideological uses of
science in war and peace
David Pascoe (Utrecht University): English novelists and War Office politics in the Second
World War
Final discussion
Lunch
Afternoon 14.00 - 17.00 - Kanunnikenzaal, Academiegebouw, University of Utrecht
Masterclass Dr. Raymond Fagel (Leiden University): Spanish tyranny
Raymond Fagel is Lecturer at the History Institute of Leiden University. Both teaching
and research are centered in the Renaissance (ca. 1480- ca. 1580), especially the
relations between the Low Countries and Spain during the Early Habsburgs, when both
territories were part of the same conglomerate of states. Attention is given to social and
economic relations, as well as to political developments and international relations. The
research focuses on trade between Spain and the Low Countries, on wars, on court
culture, migration, and the development of national identities. Another field of research
is the history of emigration from the Low Countries between 1480 and 1560
Readings:
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Fernando González de León, ‘Soldados pláticos and caballeros: the social dimensions of
ethics in the Early Modern Spanish army’. In: D.J.B. Trim, ed., The chivalric ethos and the
development of military professionalism (Leiden and Boston 2003), 235-268.
Amanda Pipkin, ‘They were not humans, but devils in human bodies: depictions of sexual
violence and Spanish tyranny as a means of fostering identity in the Dutch Republic’. In:
Journal of Early Modern History 13 (2009), 229-264.
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Optional: Raymond Fagel, Kapitein Julián. De Spaanse held van de Nederlandse Opstand
(Hilversum 2011, NB: only for native speakers; can be ordered at www.verloren.nl).
Assignment:
1. Compare methodology and use of sources of both Pipkin and González de León.
2. Is it useful, let alone possible, to compare the Spanish presence in the sixteenth-century
Low Countries with the German occupation during World War II?
3. Should we consider the Dutch Revolt as a liberation war against a cruel foreign
occupation, or as a cruel civil war?
Thursday 20 June: Masterclasses
Morning 10.00-13.00 - Kanunnikenzaal, Academiegebouw, Utrecht University
Masterclass Dr. Paul Schuurman (Erasmus University Rotterdam): Montesqieu on war
Paul Schuurman published on the epistemology, philosophy of science and logic of John
Locke and René Descartes. Since 2009 his research focuses on the philosophy and
history of war in the early modern period; he is working on a range of topics, including
game-theoretical concept in de political thought of Pieter de la Court, war and economy
in the quietism of Francois Fenelon, Montesquieu’s process explanations for the fall of
the Roman Empire, and the concept of interaction in Clausewitz’s On War.
Readings:
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Charles de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755), Considerations
on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1999) ch. I-III, pp. 23-42. Original title: Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des
Romains et de leur décadence (Amsterdam: J. Desbordes, 1734).
Paul Schuurman, ‘Determinism and Causal Feedback Loops’. In: Montesquieu’s
Explanation For the Military Rise and Fall of Rome’. In: British Journal for the History of
Philosophy (forthcoming).
Assignment:
1. How anachronistic is the use of system theory (feedback loops) in an analysis of
Montesquieu on the military rise and fall of the Roman Empire?
2. Do you agree or disagree with Schuurman’s criticism of Jonathan Israel?
13.00-14.00 Lunch
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Afternoon 14.00-17.00 - Kanunnikenzaal, Academiegebouw, Utrecht University
Masterclass Prof. Dr. Geert Buelens (Utrecht University): Remembering First World War
Cultures: Belligerents, Occupied Peoples & Neutrals.
Prof. dr. Geert Buelens is professor of Modern Dutch Literature at Utrecht University,
guest professor of Dutch Literature at Stellenbosch University (RSA) and Kluge Fellow at
the Library of Congress (2008). His research deals primarily with the intersections
between literature and society. He has published widely on the Flemish avant-garde
writer Paul van Ostaijen and on 20th Century avant-garde poetry, nationalist literature
and poetry of the First World War.
Readings:
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European Culture in the Great War. The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914-1918.
Edited by Aviel Roshwald and Richard Stites. Cambridge 2002, 349-358 (‘Conclusion’).
Weblink:
http://books.google.nl/books?id=uteV3ytfmqQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=european+c
ulture+first+world+war&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OKIsUfuQB4jC0QW23IHgCg&ved=0CC0Q6AE
wAA#v=onepage&q=european%20culture%20first%20world%20war&f=false
Geert Buelens, ‘The Silence of the Somme. Sound and Realism in British and Dutch Poems
mediating The battle of the Somme’. In: Journal of Dutch Literature 1 (2010) 1, 5-27.
Weblink: http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/jdl/vol01/nr01/art01
Ford Madox Hueffer, ‘Antwerp’. In: The New Poetry, An Anthology. Edited by Harriet
Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson (1917).
Online version: http://www.bartleby.com/265/165.html
Selection of poems from Paul van Ostaijen, Verzamelde gedichten. Ed. Gerrit Borgers.
Amsterdam 1996 (13the edition), 403-419.
Online: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/osta002verz02_01/osta002verz02_01_0124.php
Assignment:
1. What is the role of different media (poetry, cinema) in the cultural remembrance of the
First World War?
2. Read the poems carefully: which images of the War are made visible?
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Summer school III: essay and final meeting
Assignment: Tuesday 6 August, deadline essay
Discussion Papers & Evaluation (only for ReMa students)
Friday 23 August, 13.00-15.00 - Erasmus Building, room E 2.15 A, Nijmegen
Locations
Radboud University Nijmegen,
Faculty of Arts, Erasmus Building, room E. 2.72 / room E 2.15 A
Erasmusplein 1
6525 HT Nijmegen
Peace Palace, The Hague.
Carnegieplein 2
2517 KJ Den Haag
Sweelinckzaal, Utrecht University
Drift 21
3512 BR Utrecht
Drift 25 102, Utrecht University
Drift 25
3512 BR Utrecht
Kanunniken zaal, Academiegebouw, Utrecht University
Entrance via Achter de Dom 7a (please ring the bell)
3512 JE Utrecht
Maps:
Erasmus Buildig:
8
Peace Palace:
Kanunnikenzaal:
Drift 21 (Sweelinckzaal) & Drift 25:
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