Theme
Critical Technologies: The Making of the Modern World

Session
Archaeologies of Internment: Method and Theory for an Emerging Field

Lead Organizer 1
Adrian Myers, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (Canada)
adriantimothymyers@gmail.com
www.vhec.org

Lead Organizer 2
Gabriel Moshenska, University College London (United Kingdom)
g.moshenska@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract 
Europe in 1945 was a landscape of camps.  These distinctive sites of internment served as prisons, literally or effectively, for the displaced, demobbed, captured, persecuted, diseased, exiled, and hunted.  Within a few years this landscape had vanished, leaving only traces and memorials.  Internment is often a property of societies in transition; the ephemeral nature of the remains eliding their historical significance.  This session examines the potential contribution of archaeological approaches to the study of internment on a global scale.

As archaeological methods are increasingly applied to the interpretation and management of sites of modern conflict, sub-fields begin to emerge. By bringing together papers on 'the archaeology of internment' we hope to increase our understanding of forced mass internment events; events that were and are deeply influenced by the emerging 'critical technologies' of the 20th and 21st centuries. The modern and industrial, and increasingly post-modern and digital, nature of conflict reverberates through the internment experience.

We invite papers on the material aspects of the relocation and confinement, typically without trial, of 'enemy aliens', ethnic minorities, political prisoners, displaced persons, prisoners of war, 'enemy combatants' and others. The sites of internment include concentration camps, death camps, prisoner of war camps, 'relocation centres', and others. Topics can include any geographic or temporal context including recent and current events. We anticipate contributions that report on field work, but also more theoretical pieces. The papers should be 5-10 minutes long, and should situate internment archaeology within one or more of the wider contexts of conflict archaeology, material culture studies, and contemporary and historical archaeology.

 11th Conference of International Society for the Study of European Ideas

University of Helsinki, July 28th- August 2nd 2008

Call for papers: War, Culture, Technology

 I am organising a panel on the theme of 'War, Culture, Technology' as part of the 11th conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI), titled 'Language and the Scientific Imagination'. This is to be held at the University of Helsinki between 28th July and 2nd August 2008. The conference organisers state that their principal aim is to generate a new approach of the Humanities to Science and Technology by re-examining the dialogue between the sciences and the arts, arguing that 'the "two cultures" depend on each other, for human beings give sense to their lives both by doing (Science) and by telling stories (Language)'.

 The aim of this panel will be to consider the ways in which cultural representations of warfare have embodied, reflected and contributed to the often problematic dialogue between science and the arts since the advent of mass, industrialised warfare in the late nineteenth century. Proposals for papers dealing with any aspect of this theme from established scholars and postgraduates are therefore invited. These should be no more than 350 words in length and sent to me electronically or to the address below by Friday 17th March:

 Dr MJ Hurcombe,

School of Modern Languages,

University of Bristol,

17 Woodland Rd,

Bristol, BS8 1TE

0117 928 8447

M.J.Hurcombe@bristol.ac.uk

PROPOSED SESSION FOR THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE EAA, MALTA, SEPTEMBER  2008

TERRAINS OF CONFLICT: APPROACHES TO WARFARE IN THE EUROPEAN PAST
I attach below the abstract and call for contributions to a proposed
session for the Annual Conference of the European Association of
Archaeologists to be held in Malta from 16th to 21st September, website at
http://events.um.edu.mt/eaa2008/index.html
If you would like to offer a paper please send me an abstract of up to
200 words or send it direct to the organisers as indicated on the
conference website.
I look forward to hearing from you
John

Dr John Carman
Birmingham University Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Heritage
Valuation
Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity
Arts Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham B15 2TT
Tel: 44 (0)121 414 7493
Fax: 44 (0)121 414 3595
Email: J.Carman@bham.ac.uk

Organisers:
The ESTOC group: European Studies of Terrains of Conflict
c/o Dr John Carman, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity
Arts Building, University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT
Tel: 44 (0)121 414 7493 Fax: 44 (0)121 414 3595
Email: J.Carman@bham.ac.uk

The ESTOC group - founded in March 2007 in Oudenaarde, Belgium - brings
together leading archaeologists, historians, architects and heritage
professionals from eight European countries to promote research into and
the preservation of places of conflict in the European past. Taking
advantage of this opportunity to discuss issues of conflict at the
location of momentous past military activity, this session seeks to promote
the work of the group by providing an opportunity for researchers into
past conflict to present their work to the European archaeological
community. We seek contributions that explore the wide range of
archaeological work on human conflict, relating to landscapes, artefacts and human
remains from all periods, from prehistory to the present.

October 9-11 Legacy of War Conference, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise, France