ASA War and Peace Studies Caucus News from the 2012 Annual Meeting
David Kieran
Dear Members of the War and Peace Studies Caucus,
I hope that the end of the semester is going well for everyone, and that you’re finding time for writing during the end of semester crunch. The Caucus had a small but effective meeting at the ASA meeting in San Juan, and we are looking forward to the 2013 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. I want to provide a brief update on some ideas for 2013 panels that came up and invite you to contact me if you are interested in participating or if you have ideas of your own that you are interested in circulating.
The theme for the 2013 ASA annual meeting is “Beyond the Logic of Debt, Toward an Ethics of Collective Dissent,” a topic that we believe holds promise for many war-related panels. These include:
· A panel on “War Debt,” broadly construed – What are the economic, physical, and social costs of U.S. wars and militarism, both domestically and globally? How do logics of sacrifice get read as “debt,” and why is this important? How are ideas about fighting, protesting, and remembering wars indebted to other acts of conflict, protest, and remembrance?
· A panel on “Civil War Diasporas of Debt” – How did the Civil War create debts and costs that were borne throughout the nation and the world? What is the relationship between the Civil War and contemporaneous and subsequent wars in the American West? How did veterans seek to pay debts through service as mercenaries in other wars? How did individuals and groups damaged by the war seek to recuperate their losses?
· “War as Human Capital” – Members of the ASA Early American Matters caucus have suggested that such a topic might provide ways of “thematically incorporating EAM papers into panels with much broader temporal frameworks.” They are interested in co-sponsoring panels with us, which is great given our long-standing interest in engaging with projects that examine war in moments other than the twentieth century.
Beyond this, other ideas that have emerged include:
· “Keywords for Studying War and Peace” – We think that four years after our very successful “Studying War in Peace in American Studies / Studying America by Studying War and Peace” roundtable at the 2009 ASA is a good time to revisit some of the foundational questions about how the study of war and peace intersects with the larger American Studies Project. We propose a roundtable in which presenters will briefly present ideas about how critical keywords in American Studies – Empire, Human Rights, Environment, Peace, Technology, Trauma, Neoliberalism, and others – intersect with the study of war. We invite ideas about keywords and participants.
· “War, Empire, and the Archive” – How has the archival process shaped the histories of war and empire? How have archives at the metropole been central to constructing narratives that enable the production and maintenance of empire, and how have archives in alternative locations or collected through non-governmental entities provided spaces for dissent and critique?
· “The Price of Freedom Alternative Exhibit” – Following the successful roundtable on the National Museum of American History’s “The Price of Freedom” exhibit at the 2011 ASA, we propose a dual session in which presenters would write brief alternative scripts for sections of the exhibit and which would be made available as a podcast. Audience members would be invited to tour the exhibit using this podcast and then participate in a roundtable discussion with panelists and curators. We believe this project offers a critical means of continuing the work begun at a previous ASA and of using digital humanities to bridge the gap between academic history and public humanities projects.
· “War Memorial Tour” – Given the Meeting’s location in Washington, DC, we propose a session that will offer a critical tour of war memorials both on and off the National Mall.
If you are interested in participating as a panelist in any of these sessions, please let me know.
In related news, Beth Bailey has asked me to remind you that the Society for Military History and its Journal are keen to have more war and society papers and articles. Please consider submitting an abstract or an article.
As always, I hope that caucus members will use the Google group and the blog at the ASA website to publicize their own CFPs and recent publications. We have had considerable success building a network of scholars interested in these issues, and Matt Jacobsen’s attention to issues of conflict and empire in his ASA Presidential Address is evidence that our project of placing the study of war and peace at the center of American Studies scholarship is crucial.
Please contact me if you have interest in or questions about the above, or if I can be of any assistance. Good luck to all with the end of the semester, and see you all in Washington next fall.
Best,
Dave Kieran
American Studies
Franklin and Marshall College
Aaron O'Connell
--
Aaron B. O'Connell
Assistant Professor of History
U.S. Naval Academy
ASA Roundtable Proposal:
Left Alone in American Studies:
The American Military and Military Culture in America
Chair: Dr. Mary Dudziak, Emory Law School
Participant: Dr. Jenifer Van Vleck, Yale University
Participant: Dr. Aaron B. O’Connell, United States Naval Academy
Participant: Dr. Gretchen Heefner, Connecticut College
Participant: [Vacant]
Overview.
Twenty years after Amy Kaplan’s “Left Alone with
America” noted the absence of empire in the study of American culture, the
field of American Studies could still greatly benefit from more substantive
discussion of the principal institution facilitating American imperial
behavior: the U.S. armed forces.
This roundtable aims to highlight recent and ongoing scholarly work on military
culture and to point out the many intersections between the U.S. military
culture and the broader networks of culture that affect American life. Using
short (5-10 minute) opening statements and audience participation, we hope to
identify directions for new research on military and martial cultures in the US
and discuss how their study fits into the larger discipline of American
Studies.
In their introductory remarks, our four participants will discuss how the military interacts with various elements of American society and shapes the stories Americans tell about themselves and their country. Aaron O’Connell (Underdogs: The Making of the Modern Marine Corps [Harvard U Press: 2012]) studies militarization and the cultural power of the armed forces. He will discuss the Marines’ interventions into domestic politics and culture since World War II. Gretchen Heefner (The Missile Next Door: The Minuteman in the American Heartland [Harvard U Press: 2012]) studies the local consequences of the global cold war. She will discuss how deploying Minuteman missiles in the Cold War American West transformed Westerners’ ideas about the government, environment and the US’s role in the world. Jenifer Van Vleck (The Logic of the Air [Harvard U. Press: 2013]) will discuss the cultural history of international aviation as an example of how military power and private capital intertwined to create, and to culturally legitimize, the global infrastructure of American empire.
Questions and Topics. Some of the questions the roundtable will pose for discussion are:
Military
Culture
· Is there such a thing as “military culture”? Or is it better to speak of specific military cultures? How are they alike? How are they
different?
· How have Americans’ narratives about the US military changed since World
War II? Are they becoming more
powerful in society or less so? Why?
Military
Culture and American Studies
· Is military culture an “absence” in the study of American culture? If
so, why?
· Has the study of the military ever been a major part of American Studies? How might a better understanding of military-society connections—or military culture(s)—provide fresh perspectives on key questions and issues in American Studies?
The Military
in Society
· Do the terms we use to discuss military power in society – militarism
and militarization – suffice? Why
or why not?
· What areas of American culture, social life, economy and business have a “military connection” that is not well understood?
Christopher Capozzola
I'd be totally up for this.
On the road now, can write more later.
Chris.
_______________________________________
From: ASA...@googlegroups.com [ASA...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Aaron O'Connell [aoco...@usna.edu]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 8:47 AM
To: ASA...@googlegroups.com
Cc: David Kieran
Subject: Re: ASA War and Peace Studies Caucus News from the 2012 Annual Meeting
Hello ASA War and Peace Studies Caucus -
I am writing in search of a fourth participant for a roundtable for ASA 2014 here in Washington DC. We have a pretty good group in place, but we need a fourth member -- preferably a grad student -- to fill out the bill.
We are particularly interested in someone who can talk about issues of race in military culture, or the intersections of race, citizenship, patriotism and military service. We are also interested in those studying gender in the military.
Kind regards to you all,
Aaron
--
Aaron B. O'Connell
Assistant Professor of History
U.S. Naval Academy
(410) 293-6298<tel:%28410%29%20293-6298>