From the Personal to the Global: Lived Experiences of the Second World War

This summer, the Second World War Network (Scotland) and the Second World War Research Group are hosting a joint conference: From the Personal to the Global: Lived Experiences of the Second World War. On 9-10 June 2023 at the University of Edinburgh, over 60 speakers will present papers on their latest research, with panels ranging from Emotions and the British Home Front, to The Implications of Race, Holocaust Perspectives, Indigenous Forces, and much more.

In 1997, a seminal collection of essays edited by Paul Addison and Angus Calder was published, Time to K*ll: The Soldier's Experience of War in the West 1939-1945. This conference reconsiders the themes of this landmark book and extends them to include the experiences of civilians/non-combatants and men and women who served in air forces, navies and auxiliary services as well as armies. Its geographic focus will extend beyond Europe and North Africa and encompass the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. Following the ‘global turn’ in the historiography of the Second World War, the conference aims to recover the lived experiences of men and women transnationally, integrating national histories with global perspectives and addressing local, regional, national, racial, ethnic and gender dynamics. A key focus of the conference is to critically discuss the research agenda for the sub-discipline of Second World War Studies over the next decade as we approach key anniversaries of the conflict.

For the opening keynote address and plenary discussion, on Friday 9 June, Andrew Buchanan and Ruth Lawlor will speak on 'Time to M**der and Create: Writing Histories of a Greater Second World War' .

Susan R. Grayzel will deliver Saturday's keynote presentation '"G stands for Gas Mask": How Objects Can Illuminate Lived Experiences of the Second World War'.

For those unable to attend in person, the opening keynote address and plenary discussions from Andrew Buchanan and Ruth Lawlor will be available to stream on Zoom.

The conference is generously funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. As such there are no conference registration fees but audience places are limited and ticketed.

Options are available to attend either days of the conference, and to sign up for the online Friday keynote session, for which a Zoom link will be provided. If you wish to attend both days you will need to sign up for each of them. Demand for tickets is expected to be high, so we will operate a waiting list - it would be much appreciated if you could contact the organisers should you no longer be able to attend so your ticket may be reallocated.

Any queries may be directed to the Conference Administrator Emma Forth, on [email protected]

(Poster image courtesy of the IWM - IWM A 26953)

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

William Robertson Wing, The University of Edinburgh, 4 Teviot Place, Edinburgh, United Kingdom