CFP | Space Between 26th Annual Conference | Peace and Conflict in the Space Between
The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945
University of Kansas (KU)
Lawrence, Kansas
Submission Deadline: December 1, 2024. Details at the bottom of the page.
The Space Between Society invites proposals for its 26th annual conference, “Peace and Conflict in the Space Between,” which will be held May 28-30, 2025 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. Peace and Conflict are foundational to the years 1914-1945, given the lasting repercussions of WWI, the two-decade-long anticipation of WWII, and the horrors of both conflicts. War is the most obvious example of conflict in the Space Between, and we are interested in papers that explore literary and cultural facets of the myriad conflicts during our period, including for example, WWI, WWII, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Italo-Ethiopian invasion, unrest in the Balkans, the Holocaust, aerial bombing in colonized spaces, the ubiquity and endlessness of war and conflict in the period, war propaganda, combat, violence, and trauma, conscription, and the roots of current antisemitism in wartime and interwar conflicts. But conflict is not always expressed through physical aggression and violence, and it occurs within and across diverse fields of human encounter, from the international to the ideological and to the interpersonal. Neither is it simple and binary. Feminist struggles, for example, have always been fraught with conflicts over the relative efficacies of rhetoric, protest, and violence, as well as complex questions about class, race, and sex. Something similar might be said about all liberation movements, which may indeed have a single overriding goal and yet nonetheless be fraught with internal struggle over the nature, scope, and means to achieve it.
Peace similarly is liable to be understood within the general conception of war—as the cessation of overt physical hostility or vaunted political accords or efforts to end war entirely. Following this line of thought we may be tempted to posit peace as an absence of overt conflict, an idea that the history of political neutrality might readily rebut. Questions therefore about the very nature of peace might provide a rich vein of exploration, from the philosophical and practical (what is peace? how can it be achieved?) to the deeply personal (“and peace comes dropping slow”). Dystopianism and Utopianism in political and literary discourse provide terrains for reconstructing how peace was understood within the interwar years to be something more than the lack of violence.
The conference theme highlights KU’s proximity to the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, established in 1926 as a monument to all the individuals who served in WWI. The Memorial’s emphasis on peace in the aftermath of war echoes our conference theme’s attention to both peace and conflict in the space between. We invite proposals that consider literary, artistic, social, and cultural responses to the many varieties of proliferating conflict, as well as concurrent efforts to secure peace within international, national, regional, local, and interpersonal spaces in the years 1914-1945. Scholars working in any humanistic discipline and/or perspective (including literary studies, archival studies, history, art history, cultural studies, film studies, religious studies) are warmly welcome. Broad topics include but are not limited to:
- Political, legal, and diplomatic efforts to end war, including the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the League of Nations
- Resistance strategies: desertion, refusal, nonviolence, Esperanto, language reform, pacifism, anti-nationalism, neutrality, and/or appeasement
- Cultural and literary responses to state policies including imperialism, expansionism, socialism, authoritarianism, fascism, and communism
- Conflicts over nationality and citizenship, including suffrage, Pan-Africanism, cosmopolitanism, regionalism, and anti-colonial movements in Sudan, India, Ireland, the United States, and elsewhere
- Social conflict, including race-based (Jim Crow, miscegenation laws, lynching, riots, indigenous self-governance); religion-based (sectarianism, persecution, antisemitism); sex- and gender-based (suffrage, birth control, abortion, homosexuality, gender fluidity)
- Economic inequality and labor movements
- Dystopianism and Utopianism; the difficulty of talking about peace without lapsing into Utopianism
- Geographic results of conflict: migration, immigration, displacement, refugees, diasporas, redefined borders, and civil wars
- Legal, moral, and religious conflicts over prohibition
- Tactics and strategy; business strategy and the military-industrial complex
- Artistic and literary conflicts over value, institutionalization, the nature of representation, and political engagement including: the Black Arts Movement, the Battle of the Brows, the professionalization of English literary study; coterie circles; the Futurist rejection of the past; Vorticism vs. Futurism; modernist engagements with fascism and anti-fascism
- Fights over resources, environmental destruction, and industrial development
- Technology and futurity
- Marriage and family as sites of conflict and peace
Please email a 300-word abstract and a 100-word bio to the conference committee at spacebetween2025@gmail.com by December 1, 2024.
Details about conference logistics will be posted on the Annual Conference page of the Space Between website. Watch this space as the conference date nears for previews of conference activities, speakers, and themes.