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Past Projects

Developing projects include:

Dr Evaristo Martinez-Radio Garrido: Prisoners of War

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/academic/emrg/

Treatment of military prisoners in the eighteenth century varied according to the moral standards of the time, religion, social group and honour, both of the prisoner and of the captor. Prisoners of war taken in action, especially in Western countries, were dependent on the moral values that they held in common with their captors, although their future also depended upon their social class and the specific circumstance of being taken prisoner. It was the duty of their captors to provide first aid and shelter as well as meals; and this duty usually fell to the low-middle class members of the groups responsible for their custody.
Obviously imprisonment represented an important upheaval in the citizen´s daily routine and way of life. In spite of the horror involved in a war, we can also recognise that honor and respect could mitigate their situation, and there was some place for humanity. There was, however, an evolution from the beginning of the century to the end of it, in which the French Revolution played a pivotal role.
This project studies changing assumptions about captivity in the Ancien Régime, the different world-views these entail, and changes in the understanding of the laws of war. Through the lens of social History, it engages with crucial questions about the changing European world, and its impact on the freedom and the security of its citizens. The idea of rights of/in war and specifically for prisoners of war are constructions of this period of history that are recognisable in present-day conventions.
This study will trace an evolution from the beginning of the century to the Napoleonic era, accelerated by the phenomenon of the French Revolution. The War of Spanish Succession changed Europe’s foreign affairs considerably and offers an ideal opportunity to analyse the situation of prisoners of war from different countries. My main focus is on the way prisoners of war were treated in the United Kingdom, and British prisoners were managed in other countries. The primary material opens a huge and interesting field in relation to social classes, political affairs and international perceptions of the strength of a nation, as well as hitherto unexplored aspects of military and social history and questions about the exact parameters of humanitarian under the Ancien Régime.

Underground Adventures: Temporal Experimentation in Postwar Countercultures

Joachim C. Häberlen; Jake P. Smith; Jan-Eric Hansen
Conference 24.03.2017 - 25.03.2017

When the Berlin Techno scene emerged in the wake of the fall of the wall in 1989, party-goers often occupied urban relics: they danced in old factories and power stations, in the basements of decaying buildings, and in the obsolete infrastructure of the Cold War. Much like other countercultural movements since the 1950s, the ravers of late twentieth-century Berlin sought adventure in the interstitial, “underground” spaces of the everyday. While scholars have thoroughly addressed the spatial dimension of countercultural and underground movements – the construction of “heterotopias” (Foucault) – less attention has been paid to the creation of distinct temporal experiences – what might be termed the “heterochronies” of the underground. This conference seeks to address the heterochronic dimensions of postwar countercultural movements by examining the experimental audio-visual techniques and bodily practices that proliferated in these underground spaces. In so doing, we intend to draw attention to the fact that postwar countercultural movements were not only engaged in the appropriation and production of space; they were also centrally concerned with transforming time. The conference thus seeks to address the intersection of new technologies and media, bodily practices, and spatial and temporal experimentation. We invite scholars from a range of disciplines, including media studies, musicology, anthropology, history, social studies, and others, to reflect on how countercultural movements in the postwar period produced distinct temporal experiences. Issues to be addressed might range from the use of media and technology, such as strobe lights and experimental music, to bodily practices and experiences such as dancing and drug consumption, to the very timing of (counter) cultural events – what marks their beginning and their ending. We are equally interested in how issues such as social class, gender and race could shape the temporal dimensions of the underground. Finally, the politics of temporality needs to be discussed, that is, what political visions – of the past, present, and future – did countercultural movements develop by constructing the times and spaces of the underground?

Potential case studies might address any postwar countercultural movement in Europe and North America ranging from the psychedelic scenes of the 1960s, to the global New Wave Movement, to late twentieth-century raves.

We intend to pre-circulate papers of up to 3,000 words. Participants should read all papers in advance and only give a brief (10 minutes) presentation to remind the audience of their main points.

Please submit abstracts of up to 500 words to jake.p.smith@uchicago.edu by 15 September 2016. We will notify participants shortly thereafter. The conference will be held at Humboldt University Berlin. It is co-sponsored by the European History Research Centre at the University of Warwick. Travel expenses and accommodation will be covered by the conference organizers.

The conference is co-organized by Joachim C. Häberlen (Warwick), Jake P. Smith (Chicago) and Jan Hansen (HU Berlin).
Contact:
Joachim Häberlen
Department of History
University of Warwick
j.haeberlen@warwick.ac.uk
A History of Violence

A collaborative project amongst EHRC members looking at theoretical literature and its application to historical cases, including work on the Holocaust, the French and Russian Revolutions, and domestic and inter-personal violence. Projects include work on the Holocaust and on the victims of violence.

See: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/violence/

Radicalism and Socialism in the 20th Century

a group of projects on political movements in Europe in the pre- and post-war periods, analysing their internal dynamics and their processes of contestation:

New Subjectivities, New Emotions, New Politics: Oppositional Politics and Counter Cultures Across the Iron Curtain During the Long 1970s
International Workshop at the Center for Interdisciplinary Polish Studies, Europe University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany, 12-13 June 2015
Dr Joachim Häberlen, Ms Kate Mahoney, and Dr Mark Keck-Szajbel.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/research/projects/the_politics_of_emotion/conference_program

Ending the century

A project on 1490, 1590, 1690, 1790 and 1890 - a trans-European, comparative, examination of decades of turbulence, and an exercise in the examination of the nature of the 'early-modern' period and its characteristics.

See: 13 March 2015 RETREAT:Early Modernity

An invitation-only event for colleagues at Warwick and elsewhere to debate a broad set of questions about the notion of ‘early modernity’: What does it mean? What are its conceptual advantages and costs? How does it differ from modernity? It may also look at periodization questions as they pertain to specific themes, such as religion, state building, literacy, print, science, food, colonialism/empire, public opinion and war.


Poverty and Inequality 2016-17

A series of workshops for MA and Phd students in history, exploring different disciplinary approaches to poverty and inequality.

from the depths
Underground Adventures: Temporal Experimentation in Postwar Countercultures

dir. Joachim C. Häberlen; Jake P. Smith; Jan-Eric Hansen

Conference 24.03.2017 - 25.03.2017

Rights and Duties

The EHRC has supported a series of meetings developing discussions of the discourses of rights and duties with respect to economic and social rights and rights to health and educational provision from the 18th to the 21st centuries. Further meetings will be held in the course of 2014-15.

See http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ghcc/research/serhn