Visualising War and Peace
88 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingHow do war stories work? And what do they do to us? Join University of St Andrews historian Alice König and colleagues as they explore how war and peace get presented in art, text, film and music. With the help of expert guests, they unpick conflict stories from all sorts of different periods and places. And they ask how the tales we tell and the pictures we paint of peace and war influence us as individuals and shape the societies we live in.
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Episodes
Visualising Future Conflict through Storytelling with Matthew Brown, Emily Spiers and Will Slocombe
November 03, 2021 02:00 - 1 hour - 68.9 MBIn this episode, Alice talks to Dr Emily Spiers, who is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Futures at Lancaster University; Dr Will Slocombe, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool and specialist in Science Fiction; and Lt Col Matthew Brown, Chief of Future Concepts and Strategy with the RAF (on loan from the US Air Force). All three have been collaborating on a project, led by Matthew, that uses fictional storytelling to help members of the RAF and the wider military community visualis...
How War Disrupts the Experience of Time with Julian Wright
October 27, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 41.7 MBIn this episode, Alice talks to Prof. Julian Wright, a historian of modern Europe and Head of the Department of Humanities at Northumbria University. Julian specialises in French intellectual, political and cultural history, but more broadly he is fascinated by the idea and experience of time. With colleagues from other disciplines, he has just published a book called Time on a Human Scale: Experiencing the Present in Europe, 1860-1930, which prompts historians who are reconstructing the pas...
Re-presenting well-known conflicts at the Imperial War Museums: World War II and the Holocaust
October 20, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 52.8 MBThis week Alice and Nicolas return to the Imperial War Museum, with the second episode of our mini-series on the recently redesigned WWI, WWII and Holocaust Galleries. Last episode focussed on the WWI Galleries; in this episode we take a closer look at the WWII and Holocaust Galleries, which open to the public on the 20th of October. Among our guests we welcome back Vikki Hawkins and Kate Clements, the curators of the WWII Galleries; and we also have with us James Bulgin, the content lead ...
Strategy-making and/as Storytelling with Phillips O’Brien
October 13, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 48 MBIn this week’s podcast, Alice and Nicolas discuss strategy with Prof. Phillips O’Brien. Phil joined the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews in 2016 as Professor of Strategic Studies; he also directs the university’s interdisciplinary Institute for the Study of War and Strategy, which has some obvious areas of overlap with the Visualising War project. His interests in warfare and strategy range widely, with a particular focus on the early twentieth century. Most ...
Re-presenting well-known conflicts at the Imperial War Museums: World War I
October 06, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 54.1 MBThis week Alice and Nicolas have a special treat for you: the first episode of a two-part mini-series on the Imperial War Museum’s recently redesigned WWI, WWII and Holocaust Galleries. The WWI Galleries are already open to the public and will be the focus of this week’s episode. In a couple of weeks, the second part of this mini-series will then take a closer look at the WWII and Holocaust Galleries, which will open on the 20th of October 2021. With us on the show today are Sir Hew Stracha...
Gallipoli to the Somme: musical responses to WW1 with Kate Kennedy and Anthony Ritchie
September 29, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 56.3 MBIn this episode, Alice talks to acclaimed composer Dr Anthony Ritchie about his oratorio 'Gallipoli to the Somme', which was commissioned for the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra and City Choir Dunedin as part of the centenary commemorations of the First World War. Also joining us is Dr Kate Kennedy, a musician, librettist and expert on the poetry and songs of WW1. Both have lots to say about how music can deepen our understanding of war and its impacts. Kate has recently published a biography ...
War, knowledge and narrative from Napoleon to today
September 22, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 42 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Prof. Anders Engberg-Pedersen, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Southern Denmark. Anders is the author of Empire of Chance, published in 2015, which argues that the Napoleonic Wars not only changed the nature of warfare but also revolutionised people's understanding of chance, contingency and probability, inspiring a new discourse of knowledge. He has also edited volumes on Literature and Cartography, exploring how differe...
Documenting war and promoting peace in Mosul with Omar Mohammed / Mosul Eye
September 15, 2021 01:00 - 55 minutes - 38.1 MBIn this episode, Alice interviews historian Dr Omar Mohammed, founder of the acclaimed Mosul Eye blog. When ISIS captured Mosul in 2014, Omar began posting regular updates to keep people informed and to counter misinformation – and his blog became a vital source of information both for those within the city and the wider world. He posted regularly throughout the occupation and liberation of Mosul, and has since turned his attention to Mosul’s recovery, using the blog to promote cross-cultura...
Warfare in the Digital Age with Donatella Della Ratta
September 08, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 56.8 MB‘The non-violent Syrian uprising that turned into an armed conflict was born digital and networked from the very moment an unarmed activist used a smartphone camera to shoot while an armed man raised his gun to shoot at him.’ Donatella della Ratta, Shooting a Revolution: Visual Media and Warfare in Syria (2018). In this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Dr Donatella della Ratta, Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University in Rome. Donatella spe...
Visualising Peace with Frank Möller
September 01, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 44 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Dr Frank Möller, a researcher at the Tampere Peace Research Institute, Finland. Frank studies peace photography - both how photography can represent peace, and how such representations can contribute to peace. He has published several books on this topic, including Visual Peace: Images, Spectatorship and the Politics of Violence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Peace Photography (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). He also leads a project on 'peace videogra...
Afghanistan past, present and future
August 28, 2021 16:00 - 53 minutes - 37 MBIn this episode, Alice interviews a journalist from Afghanistan about the events of August 2021, when the Taliban seized control of the country. They discuss the complex series of conflicts and international interventions that led up to the Taliban takeover, going back over several decades, and the ways in which wars of the past have been represented and (mis)understood. They also talk about the importance of hearing from local voices, not just international journalists and politicians, in m...
Reading and Treating War Wounds with Emily Mayhew
August 25, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 45.1 MBIn this week's episode, Alice talks to Dr Emily Mayhew, a historian of medicine at Imperial College, London. Emily specialises in the study of severe casualty - its infliction, treatment and long-term outcomes in 20th and 21st century warfare. Recently, she has worked particularly closely with researchers and staff at the Royal British Legion Centre for Blast Injury Studies, based at Imperial College, and she is part of the team that put together the ground-breaking Paediatric Blast Injury F...
War Documentaries with Sam Taplin
August 18, 2021 00:00 - 51 minutes - 35.2 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas talk to producer and director Sam Taplin about representations of war in TV documentaries. Sam has worked in a variety of genres, from factual programmes to drama documentaries. He has credits with Channel 4, Channel 5, Netflix, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and PBS, among others, and has particularly specialised in documentaries on the Second World War. He talks about the pragmatics of documentary making, what kinds of audiences differe...
The Institute for War and Peace Reporting with Anthony Borden
August 11, 2021 00:00 - 55 minutes - 38.1 MBIn this week's episode, Alice interviews Anthony Borden, Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Founded 30 years ago, the IWPR thinks globally but works locally, fostering grassroots journalism in many different parts of the world. Via training, mentoring and support on the ground, it empowers local journalists and civil society groups to tackle disinformation and to inform, educate and mobilise their own communities. Its mission is to 'give voice to peo...
Achilles on Stage with Ewan Downie
August 04, 2021 00:00 - 42 minutes - 29.3 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Ewan Downie, an actor, writer, director and co-founder of the Company of Wolves, a laboratory theatre company whose mission is to make compelling drama ‘that speaks directly to the times in which we live’. Ewan recently staged a one-man show that explored the story of Achilles, an ancient Greek warrior made famous by Homer's epic poem The Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan War - a topic we touched on in last week's podcast with NMT Automa...
Staging Ancient and Modern War Stories with NMT Automatics
July 28, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.4 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview members of NMT Automatics, a theatre company which specialises in updating ancient myths for modern audiences. Co-founders Jennie Dunne and Jonathan Young have been working with director Andres Velasquez and dramaturg Mairin O'Hagan to develop a new play, Tempus Fugit: Troy and Us, which weaves together an Ancient Greek war story from Homer's Iliad with the tale of a modern military couple, Alec and Bea. The Visualising War project has been feedin...
Ancient Warfare Magazine with Jasper Oorthuys and Murray Dahm
July 21, 2021 00:00 - 52 minutes - 36.3 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview the editors of Ancient Warfare Magazine - Jasper Oorthuys and Murray Dahm. Founded in 2007, Ancient Warfare examines the military history of many different ancient cultures in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, with a particular focus on Greece and Rome from around 1200BC to 600AD. It has thousands of readers all around the world – and thousands tune in to the Ancient Warfare podcast. We ask Jasper and Murray what their readers ...
War in Children’s Books with Jill Calder, James Robertson and Jim Hutcheson
July 14, 2021 00:00 - 55 minutes - 38.1 MBIn this episode, Alice interviews artist Jill Calder, author James Robertson and illustrator/book designer Jim Hutcheson, who is Creative Director at the Scottish publishing company Birlinn Books. One summer, Jim was exploring the wares in a small bookshop in Spain when he came across an illustrated history of the life of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, a Castilian knight also known as ‘El Cid’ or ‘El Campeador’. That got him thinking about the representation of other medieval warriors in literature...
War Writing from Antiquity to the 21st Century with Prof. Kate McLoughlin
July 07, 2021 00:00 - 57 minutes - 39.5 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Prof. Kate McLoughlin. A Professor of English at Oxford University and Tutorial Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Kate works on the representation of war in literature in many different genres, from the ancient world to the present day. Among other books, she is the author of Martha Gellhorn: The War Writer in the Field and in the Text, which explores Gellhorn's fictional writing alongside her journalism. She also wrote Authoring War: The Liter...
War Writing from Antiquity to the 21st Century with Prof. Kate McLoughlin
July 07, 2021 00:00 - 57 minutes - 39.5 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Prof. Kate McLoughlin. A Professor of English at Oxford University and Tutorial Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Kate works on the representation of war in literature in many different genres, from the ancient world to the present day. Among other books, she is the author of Martha Gellhorn: The War Writer in the Field and in the Text, which explores Gellhorn's fictional writing alongside her journalism. She also wrote Authoring War: The Liter...
Wargaming in a Brave New World
July 05, 2021 00:00 - 47 minutes - 32.8 MBHow do crisis simulations help us understand strategy and decision-making processes? Crisis simulation exercises can take many forms, from complex live wargame events to on-screen and multi-week crisis scenarios. What is the role and utility of crisis simulations in the understanding, teaching, and making of strategy? Can wargames be used as a predictive tool, or should their utility be centred around training purposes? How are wargames and simulations adapting to an increasingly online wor...
Let’s Play: War, From Rome’s Gladiators to Warhammer
July 05, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 51.9 MBWhat are the cultural legacies of visualising war through wargames? Wargames are not a new phenomenon; in military exercises, as tactical plays tested on maps and as entertainment spectacles, wargames have been with us from ancient times. Studying wargames allows us to better understand the fog of war, as well as giving us nuanced insights into the processes by which military strategy is visualised and drilled into the martial and civilian body. How do we game war? And what does the history...
Let’s Play: War, From Rome’s Gladiators to Warhammer
July 05, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 51.9 MBWhat are the cultural legacies of visualising war through wargames? Wargames are not a new phenomenon; in military exercises, as tactical plays tested on maps and as entertainment spectacles, wargames have been with us from ancient times. Studying wargames allows us to better understand the fog of war, as well as giving us nuanced insights into the processes by which military strategy is visualised and drilled into the martial and civilian body. How do we game war? And what does the history...
Wargaming in a Brave New World
July 05, 2021 00:00 - 47 minutes - 32.8 MBHow do crisis simulations help us understand strategy and decision-making processes? Crisis simulation exercises can take many forms, from complex live wargame events to on-screen and multi-week crisis scenarios. What is the role and utility of crisis simulations in the understanding, teaching, and making of strategy? Can wargames be used as a predictive tool, or should their utility be centred around training purposes? How are wargames and simulations adapting to an increasingly online wor...
Letters That You Will Not Get: Women’s Voices from the Great War
June 30, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 47.8 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview librettist Susan Werbe and composer Kirsten Volness about musical representations of war. In particular, Susan and Kirsten discuss the opera they created with colleague Kate Holland, Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War. As Susan explains, most representations of WW1 have been white, male and Eurocentric - but this was a global conflict which impacted many different people in many different ways. Letters uses the...
Soldier On and the Soldiers’ Arts Academy with Jonathan Guy Lewis
June 23, 2021 00:00 - 57 minutes - 39.4 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview actor and playwright Jonathan Guy Lewis. Jonny joined the army on leaving university, but illness halted his training and after months in hospital he changed direction and embarked on an acting career. His military experiences came in handy when he was cast as Sgt Chris McCleod in the TV series Soldier Soldier, but they have also informed his writing and his work as Artistic Director of the Soldier's Arts Academy. In the podcast, Jonny ta...
Anatomy of a Soldier with author and artist Harry Parker
June 16, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 45.1 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Harry Parker, an artist, former army officer, and author of Anatomy of a Soldier - a creative and powerful novel that narrates the experiences of fictional soldier Tom Barnes as he deploys to war and gets badly injured by an IED. Harry was himself injured by an IED while on tour in Afghanistan, losing both legs, and in many ways the novel draws on his personal experiences. But as Harry explains, it is also a highly fictionalised account and...
5 Soldiers on Stage with dancer and choreographer Rosie Kay
June 09, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 46.9 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview dancer and choreographer Rosie Kay. Rosie began dancing at the age of three, founding the Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2004. With multiple award winning shows to her name, Rosie suffered a serious knee injury in 2006, and this got her thinking about other jobs which involve bodily risk. She ended up embedding with an infantry battalion to research the risks that soldiers take, and this led to her development of the dance show 5 Soldiers: the...
Why We Fight: causes of conflict with Mike Martin
June 02, 2021 00:00 - 53 minutes - 36.9 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Dr Mike Martin, author of An Intimate War: an Oral History of the Helmand Conflict, 1978-2012 and Why We Fight. Mike is a former British Army officer who was deployed to Afghanistan multiple times. A fluent Pashto speaker, Mike's role involved researching local culture and history to help inform military operations in the region. He is proud of the work he did, which undoubtedly saved Afghan and British lives; but his research ended up bri...
Framing War at the Imperial War Museum with Eleanor Head
May 26, 2021 00:00 - 50 minutes - 34.7 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Eleanor Head, the Head of the Imperial War Museum's Institute. The Imperial War Museum in London was founded during the First World War, and it is now part of a larger group of museums and historic attractions dotted around the UK: the Churchill War Rooms and HMS Belfast in London, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, and the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester. The IWM Institute was created just two years ago to reflect on how these dif...
Iraqi Women, Art and War with Rana Ibrahim
May 19, 2021 00:00 - 51 minutes - 35.5 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Iraqi artist Rana Ibrahim. Rana trained as an archaeologist and museum curator; but her childhood and early adulthood were dominated by conflict, and she ended up seeking refuge as a forced migrant in the UK following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. After settling in Oxford, she founded the Iraqi Women, Art and War Group, a community project that gives women who have been affected by conflict an opportunity to process their experiences...
Reading Trajan's Column with Jon Coulston
May 12, 2021 00:00 - 35 minutes - 24.5 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Roman historian Dr Jon Coulston. Jon is an expert on Roman military culture and ancient representations of war. He gives us a fascinating introduction to one of the most detailed and influential military monuments to survive from the Roman Empire: Trajan's column. Commemorating the emperor Trajan's victory over King Decebalus of Dacia in 106 AD, the column narrates the story of two historic campaigns, giving us valuable insights into real-l...
Reading Trajan's Column with Jon Coulston
May 12, 2021 00:00 - 35 minutes - 24.5 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Roman historian Dr Jon Coulston. Jon is an expert on Roman military culture and ancient representations of war. He gives us a fascinating introduction to one of the most detailed and influential military monuments to survive from the Roman Empire: Trajan's column. Commemorating the emperor Trajan's victory over King Decebalus of Dacia in 106 AD, the column narrates the story of two historic campaigns, giving us valuable insights into real-l...
Capturing Conflict on Camera with Hugh Kinsella Cunningham
May 05, 2021 00:00 - 46 minutes - 32 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview photojournalist Hugh Kinsella Cunningham. Hugh has spent the past two years documenting humanitarian crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He explains some of the logistical challenges which conflict photographers face and how conflict photography has changed in recent decades. Hugh is passionate about making forgotten or unseen conflicts more visible, and he wants the images he produces to raise awareness, engage people and inspire t...
Art and War with Diana Forster
April 28, 2021 00:00 - 53 minutes - 36.9 MBIn this week's episode, Alice and Nicolas interview artist Diana Forster. Diana has created some extraordinary conflict art based around her mother's experiences of being forcibly displaced and imprisoned in labour camps in Soviet Russia during World War 2. Through Diana's work, we explore the way that visual artists can take relatively unknown war stories and create dynamic new ways of giving voice to them, disrupting traditional habits of visualising war in the process. Diana's conflict ...
Never Such Innnocence with Lady Lucy French
April 21, 2021 08:00 - 59 minutes - 40.6 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas interview Lady Lucy French, OBE, about Never Such Innocence, a charity she founded in 2014 to give children and young people a voice on conflict. Participants come from all around the globe and they use art, public speaking, poetry and song to share how they feel about war and its impacts. Through workshops, community events and public award ceremonies, Never Such Innocences ensures that these young voices are heard by politicians, policy-makers and Armed F...
Digging in to the Visualising War project: Roundtable
April 14, 2021 09:00 - 57 minutes - 39.2 MBIn this episode, Alice and Nicolas introduce their colleagues Dr. Laura Mills and Dr. Ken Mavor, who are part of the Visualising War research team at the University of St Andrews. Laura explains what her background in International Relations brings to the project; and Ken discusses what his study of psychology can contribute to our understanding of how war stories work and what they do to us. They swap notes about war stories that have influenced them and talk about their plans to involve ar...
Introducing the Visualising War Project
April 13, 2021 11:00 - 29 minutes - 20.5 MBWelcome to the Visualising War podcast! In our introductory episode, Dr. Alice König and Dr. Nicolas Wiater explain what their exciting multidisciplinary project is all about. They discuss what we can learn by exploring past and present habits of representing war - and why it is important to examine how war stories work and what they do to us. They talk about their aims for the podcast, the exciting guests they have lined up, and what they hope listeners will get out of it. As they explain, ...