scholarly journals Universities, expertise and the First World War

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Horne ◽  
Tamson Pietsch

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to: introduce the topic of the relationship between universities and the First World War historiographically; put university expertise and knowledge at the centre of studies of the First World War; and explain how an examination of university expertise and war reveals a continuity of intellectual and scientific activity from war to peace. Design/methodology/approach Placing the papers in the special issue of HER on universities and war in the context of a broader historiography of the First World War and its aftermath. Findings The interconnections between university expertise and the First World War is a neglected field, yet its examination enriches the current historiography and prompts us to see the war not simply in terms of guns and battles but also how the battlefield extended university expertise with long-lasting implications into the 1920s and 1930s. Originality/value The paper explores how universities and their expertise – e.g. medical, artistic, philosophical – were mobilised in the First World War and the following peace.

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Horne

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of the “knowledge front” alongside ideas of “home” and “war” front as a way of understanding the expertise of university-educated women in an examination of the First World War and its aftermath. The paper explores the professional lives of two women, the medical researcher, Elsie Dalyell, and the teacher, feminist and unionist, Lucy Woodcock. The paper examines their professional lives and acquisition and use of university expertise both on the war and home fronts, and shows how women’s intellectual and scientific activity established during the war continued long after as a way to repair what many believed to be a society damaged by war. It argues that the idea of “knowledge front” reveals a continuity of intellectual and scientific activity from war to peace, and offers “space” to examine the professional lives of university-educated women in this period. Design/methodology/approach The paper is structured as an analytical narrative interweaving the professional lives of two women, medical researcher Elsie Dalyell and teacher/unionist Lucy Woodcock to illuminate the contributions of university-educated women’s expertise from 1914 to the outbreak of the Second World War. Findings The emergence of university-educated women in the First World War and the interwar years participated in the civic structure of Australian society in innovative and important ways that challenged the “soldier citizen” ethos of this era. The paper offers a way to examine university-educated women’s professional lives as they unfolded during the course of war and peace that focuses on what they did with their expertise. Thus, the “knowledge front” provides more ways to examine these lives than the more narrowly articulated ideas of “home” and “war” front. Research limitations/implications The idea of the “knowledge front” applied to women in this paper also has implications for how to analyse the meaning of the First World War-focused university expertise more generally both during war and peace. Practical implications The usual view of women’s participation in war is as nurses in field hospitals. This paper broadens the notion of war to see war as having many interconnected fronts including the battle front and home front (Beaumont, 2013). By doing so, not only can we see a much larger involvement of women in the war, but we also see the involvement of university-educated women. Social implications The paper shows that while the guns may have ceased on 11 November 1918, women’s lives continued as they grappled with their war experience and aimed to reassert their professional lives in Australian society in the 1920s and 1930s. Originality/value The paper contains original biographical research of the lives of two women. It also conceptualises the idea of “knowledge front” in terms of war/home front to examine how the expertise of university-educated career women contributed to the social fabric of a nation recovering from war.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-61
Author(s):  
Colleen E. Haight ◽  
Nikolai G. Wenzel

Purpose Subsequent to the First World War, the French Government regulated the Champagne industry, and locked the status of protected (and excluded) grapes into the new Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée system, forever altering the incentives and output of wine producers. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach As a result, some indigenous varietals have disappeared entirely from the region – and a handful remain only in the vineyards and bottles of a few bold entrepreneurs, constituting less than 1 percent of Champagne production. Findings The authors assess several traditional explanations (from taste and preferences to agricultural resilience)-and dismiss them as unconvincing. Instead, the authors adopt a public choice framework of regulatory capture to explain the puzzle of thwarted entrepreneurship and consumer choice. Originality/value This paper is original.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Sherington

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the War on two prominent academic liberal historians. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on a narrative of their lives and careers before and during the War. Findings The findings include an analysis of how the War engaged these academic liberals in the pursuit of the War effort. Originality/value By the end of the War, both sought to reaffirm much of their earlier academic liberalism despite the political and social changes in the post-war world.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
JESSICA REINISCH

In 2005Contemporary European Historypublished a special issue on transnationalism, edited by Patricia Clavin and Jens-Wilhelm Wessels. The articles presented six examples of ‘transnational’ connections between Europeans from different countries, focusing primarily on contacts in the political and economic realms, and documenting a multitude of ties and links between Europeans at all levels from the end of the First World War to the early 1960s.


2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Pavić Pintarić

This paper investigates the translation of pejoratives referring to persons. The corpus is comprised of literary dialogues in the collection of short stories about the First World War by Miroslav Krleža. The dialogues describe the relationship between officers and soldiers. Soldiers are not well prepared for the war and are the trigger of officers’ anger. Therefore, the dialogues are rich with emotionally loaded outbursts resulting in swearwords. Swearwords relate to the intellect and skills of soldiers, and can be divided into absolute and relative pejoratives. Absolute pejoratives refer to the words that carry the negative meaning as the basis, whereas relative pejoratives are those that gain the negative meaning in a certain context. They derive from names of occupations and zoonyms. The analysis comprises the emotional embedment of swearwords, their metaphoric character and the strategies of translation from the Croatian into the German language.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamson Pietsch

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to bring together the history of war, the universities and the professions. It examines the case of dentistry in New South Wales, detailing its divided pre-war politics, the role of the university, the formation and work of the Dental Corps during the First World War, and the process of professionalization in the 1920s. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on documentary and archival sources including those of the University of Sydney, contemporary newspapers, annual reports and publication of various dental associations, and on secondary sources. Findings The paper argues that both the war and the university were central to the professionalization of dentistry in New South Wales. The war transformed the expertise of dentists, shifted their social status and cemented their relationship with the university. Originality/value This study is the first to examine dentistry in the context of the histories of war, universities and professionalization. It highlights the need to re-evaluate the changing place of the professions in interwar Australia in the light both of the First World War and of the university’s involvement in it.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-45
Author(s):  
Kay Morris Matthews ◽  
Kay Whitehead

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the contributions of women teachers to the war effort at home in Australia and New Zealand and in Egypt and Europe between 1914 and 1918. Design/methodology/approach Framed as a feminist transnational history, this research paper drew upon extensive primary and secondary source material in order to identify the women teachers. It provides comparative analyses using a thematic approach providing examples of women teachers war work at home and abroad. Findings Insights are offered into the opportunities provided by the First World War for channelling the abilities and leadership skills of women teachers at home and abroad. Canvassed also are the tensions for German heritage teachers; ideological differences concerning patriotism and pacifism and issues arising from government attitudes on both sides of the Tasman towards women’s war service. Originality/value This is likely the only research offering combined Australian–New Zealand analyses of women teacher’s war service, either in support at home in Australia and New Zealand or working as volunteers abroad. To date, the efforts of Australian and New Zealand women teachers have largely gone unrecognised.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-383
Author(s):  
Rose Spijkerman

During the First World War, many soldiers in the Belgian Army were endowed with a decoration, in order to inspire, motivate, and reward desirable conduct. The relationship between decorations and the soldier’s self-consciousness, his behaviour and his emotions, is present in every aspect of decorating, as it emphasized his self-esteem, pride, and character. By analysing the material aspects of decorations, the ceremonies surrounding their bestowal, and the textual motivation for doing so, this article explores the functions and effects of decorating, the evaluation of behaviour and self-conscious emotions by both Army Command and soldiers.


2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER N. B. ROSS

ABSTRACTAs British efforts to secure the approaches to India intensified in the closing years of the nineteenth century, expert knowledge of the states bordering the subcontinent became an increasingly sought-after commodity. Particularly high demand existed for individuals possessing first-hand experience of Qajar Persia, a state viewed by many policymakers as a vulnerable anteroom on the glacis of the Raj. Britain's two foremost Persian experts during this period were George Nathaniel Curzon and Edward Granville Browne. While Curzon epitomized the traditional gentleman amateur, Browne embodied the emerging professional scholar. Drawing on both their private papers and publications, this article analyses the relationship between these two men as well as surveys their respective views of British policy toward Iran from the late 1880s until the end of the First World War. Ultimately it contends that Curzon's knowledge of Persia proved deficient in significant ways and that Anglo-Iranian relations, at least in the aftermath of the Great War, might well have been placed on a better footing had Browne's more nuanced understanding of the country and its inhabitants prevailed within the foreign policymaking establishment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenda Sluga

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to restore the history of internationalism to our understanding of the legacy of the First World War, and the role of universities in that past. It begins by emphasising the war’s twin legacy, namely, the twin principles of the peace: national self-determination and the League of Nations. Design/methodology/approach It focuses on the intersecting significance and meaning attributed to the related terms patriotism and humanity, nationalism and internationalism, during the war and after. A key focus is the memorialization of Edith Cavell, and the role of men and women in supporting a League of Nations. Findings The author finds that contrary to conventional historical opinion, internationalism was as significant as nationalism during the war and after, thanks to the influence and ideas of men and women connected through university networks. Research limitations/implications The author’s argument is based on an examination of British imperial sources in particular. Originality/value The implications of this argument are that historians need to recover the international past in histories of nationalism.


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