Citizen in Arms. Conscript Armies as Cultural and Political Phenomena

Workshop in Stockholm 17-19 February 2010.

Södertörn University, the Swedish Army Museum, the Swedish National Defence College and the Delegation for Research in Military History invites you to the workshop “Citizens in Arms. Conscript Armies as Cultural and Political Phenomena”.

During the twentieth century, conscription as a form of recruitment to armed forces became the norm in Europe. Once in arms, the mass of conscripts was subject not only to military training, but a wide range of educational and civilisational measures. The armed forces were prime movers of state sponsored modernization, and an important pillar of modern nation-building. Containing a large mass of young men in arms for considerable time, gave the state the opportunity to form the conscripts in accordance to the need and implement norms of manliness. Introducing the conscript army also implied a certain path of military training, organisation and equipment that was to affect the military as well as the surrounding society in the future.

The workshop will focus on conscript armies and address questions of identity, gender, nation-building and cultural heritage. Another important aspect is to discuss research on and by military museums and the visualisation of military education and power. Museums are the foremost collectors of military items and are at the same time sources themselves as the collections reflect the zeitgeist.

We hope that the workshop will raise important questions and serve as a starting point of a research network concerning these questions. It is our intent to give the opportunity to scholars to present work in progress as well as more definite results. Our aim is to cover travel and accommodation expenses only for participants presenting papers.

We are proud to present an interesting program (link to the left). 

 

Participation:

The conference is free. Please send an email to Sara Collmar, sara.collmar@sh.se, before 6 February 2010 if you would like to participate.

 

More details: 

Contact Fredrik Eriksson, the Institute of Contemporary History.

Email: fredrik.l.eriksson@sh.se.