4-5 September 2008, University of Northampton

The figure of the soldier in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain was the site of some intriguing tensions. On the one hand, the military had a prominent role in the construction of national and gender identities. On the other, the army could be politically distrusted, soldiers often occupied a marginal position in society, and even the manliness of the profession could be called into question.

Recent years have seen much interest in the relationship between war and British culture and society, as scholars have re-examined conflicts from a range of innovative perspectives. This conference therefore aims to gather together scholars from various disciplines in order to explore the practice and representation of soldiering from the Seven Years war, through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic conflicts, to the ‘small’ colonial wars at the beginning of the Victorian period. The conference is aimed at both postgraduates and more established scholars.

Keynote lectures will be given by Professor Ian Beckett and Dr Philip Shaw

Possible topics might include, but are not restricted to:
·Citizen soldiers and the ‘amateur military tradition’
·The ‘face of battle’
·Military memoirs and the ‘soldier’s tale’
·Literary, artistic and theatrical representations of the soldier
·Soldiering as a career
·The military and politics
·Gender and the body
·Britain as a ‘martial nation’

For further details about the conference, please contact Dr Matthew McCormack at matthew.mccormack@northampton.ac.uk. If you wish to offer a paper, please send a 200 word abstract and a short CV to Dr Catriona Kennedy at calk100@york.ac.uk by 1 March 2008.