The conference wishes to address the visibility of war in the media and in literature in the 20th and 21st centuries. Either as a visible or a latent event, as a singular experience or as invisible discourse, war has shaped the social construction of modernity and influenced cultural and political production.
Focussing on the visuality of war, on the one hand, and on its discursive dimensions on the other, the conference wishes to address both the visible and the hidden discourses of war and the pervasiveness of this rhetoric in non-warring situations, such as the economy, the media or politics. It also aims to address the ways in which war affects, constrains and constructs subjectivity, be it the collective subjectivity of nationhood, or the individuality of warriors, victims, reporters and artists.