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DISABILITY AND WARFARE IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Two-day workshop organized by the Centre for War Studies, Trinity College Dublin
Friday, 8th – Saturday, 9th June 2012
The main goal of the workshop is to write disability into a central place in the history of warfare
across the centuries. In particular, it is intended to investigate the way handicapped veterans have
been treated over time, as well as to analyze the economic, social and political perception of
disablement resulting from belligerence. The gathering of historians specializing on different time
periods and world areas is the occasion for in-depth discussions on topics, such as war pensions
and welfare, medicine/surgery and treatment, notions of rehabilitation, changing patterns of
warfare and its impact on soldiers and civilians, entitlement to reward and compensation,
commemoration and celebration, visual and textual representation, suffering and pain.
Venue: Trinity College Dublin, room A6.009 (6th floor) in the Arts Building
PROGRAMME
8 June 2012
2:15 pm
Registration
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Welcome speech by John Horne (Centre for War Studies, TCD)
2:30 – 3:15 pm
INTRODUCTORY SESSION
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
Martina Salvante (Centre for War Studies, TCD), Discussing Disability and Warfare in
Historical Perspective
Presentation of the 2013 conference Commemorating the Disabled Soldier: Comparative
Approaches to the History of War, Disability and Remembrance, 1914-1940
by Pieter Verstraete (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
3:15 – 3:30
Coffee break
3:30 – 5:00 pm
BRIDGING TWO CENTURIES: WARS, DISABLED VETERANS AND THE NATION
Chair: Eve Morrison (TCD)
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Susan-Mary Grant (Newcastle University), "This Body Entire Shall Rise from the Grave":
Maiming, Masculinity, and the Meaning of Disability for American Civil War Veterans
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Pieter Verstraete (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Somewhere in between dream and
reality: The return of Belgium disabled soldiers to their homeland, 1918-1921
9 June 2012
9:30 – 11:00 am
PATRIOTISM , POVERTY AND PATHOLOGY: DISABLED VETERANS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Chair: John Paul Newman (NUI Maynooth)
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Beate Fieseler (Heinrich Heine – Universität Düsseldorf), 'Great Patriotic War of the Soviet
Union': the Poverty of a new Status Group
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Chara Rovithi (European University Institute), The Greek War-Disabled of WWII. The
Patient-Soldier
11:00 – 11:15 am
Coffee break
11:15 am – 12:00 pm
BRIDGING TWO CENTURIES: WAR DISABLEMENT IN RECENT CONFLICTS
Chair:
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Sophie Delaporte (Université de Picardie - Jules Verne), “Thinking and treating the psychic
trauma of war, 20th – 21st centuries”
12:00-12:30 pm
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John Horne (TCD): Final remarks
FINAL ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION
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