HCRI Research Seminar - On The Border of Soldiering: Ambiguous Visuals of War Participation
| Dates: | 5 November 2019 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 19:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Families, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Dr Hannah Partis-Jennings, Dr Henry Redwood |
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HCRI's fourth research seminar of the new term will be with guest speakers Dr Hannah Partis-Jennings and Dr Henry Redwood.
Event title: On the border of Soldiering: Ambiguous Visuals of War Participation
Event abstract: For this talk Hannah and Henry will build on the themes we engage with in a recent paper - ‘Contesting and Securing War Imaginaries: The Messy Politics of One Artistic Assemblage’ - particularly highlighting modes of ambiguity in visuals of, and bound up with, war experience. They will discuss ambiguity in three dimensions within very different contexts; firstly, in the work of Mark Neville, a war artist embedded with British troops in Helmand, Afghanistan in 2011. They suggest that his position on the border of soldiering, and his experience of trauma echo through the visual ambiguities of his work. They frame this as partially unintentional ambiguity to the extent that its disruptive politics was limited through being tethered to the circumstance and the mechanisms of his aesthetic engagement. Secondly, they highlight the role of images of the ‘disappeared’ in Sri Lanka, which are kept and used in acts of resistance by protesters, in delineating the experience of enforced ambiguity tied to loss and state violence in war. Finally, they will look to the work of Vladimir Miladinovi? and his engagement with silenced archives related to the 1990s war in the former Yugoslavia. Here Vladimir engages in an intentional use of ambiguity mobilised in pursuit of a more open and contested form of post-conflict engagement with traumatic pasts. We suggest that these three examples highlight the modes of trauma, resistance and the political that circulate around the aesthetic imaginary of war and emphasise the complexities of the visual as an artefact of encounter with war’s violence.
Event format: Welcome and introduction by Chair (TBC) prior, to presentations by Hannah and Henry. A audience Q&A session will then proceed followed, by a networking session at 6pm. Free drinks and snacks will be available.
Please note this event is open to members of the public and no booking is required for this event, so simply turn up.
Price: Free
Speakers
Dr Hannah Partis-Jennings
Role: Lecturer in International Relations and Security
Organisation: Loughborough University
Biography: Hannah’s research focuses on the material, spatial and gendered facets of the international civil-military nexus in Afghanistan post-intervention as well as the role of aesthetic mediums in shaping engagements with conflict. Her work is located within feminist peace studies and critical military studies more generally. She is the Gender and Security lead for the Centre for Security Studies at Loughborough University and the outgoing co-convenor of the Gendering International Relations working group of the British International Studies Association.
Dr Henry Redwood
Role: Lecturer in the Department of War Studies
Organisation: King's College London
Biography: Henry’s research draws on critical IR, law and aesthetic theory to explore the politics of knowledge production after conflict, with a particular focus on post-conflict archives and artistic interventions. Most recently this has looked at the aesthetic politics of official war photographers, post-conflict comics and the potential of participatory film-making to carve out alternative modes of peacebuilding. He completed his ESRC-funded PhD in the War Studies department at King’s College London in December 2017, under the supervision of Dr. Rachel Kerr and Professor James Gow.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
C5.1
Ellen Wilkinson Building
Manchester
