Information Warfare Conference, London, 25-26 July 2017
Information and its Communication in Wartime Conference
Tuesday 25th – Wednesday 26th July, 2017, Senate House, London
As part of the AHRC-funded project ‘A Publishing and Communications History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-45’, the Institute of English Studies is holding an international conference on the subject of information and its communication in wartime. Although the project has a particular interest in the Second World War, the conference aims to set this in a much larger context, and so the theme will be explored throughout several periods and areas.
Registration is now open for this international conference.
It will offer to all those attending the chance to listen to 34 presentations on the subject, a keynote lecture (by Professor David Welch), a tour of Senate House (home to the Ministry of Information during the Second World War), and a showing of some MOI films. The conference is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK.
The papers will be delivered in the Senate Room, a magnificent chamber but one with limited seating. For this reason, there are only 40 places available to those not giving a paper.
PROGRAMME
Tuesday, 25th July
09:30 – 10:00 Registration and Welcome
Simon Eliot and Karen Attar
10:00 – 11:30 Panel 1 Pre-1939
Chair: Simon Eliot
Debra Reddin van Tuyll: “Journalistic Perseverance in the American South during the Civil War at a Time of Epic Infrastructure Failure
Alastair Black: “‘All information flows towars it, or returns to it in a form worked up into shape’: the Intelligence Branch of the British War Office, 1873 – 1914”
Hubert P. van Tuyll: “The Netherlands and the misuse of modern media, 1914 – 1919”
Henry Irving: “The Ministry of Information: Pasts and Futures”
11:30 – 12:00 Refreshments
12:00 – 13:30 Panel 2: Educating the People
Chair: Henry Irving
Stephen Thompson: “A citizen soldier ‘must know what he fights for and love what he knows’: The work of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs between 1941 and 1945”
Dr Kate Bradley: “From welfare to warfare and back to welfare: Newspaper advice columnists, advice bureaux and informing the wartime and peacetime citizenry.”
Richard Farmer: “The ongoing adventures of Potato Pete: Ministry of Food publicity in the Second World War”
Victoria Carolan: “How to Buy a Warship: National Savings during the Second World War”
13:30 – 14:10 Lunch
14:10 – 14:30 Alison Bailey: “Capturing the Fleeting Moment: First World War Printed Ephemera in the British Library’s Collections”
14:30 – 16:00 Panel 3: Control and Censorship
Chair: David Welch
Richard Fine: “Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship in World War II”
Mark Dunton: “The Military and the ‘Media’: Press coverage of Combined Operation Raids, 1941 – 1942”
Jim Wald: “‘the rot must be stopped even at the cost of some public discussion’: Antisemitism in the Polish Forces as a Crisis of Policy and Public Information”
Oliver Elliott: “Losing the Peace? Military-Media Relations during the American Occupations of Japan and Korea”
16:00 – 16:30 Refreshments
16:30 – 18:00 Panel 4: Transatlantic Relations
Chair: Chris Bannister
Alice Byrne: “Britain To-day versus Bulletins from Britain: a comparative study of the British Council and the Ministry of Information’s publishing operations in the USA during World War Two
Joseph Clark: “Teamwork: Carlton Moss, the US Office of War Information and the fight for Black Visibility in WWII”
Paula Derdiger: “‘Letter from London’: Mollie Panter-Downes Brings War to The New Yorker”
Jessica Glaser: “Books as Weapons: Beatrice Warde, May Lamberton Becker and Books Across the Sea”
18:00 – 19:00 Keynote Lecture: Professor David Welch
“Persuading the People: British Propaganda in WWII”
19:00 – 20:30 Reception
Wednesday, 26th July
09:00 – 10:30 Panel 5: Appealing to Neutrals
Chair: Henry Irving
José Luis Ortiz Garza: “Activities of the British Ministry of Information in Mexico during the Second World War (1939 – 1946)
Chris Bannister: “Divergent Neutrality in Iberia: The Ministry of Information in Spain and Portugal, 1939-1945”
Louis Allday: “‘For the Sake of Freedom’: The Ministry of Information’s Arabic Language Propaganda during the Second World War”
Stefanie Wichhart: “‘The Peacemaking Jobs of Persuasion’: Oral Propaganda in the Arab World during World War II”
10:30 – 11:00 Refreshments
11:00 – 12:30 Panel 6: Art, Designs, and Exhibitions
Chair: Hollie Price
Katerina Loukopoulou: “Mobilising Art: The ‘Remediation’ of Henry Moore’s Shelter Drawings”
Hasbrouck Miller: “Dissimulation & Destruction: The Urban Image in MoMA’s Britain at War”
Jenna Lundin Aral: “’The Hurried, Scurried, and Worried’: Wartime Exhibitions at Charing Cross Station”
Tony Rich: “Winning the War in Two Dimensions: The MOI Studio and their use of the Commercial Artists’ Group, ‘War Artists’ and Illustrators Ltd.’ during the Second World War”
12:30 – 13:10 Lunch
13:10 – 13:30 Marc Wiggam, the MOI Project Website
13:30 – 15:00 Panel 7: Radio and Film
Chair: Marc Wiggam
Stephanie Seul: “‘For a German audience we do not use appeals for sympathy on behalf of Jews as a propaganda line’: Reporting the Holocaust on the BBC German Service”
Emily Oliver: “Inventing a New Kind of German: The BBC German Service in Wartime”
Chandrika Kaul: “‘The meek ass between two burdens’? The BBC and India during the Second World War.
Hollie Price: “‘Citizen’s Cinemas’: Delivering Information and Promoting Communication with the MOI Mobile Film Units”
15:00 – 15:30 Refreshments
15:30 – 17:00 Panel 8: Post-1945
Chair: Simon Eliot
Marc Wiggam: “‘Arcs of thought’: How the Ministry Imagined Britain”
Jacquelyn Arnold: “Stay calm and remain in your homes: the BBC Wartime Broadcasting Service during the Cold War”
Erik Lakomaa: “A Very Special Relationship: War and Peace Time Cooperation between Swedish Advertising Companies and the National Information Service 1954 – 1975”
Katherine Howells: “Cultural memories and historical interpretations of MOI campaign posters in 2017”
17:30 – 18:30 Tour of Senate House
18:30 – 19:30 MOI Films – Hollie Price
Source: Information and its Communication in Wartime Conference | Institute of English Studies
Image: British Ministry of Information, WWII, Keep Calm and Carry On, Poster 1939.