Currently preparing for the conference: Men at War: Masculinities, Identities and Cultures, Looking forward to presenting an image-laden paper! Gender theory is not exactly my field, but I have found it interesting dablling, and looking for ways to apply my other knowledge. Meantime, early start to the conference, and I’m one of the first panels… looking forward to meeting new people – and Julie Anderson and Ana Carden-Coyne who I knew from University of Manchester!
Men at War: Masculinities, Identities and Cultures (10-11 September 2009)
September 10, 2009 1 Comment
Selling a Healthy War
September 6, 2009 Leave a Comment
Abstract: The wartime poster “Keep Calm and Carry On” was one of three produced by the Ministry of Information (MOI) in 1939, kept in reserve in case of necessity. The MOI, officially formed at the outbreak of the Second World War, was the central governmental publicity machine. Its role was to tell the citizen ‘clearly and swiftly what he is to do, where he is to do it, how he is to do it and what he should not do’.“Keep Calm and Carry On” has had a credit-crunch induced renaissance in 2009. Mass-Observation, collecting reaction at the time, found many decreed them “too solemn” with a yearning for a “bit of humour”. Wartime propaganda was not produced without planning, planning for the 1939 campaign had commenced in 1935. The MOI had comprehensive strategies, covering not only posters, but radio, press and film.“Health is a Munition of War” declared the “Fighting Fit” exhibition in 1943: poor health led to absenteeism, which had an impact on war production. This paper will examine surviving posters and public information films from the campaign “Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases” as forms of inter-textual promotion. Cinema and posters, both visual medium, complemented each other in a cohesive strategically planned campaign, drawing upon images of how it was ‘appropriate’ for the democratic British ‘citizen’ to behave in a time of war, often using the British ’secret weapon’ of humour.
View more presentations from Bex Lewis.
See the abstract submitted beforehand.
TweetConference Paper Accepted
May 20, 2009 1 Comment
On 10-11 September 2009, the ‘Group for War and Culture Studies‘, University of Westminster are holding a 2-day international conference “Men at War: Masculinities, Identities, Cultures”, at Swansea University (in association with Gender & Society and Conflict & Memory research groups). I submitted an abstract for a paper, which has now been accepted. The abstract , within the theme of ‘War Propaganda and Masculine Identities’, was as follows:s
“Men at Work: Visible and Invisible Men in Second World War Posters”
Dr Bex Lewis, Honorary Research Fellow/Associate Lecturer, University of Winchester
The Ministry of Information (MOI), officially formed at the outbreak of the Second World War, was the central governmental publicity machine. Its role was to tell the citizen ‘clearly and swiftly what he is to do, where he is to do it, how he is to do it and what he should not do’.
Considering posters produced by the MOI during the Second World War, this paper will identify masculine identities, both visible and invisible, defined as ‘normal’. These images were interpreted by artists, accepted by the government, and published in wartime posters aimed at the ‘civilian army’.
Image courtesy of Onslow’s Auctioneers.
TweetKeep Calm and Don't Sneeze
April 30, 2009 2 Comments
Swine Flu
The world is gripped by the fear of Swine Flu, as the World Health Organisation upgrades the current level of pandemic alert from phase 4 to 5. This does need to be kept in perspective as it is an unfortunate fact that thousands die every year from bog standard flu, and the current epidemic has not led to deaths in Europe at least.
Keep Calm and Carry On
However, this does give an option for the Keep Calm and Carry On to yet again be put to another use, and Zazzle is straight on it with “Keep Calm and Don’t Sneeze” – yet another clever use of the slogan, and its accompanied monetisation. They are not the only ones to pick up on the connection, as has Simon Calder, Jayne Dowle, Deborah Orr, Dan Ariely, South Wales Argus, Vince in Vancouver, and The Moustacho. Thanks to @SimplerDave on Twitter for pointing this out to me via Twitter!
Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases
Just wondering how long before these images make their way out again (I’m giving a paper on this in September). I was talking about this with someone a couple of years ago, as the flu jab leaflets looked distinctly Second World War style – and I guess they were aimed at that generation! Meantime, watch this 1945 video.
TweetFraming Film: Conference Abstract: Proposal
April 1, 2009 3 Comments
Conference proposal for “Framing Film” at the University of Winchester.
Working Title: ‘Selling a Healthy War’: propaganda posters and public information films produced by the Ministry of Information during the Second World War. [Read more...]
TweetRe-making Londoners: Models of a Healthy Society in the Nation's Capital, 1918-1939
November 14, 2002 Leave a Comment
Centre for Metropolitan History: 13 November 2002
The creation of a healthy society was, perhaps, the dominant concern of social reformers in the first half of the twentieth century and many historians have considered the legislative processes through which such a society was produced. What have, hitherto, been little studied, are the locations in which the ideolgies of a healthy society were produced, especially in the inter-war decades. It is the aim of this workshop, using London as a case study, to investigate how social reformers developed particular models, practices and environments of reform in order to re-make London’s population into a race of healthy, active and educated citizens between the end of the Great War in 1918 and the declaration of the Second World War in September 1939.
TweetRe-Writing the Past
July 6, 2002 Leave a Comment
Institute of Historical Research: 3rd-5th July 2002
“This year sees the fiftieth anniversary of Past and Present and one of the purposes of the seventy-first Anglo-American Conference is to mark and to celebrate this half-century. First published in February 1952, Past and Present has long been recognised as one of the foremost historical journals in the English-speaking world. From the very beginning, it sought to encompass the whole of human history, to draw its contributors from around the globe, to encourage controversy and disagreement, to welcome approaches and contributions provided by other disciplines, and to address large issues and broad themes in prose that was both scholarly and accessible.
But as befits a journal which has constantly sought to stress the interconnectedness of the past and present, and to identify and stimulate new approaches to the study of history, this anniversary conference will be primarily concerned with a timely and substantive task: to ask how and why and where and by whom the past has been – and still is – regularly re-written.
This continual re-writing is partly because of the dynamic inherent in the scholarly process; but it is also because of broader changes and specific imperatives in politics, society and culture. Under the general heading of ‘Re-Writing the Past’, the conference will explore such themes as: the liquidation of the past; the invention and dis-invention of tradition; the politics of historiographical revision; history as myth, memory and identity; the creation and contestation of historical epochs and periods; competing versions of the same past; history as propaganda and history as protest; history as orthodoxy and history as heresy; globalisation, IT and world history.”
TweetLaunch Event: Centre for the History of Women's Education
June 8, 2002 Leave a Comment
King Alfred’s College: 7th June 2002
“The Centre provides a forum for research into the gendered nature of educational provision, practice and thought in order to provide a sound evidence base for policy and practice in respect of education for women and girls. The Centre takes a broad cultural definition of Education: one which transcends schooling to encompass learning and teaching (formal and informal) at any phase of the life-cycle, in any setting or historical period, including the recent past.”
I presented a short paper on ‘informal education’, the representation of men/women in VD posters.
TweetWar and The Media: The Changing Context of Reportage and Propaganda in The Twentieth Century
September 6, 2001 Leave a Comment
University of Kent @ Canterbury : 30th August – 4th September 2001
“This is the first major international conference on the impact of the media on war. Enormous social and technological changes have radically changed our lives over the past 150 years. The aim of the conference is to analyse how these developments have altered the relationships between politicians, the military and the media in the shaping of policies that may lead to conflict and the manner. The complex relationship between propaganda and censorship and the effect of the media on the formation of public opinion together with journalistic ethics and motives are also probed.”
Associated Publication: Connelly, M., & Welch, D. (eds), War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda, I.B. Tauris, 2004
TweetHealth Promotion in Historical Context
April 29, 2001 Leave a Comment
Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, UEA, 27th – 28th April 2001
Presentations Included:
- ‘Statistical Images of Diseases in Health Exhibitions in Britain in the 1930s’
- ‘”No One Receiving?’ The Audience for Health Education Films, 1919-48′
- ‘Health Promotion and the Transformation of Chronic Diseases after the Second World War (1945-1955)’
- ‘The Cycle of Conflict, the Historic Development of the Public Health and Health Promotion Movements’
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