Call for Papers

   Military Technical Academy “Ferdinand I” and New Bulgarian University are pleased to announce The 2nd International Conference on Military Culture and War Experience that will be held on 15th – 17th October 2020 in Bucharest, Romania. The conference will be hosted by Military Technical Academy “Ferdinand I” and organized in partnership with New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria.

 

   The ever-growing debate over whether the propensity toward war is an innate feature of human beings or, on the contrary, a socio-political construct and cultural phenomenon, has created more advocates of both sides than exclusive answers. This is mainly because the definition of war has always been inclusive and subject to a persuasive rhetoric meant to either secure public support or elicit utter dissociation. From words and expressions like: threat, hostility, attack, conflict, clash of arms, opposing forces, defense, violence, death, destruction, usually associated with the broad term “war” and which tend to come to one’s mind when exposed to messages on the subject, to more recent and topical keywords such as holocaust, concentration camps, gas chambers, crime, terrorist attack, asymmetry, cyber warfare, counterstrike, displacement, refugees, or to abstract words like peace, justice, power, freedom, evil, hostility, bravery, cowardice, it seems that every  important military and political functional concept, within a particular mind-framing discourse, is inherent to war, although military culture is in essence heavily based on the principle of defense and peacekeeping. During human history, the definition of war has suffered major changes regarding core concepts, capabilities and manpower, two of the main factors of this ongoing transformation being the refined communication strategies used to report on war and the development of state of the art technology. The war discourses, metaphors and euphemisms we live by structure today’s world and some of the times make language act as a “terrorist organization” (Collins, Glover 2002) that shapes and “domesticates” public response to ideas that otherwise would have been unthinkable or unacceptable. By using war metaphors in communication and discourse, a distinctive frame of mind is set to acquaint the public with the unsettling psychological background of the message, before anything else, so that the tensional context is included in the reception and interpretation process. Thus, a set of beliefs sedimented through the extensive use of structural metaphors related to war is accessed whenever particular metaphorical clusters meant to shape emotional meaning are used. They automatically set the reading and decoding vibe and fashion the unconscious emotional response to texts/discourses on such topics, mainly due to the past experiences and various definitions of war that have along the history of humankind established a trend of thought on the matter.

 

   TOPICS AND SCOPE

 

   This conference aims to create a multinational and multidisciplinary forum for discussions on changes in the rhetoric of military culture and war experience with emphasis on language/communication competence and performance within NATO and on the analysis of historical, (inter)cultural, personal and social identity contexts from the philological and cultural studies perspective. We invite scholars as well as practitioners from different fields of expertise including literature, visual arts, cultural studies, gender and identity studies, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, language acquisition, etc, and all those interested in exchanging theoretical and practical approaches to these topics. We suggest the following topics; however, papers on other aspects of the conference theme are also welcome:

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• War in literature, biographies and visual arts;

• Postwar fiction;

• Utopian and dystopian fiction;

• Hero cults, myths and legends;

• Poetry of the World Wars;

• Confessional poetry;

• Military anecdotes and slang;

• War metaphors and identity conflicts;

• Trauma and migration;

• Diplomatic language and discourse;

• Power effects of language;

• Totalitarian communication and propaganda;

• Foreign languages and language policies in the military;

• Language skill as a main interoperability tool in NATO;

• Military cross-cultural competence;

• Military strategic communication;

• Military technical vocabulary;

• Media coverage of war and terrorism;

• Gender, race, age and disability in the military;

• Implications of military culture and stereotypes;

• Deployment and military families;

• Education and (re)adjustment to military/civilian/ veteran life.

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Situation update on 18th May 2020:

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In view of the current Covid-19 situation and the uncertainty regarding prospects for the coming months, the MCWE organizing committee and the MTAFI Executive have jointly decided to hold the CONFERENCE ONLINE. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we have concluded that it is the only viable course of action in the present circumstances. Abstracts that have been received are being discussed, and will receive a response as soon as possible.

We continue to welcome new proposals until 31st August 2020.

 

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    IMPORTANT DATES:

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• Deadline for proposals: 30th April 2020. Update: 31st August 2020

• Abstract acceptance notification: 31st May 2020. Update: 15th September 2020

• Deadline for full paper submission: 30th August 2020. Update: 15th December 2020

• Early Registration: 31st July 2020. Update: 20th September 2020

• Late Registration: 30th August 2020. Update: 10th October 2020

• Conference dates: 15th -17th October 2020.

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    For more information on the conference, please contact us: mcwe2020.mta@gmail.com.

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    We look forward to welcoming you at the conference!