Image copyright Lee Karen Stow

Women and war symposium

Thu 13 November 2014

Murray Edwards College

To commemorate the centenary of World War One, and as part of the college's 60th anniversary celebrations, Murray Edwards College is holding a day-long symposium on Women and War on Thursday 13th November. The speakers include:

- Paola Filippucci, a fellow in archaeology and anthropology at Murray Edwards College, whose research focuses particularly on World War One and war commemoration, will speak on commemoration and memory
- Leo Mellor, English fellow at Murray Edwards College, is speaking on war poetry
- Angela Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, whose current research centres on heroism, courage and fame, will speak on women and heroism
- Eleanor O’Gorman, a consultant on international conflict and development, who focuses particularly on issues of gender, peace-building and aid strategy, is speaking on women in conflict
- Christine Lindey, an art historian based at Birckbeck College, London, will speak on women artists in the Cold War
- Barbara Stocking, Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response and also President of Murray Edwards College, is speaking on women as peacemakers
- Gill Hedley, curator & Lynn MacRitchie, artist, will introduce and show 'Towers of Ilium', a recent short film by Lynn, which looks at Homer's Iliad and questions why people go to war, and present a Q&A
- Lee Stow, documentary photographer, whose exhibition on women and war will be showing at Murray Edwards College throughout the month of November.

We will begin the day hearing about women in World War One, and build from there to explore women's involvement in other wars at other times, looking at how we can learn, develop and grow towards peace as we remember the First World War.

The symposium runs alongside an exhibition of the latest work by documentary photographer Lee Stow, entitled 'Poppies (Women and War)', which explores women's relationships with war through recent history, from the First World War to the Iraq War, with photo portraits of women and stunning images of poppies, a symbol by which we remember the soldiers who died in World War One.

Cost: free