The White Rose Symposium - Call for Papers

call for papers white rose

Memorial to the White Rose by artist Robert Schmidt-Matt on the Geschwister-Scholl-Platz outside the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

We’re delighted to post this call for papers for our symposium in March 2020.

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

The White Rose: New Perspectives | Die Weiße Rose: Neue Perspektiven

Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 March 2020, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford

 

In 1943 five students and a professor at the University of Munich were arrested, interrogated, tried, and executed. They were members of The White Rose (Die Weiße Rose), a group that secretly wrote and distributed leaflets calling on the Germans to resist Hitler. The White Rose is not only a moving and compelling story in its own right, but it also speaks more broadly to the power of the written word and the ways in which culture can inform political action. This interdisciplinary symposium seeks to bring together those working on the White Rose, and accordingly we invite papers on any aspect of the group, its history and legacy, and related histories of resistance. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • The reception of the White Rose in literature and/or visual culture (e.g. film, art, fiction, graphic novels).
  • Influences on the White Rose members (e.g. literature, philosophy, art, music).
  • Interactions of the White Rose with other individuals and/or groups.
  • Issues of commemoration from a theoretical and/or practical standpoint.
  • The historical and political context in which the White Rose members were formed and were active (resistance networks, the university context, the army).
  • The White Rose pamphlets and/or related resistance texts.
  • The legacy of the White Rose within and/or beyond Germany.

The symposium is convened by Dr Alex Lloyd who leads the White Rose Project, a research and outreach initiative at the University of Oxford. The symposium is generously supported by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and St Edmund Hall, Oxford.  The programme will include a dinner on Tuesday 17 March and a recital of German Lieder alongside readings from a new English translation of the White Rose members’ letters and diaries.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers to be delivered in English. Please submit your abstract (max. 250 words) and a short biographical note to Dr Alex Lloyd (alexandra.lloyd@seh.ox.ac.uk) by Saturday 14 December 2019. A limited number of travel bursaries will be available for post-graduate speakers. Notifications will be made by Friday 20 December 2019. A publication of selected papers is planned.