"The good soldier" - Ideal, instrument of manipulation or contradiction in itself ?

Annual conference of the Arbeitskreis für Historische Friedens- und Konfliktforschung in co-operation with the Norwegian Air Force Academy and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Datum: 
Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2015 bis Freitag, 16. Oktober 2015
Ort: 
Trondheim

Over the last few years, a number of military conflicts have erupted or re-emerged all over the world. Older types of wars between national states have largely been replaced by civil wars, terrorist or guerrilla wars, and military and "humanist" interventions by third-state actors. What has remained a constant, though, is that all participants in the conflicts evoke an ideal of the good soldier that is intended to legitimise participation in the conflict and to secure the allegiance of the fighters.

The conference seeks to establish the historical roots and developments of the normative ideal of the good soldier and discuss the norm in its variety of meanings and ambiguities. The aim is to identify what attributes identify a "good" soldier at specific points in history and to explain how these attributes were interlinked with military, political as well as wider societal needs. Who was involved in the production of the norm of the "good" soldier? How was the norm promoted and implemented, and which purposes did it serve? Is the ideal of a "good soldier", which is after all a moral category, not a contradiction in itself, given that the use of violence is not only part of the soldier's job, but his raison d'etre?

Conference Venue:  Luftkrigsskolen, Persaunvegen 61, 7046 Trondheim

Attendance is free, but registration is required. Please register with Maria Fritsche (maria.fritsche@ntnu.no)

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Programme:

15 October

08:45  Introduction  -  Karl Erik Haug (Dean of Air Force Academy) | Maria Fritsche (NTNU )

09:00  Panel 1  -  Soldierly Self-perceptions & Social Practice (Part 1)

Magnus Koch (Hamburg):  Ways of justification being a Wehrmacht deserter during and after WWII

Matilda Greig (European University Institute, Florence):  Diverse images of the Napoleonic soldier in veterans’ popular published memoirs

10:10  coffee break

10:20  Panel 1  -  Soldierly Self-perceptions & Social Practice (Part 2)

Anders Ahlbäck (Helsinki University):  Contesting images of military manliness in Finland, 1918–1939

Oleksiy Salivon (Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Stuttgart):  A good Jewish soldier and his body in the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century

11:30  Lunch

12:40  Panel 1  -  Soldierly Self-perceptions & Social Practice (Part 3)

Senem Kaptan (Rutgers University, New Jersey):  From Ideal Citizens to Military Culprits - Service and Sacrifice in Turkey's Sledgehammer Trial 

Tormod Heier (Norwegian Defence University College, Oslo):  Balancing Civic and Military Virtues in post-modern societies 

Sarit Cofman-Simhon (Kibbutzim College of Education and Arts, Tel Aviv):  Shooting and Crying: Representing Soldiers in the Israeli Theatre

14:30  coffee break

14:55  Panel 2  -   Norm-setting from Above (Part 1)

Julie LeGac (Paris Sorbonne):  A brave and fierce soldier - a demanding model for a French army in search of recognition

Klaas Voss (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung):  Soldiers Homes, Invalid Companies, Veterans Colonies ­– Changing Notions of Reintegration

Bastian Scianna (London School of Economics and Political Science):  Tracing role models in the desert - the Italian military’s narrative of El Alamein as “glorious defeat”

16:45  End of Day 1

16 October

08:50  Panel 2  -  Norm-setting from Above (Part 2)

Vaclav Smidrkal (Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague):  The Czechoslovak Legionnaires between Conscious Citizens and Messianic Revolutionaries 

Linh D. Vu (University of Berkley):  The rhetoric of sacrificing revolutionaries in the National Revolutionary Army

10:00  coffee break

10:10  Panel 2  -  Norm-setting from Above (Part 3)

Jörn Eiben (University of Oldenburg):  A “Small-Scale War” and its Soldiers: Football and Football Players

Samantha Killmore (University of Sydney):  The Perfect Norm - A Comparative study of Ivy League students and American Air Force Pilots in William Sheldon's somatotyping project

11:30  Lunch

12:30  Panel 3  -  Transformations (Part 1)

Anita Schjølset | Tor Arne Berntsen (Norwegian Joint Staff College, Oslo):  Dilemmas of jus in bello and gender mainstreaming

Tamir Libel (Centre of War Studies, Dublin):  National Defence Universities and the construction of European military culture 

Angelika Dörfler (ZMSBw, Potsdam):  The Staatsbürger in Uniform. The German experience with educating a new type of soldier

14:10  coffee break

14:25  Panel 3  -  Transformations (Part 2)

Efrat Even-Tzur (Tel-Aviv University):  The "good soldier" and the perpetrator's violent thrill - A crisis of a cultural image

Klaus Naumann (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung):  The return of the political soldier in contemporary post-conventional military interventions

15:35  Concluding Commentary and Summary  -  Claudia Kemper (chairwoman German Assoc. for Historical Peace and Conflict Studies) | Maria Fritsche

16:15  End of Conference

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Contact:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Maria Fritsche

Dept. of Historical Studies

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

7491 Trondheim

Norway

+47 735 96632

maria.fritsche@ntnu.no