Memory, Conflict and Life-writing

Our work focuses on narratives of the self, attending in particular to the relationship between memory and conflict. We are interested in the interconnection of public and private experience, and in the power relations involved in re-telling stories from the past. Our researchers are recovering the forgotten stories of those whose voices have been erased for reasons of gender, class or race. We have particular expertise in working-class women of the First and Second World Wars.

Cluster members are engaged in life-writing from a variety of perspectives. We have written several novels set during or in the aftermath of conflict; a study of post-war practices of commemoration and reconciliation; an exploration of literature dealing with the American civil war; and an award-winning collection of poems which considers fencing as a way of remembering the weaponized and vulnerable self.