Georgia Mountain Beacon

Includes annual Ragsdale Lecture on Friday, March 18

Young Harris, GA – Young Harris College will host “Remembrances: Constructing Narratives of Wars of the 19th and 20th Centuries,” Friday-Saturday, March 18-19, sponsored by the Department of History. This conference on war-time narratives and remembrance will feature lectures, presentations and panel discussions by YHC faculty, guest speakers and students. The event is free and open to the public.

The conference will feature 12 sessions, including “Deviant Widows, Warriors and/or Breadwinners: The Variety of Women’s War Experience,” “Memory, Imperialism and Sites of Tragedy,” “In the Aftermath of Wars and Crises: Nationalist Revival, Battlefield Tourism and The New Concepts of Citizenship,” “Remembering The American Civil War,” “Writing War as Mythmaking,” “‘Enemies’ and ‘Others’ in Remembering (and Forgetting) War Experiences,” “The Contested Memories of the Cold War,” “The Construction of the Memory of Great War,” “The Memories of the Second World War and the Holocaust,” “War is Peace? (Re)Framing War and the Consequences for both Memory and Action,” “Militarism, Gender, and Empire in Narrating Wars” and “Making Peace after Wars: Rebuilding State, Redefining Identities.”

According to History Department Chair and Assistant Professor of History Thomas Stearns, Ph.D., the conference evolved from a senior-level course, titled “Remembrances of the Great War (WWI),” taught by Assistant Professor of History Natalia Starostina, Ph.D., this semester.

“The enthusiasm of Dr. Starostina’s students, as well as her vision, are responsible for this innovative, unusual approach to a conference on war,” Dr. Stearns said.

Scholars from across the globe will present during the conference, including professors from Niagara University and Ryerson University in Canada, Istanbul University in Turkey, Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Israel, Omsk State Pedagogical University in Russia, Indiana University, The California State University, University of Richmond and The University of Tennessee.

In addition, graduate students from Emory University, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, New York University and other institutions will make presentations during the conference.

“The presenters’ works transcend traditional military history to embrace everything from relevant studies in the arts, social and cultural national memory, to mythmaking properties of warfare,” Dr. Stearns said. “The participating individuals represent a great diversity of academic accomplishment and scholastic approaches to war, from young history majors to seasoned scholars.”

On Friday, March 18, Fraser Harbutt, Ph.D., professor of history at Emory University, will deliver the annual Ragsdale Lecture at 4 p.m. in Wilson Lecture Hall of Goolsby Center. Dr. Harbutt’s lecture, titled “The Cold War in Historical Retrospect:  Myths, Manipulations and Realities,” will address the origins of war.

Dr. Harbutt earned his B.A. and LL.B. from the University of Otago in New Zealand, his LL.M. from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His research and scholarly interests include international history, United States diplomatic and political history and U.S.-Soviet relations. Dr. Harbutt has written three books on the history of the Cold War, including The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America and the Origins of the Cold War, The Cold War Era and Yalta 1945: Europe and America at the Crossroads. He received the Stuart L. Bernath Memorial Book Prize in 1986 from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

The Ragsdale Lecture Series brings national speakers to Young Harris College to discuss relevant governmental and political issues. It was established in 1983 by Mr. and Mrs. H.D. Paris to honor Mrs. Paris’ cousin, Warner B. Ragsdale. Ragsdale was a 1917 graduate of Young Harris College who achieved a long and distinguished career in journalism.

Students, academic professionals and community members are encouraged to attend the conference.

For more information and a full schedule of events, visit www.yhc/edu/remembrances.

Tags: Young Harris College