American War Memories

Call for Chapters:

We seek chapters for a collection of comparative essays to be published with a leading academic press on how Americans remember war. Memories of American wars transcends both temporal and spatial parameters, reaching back to conflicts with North America’s indigenous peoples in centuries past, to United States outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq recently abandoned. Memories shape the politics of the home front as citizens struggle to count the cost of military conflict. From the physical toll of burn pit victims to the psychological cost of trauma and substance abuse and everything in between, American memories of war are shaped not only by the landscape of combat or the monuments that people of the nation-state commemorate but also by fallen and wounded soldiers and their families. Memories of war also shape the way that people at the core of the American empire imagine people and cultures of the empire’s periphery be it Indigenous or Pacific peoples, European landscapes, or Caribbean economies. American War Memories seeks out those reflections and commemorations of conflict across the accumulating decades, and scattered over various continents and seas. We seek to compare themes of commemoration, empire, national identity, traditions, rituals, politics, and culture across time and a broad range of military conflicts, invasions, occupations, expeditions, and wars to track the themes of an ever-evolving American memory. We seek essays that remember war through bodies, geography, the environment, technology, culture, and politics. These essays will explore various sanctuaries where memories recede for safe keeping, while keeping in focus the intersection between official sites of memory available to all, with the democratization of memory manifest by personal testimony. The national narrative, after all, is comprised of the convergence of these distinct sets of memories about America’s wars.

 

Please send chapters, abstracts, ideas, or pitches to Dr. Steve Blankenship, Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College at sblanken@highlands.edu or to Dr. Shannon Bontrager, Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College at shannon.bontrager@gmail.com or sbontrag@highlands.edu