Modern Conflict and the Senses

Nicholas J. Saunders is Professor of Material Culture at Bristol University and co-director of two long-term First World War projects: the ‘Great Arab Revolt Archaeological Project’ (Jordan), and the ‘Isonzo Valley Conflict Landscapes Project’ (Slovenia/Italy). He has published numerous articles and books on the archaeology and anthropology of modern conflict, including Trench Art: Materialities and Memories of War (2003), Matters of Conflict (2004), Killing Time: Archaeology and the First World War (2007), and co-edited with Paul Cornish Contested Objects (2009) and Bodies in Conflict (2014).Paul Cornish is Senior Curator at the Imperial War Museum, and played a leading role in the museum’s Regeneration Project for the 2014 Centenary. He has co-organised five IWM-based international and multidisciplinary conferences on modern conflict, has published Machine Guns and the Great War (2009) and The First World War Galleries (2014), and co-edited Contested Objects (2009) and Bodies in Conflict (2014).

• Foreword: David Howes. Introduction: Paul Cornish, Nicholas J Saunders, Mark SmithPart 1: Sensual Landscapes1: Sensing War: Concept and Space in the Imperial War Museum’s First World War Galleries. Paul Cornish.2: Materiality, Space, and Distance in the First World War. Nicholas J. Saunders.3: Assaulting the Senses: Life and Landscape beneath the Western Front. Matthew Leonard.4: The scent of snow at Punta Linke: First World War sites as sensecapes, Trentino, Italy’. Franco Nicolis. 5: Sensorial engagement in tourism experiences on the Western Front. Stephen Miles. 6: ‘Dead Air’: The acoustic of war and peace – creative interpretations of the sounds of conflict and remembrance. Paul Gough and Katie Davies. 7: Moaning Minnie and the Doodlebugs: Soundscapes of Air Warfare in Second World War Britain. Gabriel Moshenska. 8: ‘The Cave Mouth: Listening to sound and voice in Okinawan war memory. Rupert Cox and Angus Carlyle. 9: Emplacing the Italian Resistance: the dystopian fight against Fascism and Nazism (1943-1945). Sarah De Nardi.Part 2: Sensing Bodies10: Odour and Ethnicity: Americans and Japanese in the Second World War. Susannah Callow.11: Ingestion and Digestion on the Western Front. Rachel Duffett.12: Trench Crap: Excremental aspects of the First World War. Dominiek Dendooven.13: Sense and Sensibility: the power of print in post-war recuperation. Jeffrey S. Reznick. 14: The ‘White Death’: Thirst and Water in the Chaco War. Esther Breithoff.15: Jan Karski: From Eye Witness to Moral Witness. What to do with your senses. Annette Becker.16: The Sensory Signature of being an airman in a Second World War Lancaster Bomber. Melanie Winterton.17: Sounds of Horror: Sensorial experiences of a Gestapo prison, Begunje (Slovenia). Uroš Košir.18: The uninvited guests who outstayed their welcome: the ghosts of war in the Channel Islands. Gilly Carr. 19: Sensory deprivation during the Irish Civil War (1923-1924): Female political prisoners at Kilmainhan Gaol, Dublin. Laura McAtackney.Part 3: Sensorial Objects20: Sensing the Sepoy: Objects, letters and songs of Indian Soldiers, 1914-1918. Santanu Das. 21: War with Flowers: The paintings of Albert Heim and the German sensory experience of the Somme, 1914-1916. Alastair H. Fraser. 22: The Senses: Battlefield exploration, drawing and sculpture. Steve Hurst.23: War, memory and the senses in the Imperial War Museum London, 1920-2014. Alys Cundy. Afterword: Joanna Bourke.