Oh! What a lovely podcast

What opportunities did the First World War provide for cultural tourism?

This month Angus, Jessica and Chris speak to Allison Bennett, winner of the 2023 Gail Braybon Award for her work on war-time cross-cultural sexual encounters during the First World War. Along the way we discuss #MeToo, and the post-war legacies of these encounters for families, and the popularity of the Pyramids and camels as a tourist attractions.

References:
Gallipoli
Peter Stanley, Bad Characters
Alexia Moncrieff, Expertise, Authority and Control
Alan Beyerchen and Emre Spencer (eds.), Expeditionary Forces in the First World War
Tomas Irish, Universities at War
Rudyard Kipling, Kim
The Arabian Nights

What happens when you turn a First World War medical process into a computer game? This month Angus, Jessica, and Chris take control of wartime medicine in the game War Hospital. Along the way we discuss the importance of evacuation, difficult ethical decisions, and why Chris' conscience is completely clear. If you listen to this episode and share it on social media you can also win a free copy of the game! References: War Hospital (2024) An Unequal Burden , Jessica Meyer (2019) Regeneration , Pat Barker (1991)

What happens when you turn the French experience of the war into a cooperative game?

This month Jessica, Angus, and Chris played The Grizzled a cooperative game focused on guidinga group of French soldiers through the war. Along the way they discuss the morale boosting merits of different drinks, the differencebetween physical and mental traumas, and whether they are now obliged to design their own British version.

References:
The Grizzled

Meyer, Jessica, Kempshall, Chris, Pöhlmann, Markus: Life and Death of Soldiers , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War

Kempshall, Chris: Le Poilu , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War

Meyer, Jessica, Kempshall, Chris, Pöhlmann, Markus: Life and Death of Soldiers , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War

Smith, Leonard V. Between Mutiny and Obedience: The Case of the French Fifth Infantry Division During World War I (2003)

Tardi, Jaques Goddam this war! (2013)

War Hospital

What happens when you set a telenovela in First World War France?

This month Chris, Angus and Jessica review the Netflix limited series Les Combattantes(Women at War). Along the way, we discuss untranslatable words, the relationship between war atrocities and propaganda, recreational drug use, and the excellent communication links of a small-town convent.

References:
Women at war,(2022)
The Bonfire of Destiny,(2019)
RH Mottram, The SpanishFarm, (1924)
John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A history of denial (2001)
Lukasz Kamienski, Shooting Up: A history of drugs in warfare (2016)

What should we take from a First World War documentary? Following our adventure to Canada for the International Society for First World War Studies conference, we welcome Prof Robert Burgoyne to discuss his keynote paper on the Peter Jackson film They Shall Not Grow Old (2018). Along the way, we explore the ways in which war films can quote from each other, differences in structure to the film 1917 , and the importance of audience expectations when creating a historical piece. References
Robert Burgoyne, The New American War Film (2023)
Santanu Das, ‘Colors of the Past: Archive, Art and Amnesia in a Digital Era’, American Historical Review 124.5 (2019)
Otto Dix, Der Krieg (1924)
Adrian Gregory, The Silence of Memory (1994)
Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined (1991)
Peter Jackson, They Shall Not Grow Old (1918)
Sam Mendes, 1917 (1919)
Bal Mieke, Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History (1999)
Lewis Millstone, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Stephen Spielberg , Saving Private Ryan (1930)
Allison Tanine, ‘Digital Film Restoration and the Politics of Whiteness in Peter Jackson’s, They Shall Not Grow Old’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video 39.5 (2021) Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier (1918)

How did the First World War inspire the horror genre? This month we welcome W. Scott Poole (Charleston) to discuss his 2018 book Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror . Along the way we discuss the American experience of war, the importance of J'Accuse , and the political affiliationsof 20th century zombies.

What happens when you send Indiana Jones into the First World War?

In this episode, we are joined by Thomas Riddle.

Thomas runs the website indyintheclassroom.com(which aims to provide teachers with resources to integrate everyone’s favourite archaeologist into the classroom) to discuss the 1990s TV series ‘The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles’. Along the way we discuss the show as an educational tool, the many historical figures that appear in the series, and the importance of learning foreign languages!

References:
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-1996)
Samuel Hynes, The Soldiers' Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War (Allen Lane, 1997)

What do you get when you cross Journey's End with Brideshead Revisited?

This month Angus, Chris and Jessica review Alice Winn's best-selling new novel, In Memoriam. The book follows  Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood from public school and through the war. Half-German, Gaunt's mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks. He signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings. But Ellwood and their classmates soon follow him into the horrors of trenches. Though Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, their friends are dying in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.

Along the way we discuss class, conscription and the difficulties of describing the boredom and violence of war in popular fiction.

References
1917 (2019)
A.J. Evans, The Escaping Club
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H (1850)
Alice Winn, In Memoriam (2023)
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Charles Carrington, A Subaltern's War
Ernst Younger, Storm of Steel (1929)
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Ian Isherwood, Remembering the Great War (2017)
In Memoriam by Alice Winn review, The Guardian (12 March 2023)
Justin Fantauzzo and Robert L. Nelson (2016), 'A Most Unmanly War: British Military Masculinity in Macedonia, Mesopotamia and Palestine, 1914-18', Gender & History 28(3): 587-603, DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.12240
Second Lieutenant Kenneth Macardle
Heartstopper (2022)
Max Plowman, A Subaltern on the Somme
Pat Barker, Regeneration Trilogy (1991-1995)
Peaky Blinders
RC Sherriff, Journey’s End (1928)
Rupert Brookes, Goodbye to All That (1929)
Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1929)
Star Trek
Stephen Fry, The Liar
The Gallows Pole (2023)
The Great Escape (1963)
The History Boys (2006)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
This Is the Week That Was
Pat Barker, Regeneration Trilogy (1991-1995)

What First World War cultural representations would you like to see adapted for the screen? 

This month Angus, Chris and Jessica discuss their dream adaptations of novels, short stories and computer games for the big or small screen. Along the way, we explore what makes for a good film versus a good television series, we consider how to overcome the challenge of the Bechdel test in filming the war, and Chris introduces us to the Bertie Wooster/animé scale of realism.

 

References:
1917, dir. by Sam Mendes (1919)
AG Macdonell, England, Their England (1933)
Akira, dir. by Katsuhiro Otomo (1988)
All Quiet on the Western Front, dir. by Edward Berger (2022)
Capt WE Johns, Biggles Goes North (1939)
Capt WE Johns, Biggles Goes East (1935)
Emma Hanna, The Great War on the small screen (2009)
Ford Madox Ford, Parades End (1924)
Frederic Manning, Her Privates We (1930)
Lupin, Netflix (2021)
Peter Berresford Ellis et al, Biggles!: Life of Captain WE Johns (1993)
Ralph Hale Mottram, The Spanish Farm Trilogy (1930)
RC Sherriff, Journey’s End (1928)
Sapper, Bulldog Drummond (1920)
The Wind Rises, dir. by Hayao Miyazaki (2013
The Monocled Mutineer, dir. by Jim O’Brien (1986)
Valiant Hearts: The Great War, Ubisoft (2014)