Event: Women in the First World War

Women in the First World War   

Saturday 5 March 2016

People’s History Museum, Manchester

A series of presentations, creative workshops, films, exhibitions and readings, organised by Dr Emma Liggins and Dr Liz Nolan, Manchester Metropolitan University. All presentations take place in the Coal Store, on the first floor of the museum.

Registration costs of £20 waged, or £10 unwaged/students, include refreshments and a buffet lunch.  Please register on http://wwiwomen.eventbrite.co.uk

After 5 pm we will go for a drink in one of the local bars, and then for a meal in a restaurant off Deansgate.  Please let the organisers know numbers for the meal.

Any queries, please contact e.liggins@mmu.ac.uk, or e.nolan@mmu.ac.uk

 

10.00-10.30 Registration (foyer) The Museum’s cafe is open from 10 am.

Morning sessions

10.30-11.45 Pacifism, Participation and Women’s War Narratives

Sabine Grimshaw (University of Leeds/Imperial War Museum), ‘Representation and Resistance: Anti-War women’s writing in the Press’

Dr Emma Liggins (MMU), ‘Odd how the War Changes us’: Women Ambulance Drivers in war fiction and auto/biography’

Dr Beth Brunton, ‘I had a baby, I mean I didn’t, in an air-raid’: Shell Shock and Still Birth in HD’s Asphodel

11.45  Break – tea and coffee

12.00 – 1.00  Dr Angela Smith (University of Portsmouth), ‘The Impact of the First World War on the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage’

1.00– 2.00 buffet lunch and tea/coffee (included in registration fee)

There will also be time to look round the museum’s galleries. Main Gallery One on the first floor includes collections relating to the suffrage campaign, the socialist movement and the First World War. Catherine O’Donnell, the Museum’s Engagement and Events Officer, will be on hand to answer questions.

 

Afternoon sessions:

1 – 3.00 Art workshop: The Fabric of Protest: please register separately on http://fabricofprotest.eventbrite.co.uk

What are the issues facing women in Manchester today? Participants will reflect on positive changes for women made over the last 100 years, and look at what needs to change for the future as we approach the 2018 centenary of women gaining the right to vote for the first time. Using a range of protest materials: ribbons, rosettes, patches, flags and badges, artist Helen Mather will be asking members of the public to contribute to an art piece with their slogan for change.

Or:

2.00 – 3.15 Women’s War Literature

Prof Anne Varty (Royal Holloway), ‘Women and Poetry of the First World War’

Ellen Ricketts (University of Hull), ‘Queering the Home Front: Subversive Temporalities and Sexualities in Rose Allatini’s Despised and Rejected and Bryher’s Two Selves’

Dr Lisa Regan (University of Liverpool), ‘A Desert Romance? Women and the War in the Middle East’

Or:

2.00 – 3.15 Creative workshop: Women at the Front (Meeting room, first floor)

A chance to respond creatively to the museum’s collections and to women’s diaries from the Front with Dr Livi Michael, award-winning author of historical fiction (MMU) and Dr Liz Nolan (MMU). Examine some of the visual images and autobiographical accounts of women’s involvement in the war, and write your own creative response, or design your own war poster.

3.15 – 3.30  Break

3.30- 4.00  Dr Kirsty Bunting and Dr Orlagh McCabe (MMU, Cheshire campus), Ada Nield Chew, North West suffrage heroine

Kirsty Bunting and Orlagh McCabe will show a short film and then talk about their Local Youth Engagement Project and travelling exhibition about the North West suffrage heroine, Ada Nield Chew, the ‘Crewe Factory Girl’ and her protest writing.

4.00 – 5.00  Ruth Sillers, War Girls

Actor and voice artist Ruth Sillers, will give a reading from her CD War Girls, an anthology of women’s writing – diaries, letters and poetry – by both well-known figures and ordinary women. She will then answer questions about her research.