Our confirmed keynote speakers are:
Professor Emeritus Jay Winter
Yale University
Prof. Jay Winter is one of the leading scholars on the social and cultural history of war in the twentieth century. His books on the First World War and its long-term impact and memory include, among others, The Great War and the British People (1985), Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (1995) and Remembering War (2006), as well as the edited volumes War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (1999) and Shadows of War (2010). He is currently the editor for the three-volume Cambridge History of the First World War (forthcoming February 2014). Prof. Winter’s work on the histories of grief, silence and trauma has contributed greatly to the study of emotions and war.
Professor Jan Plamper
Goldsmiths, University of London
Prof. Jan Plamper is a specialist of the history of Stalinism and fear, and his recent methodological work on the history of emotions has been highly influential for the ongoing discussions, e.g., between neurosciences and history. His publications include, among others, The Stalin Cult (2012) and Geschichte und Gefühl (2012, forthcoming in English), as well as the edited volume Fear (2012). His Geschichte und Gefühl is a major synthesis on the different approaches to emotions and on their relations to historical scholarship. Regarding emotions and war, Prof. Plamper is currently studying the history of fear among the Russian soldiers of the First World War.
Professor Juha Siltala
University of Helsinki
Prof. Juha Siltala has been one of the first Finnish scholars to study the role of emotions in history. Besides of his books on nationalism, right-wing radicalism, labor and capitalism, Prof. Siltala has published a wide-ranging psychohistorical analysis of the Finnish Civil War of 1918, Sisällissodan psykohistoria (2009). His main theme has been the psychological dynamics of hatred and affection in large groups and their role in the escalation of violence. He has also studied the generational transference of war trauma, methodological issues of cultural and psychohistory and the intertwined relations between emotions, economics and politics.