Symposia
Upcoming Symposia at the Museum and Memorial
2020 Symposium
October 23-24, 2020 at the National WWI Museum and Memorial.
As the Great War “ended,” many questions confronted the global community that remain just as pressing today as they did 100 years ago. How does war affect how we understand ourselves and our place in the world? What does it mean to “come home” when the places and people you called home have changed irrevocably? How does raising such ideas help us better comprehend the period today? Using historic and contemporary lenses, join us for an illuminating exploration of these questions and a collective conversation on war, identity and the enduring impact of World War I.
More information coming soon
Past Symposia
2019 Symposia
1919: PEACE?
1919 was a year of sweeping changes in a landscape dramatically altered by years of unrelenting warfare. Leaders advanced towards elusive peace amid political instability, economic uncertainty and social conflict. As terms of the Treaty of Versailles were negotiated, a world reordered faced decisions and realities that would leave a complex legacy.
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2018 Symposia
1918: Crucible of War
Explore the irrevocable changes five years of cataclysmic conflict wrought on the global stage. Discover the complex impact on familiar structures as war was fought on three diverse continents of battlefields and the waters that connected them to the American homefront. As borders were literally and figuratively redrawn, Allies celebrated a victory and the world came to terms with the irreparable devastation and losses of the “war to end all wars.”
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2017 Symposia
1917: America Joins the Fight
The United States emerged from its traditional isolation in 1917 and began to take its place in the forefront of world affairs. As the U.S. mobilized its farms, industries, and formed a large army, it confronted curtailing civil liberties and faced a possible demand for equity in return for support.
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Remembering Muted Voices: Conscience, Dissent, Resistance and Civil Liberties in World War I Through Today
The World War's profound effect on the United States is often overlooked. Although the United States actively took part in the conflict for only 18 months, the war effort introduced mass conscription, transformed the American economy, and mobilized popular support through war bonds, patriotic rallies, and anti-German propaganda. Nevertheless, many people desired a negotiated peace, opposed American intervention, refused to support the war effort, and/or even imagined future world orders that could eliminate war. Among them were members of the peace churches and other religious groups, women, pacifists, radicals, labor activists, and other dissenters.
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2016 Symposium
1916: Total War
Explore the pivotal year of 1916, where global socio-political tensions created by World War I continued escalation and irrevocably changed the economic, military, and cultural landscape of the world.
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2015 Symposium
1915: Empires at War, Churchill's Gallipolli & an America Divided
Explore the rising tensions in America and the globally escalating conflict that defined the world in 1915. Follow the trajectories of different countries around the world as the conflict escalated to total war, including fighting in the colonies and East Asia, stalemate in the West, Churchill’s disaster at Gallipoli, mobilization at home, and the polarization of American society around the issue of war.
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2014 Symposium
1914: Global War and American Neutrality
Examine the origins of, reactions to and early confrontations in the First World War including the political, diplomatic, military, cultural and scientific developments prior to the war that contributed to its outbreak.