Oh! What a lovely podcast

Can you turn the First World War into sketch comedy?

This month we talk to the public historian, podcaster, and author Greg Jenner. Along the way we discuss his work on the Horrible Histories television show, the difficulties of being funny about twentieth-century history, the different ways in which the public now consume history, and why Jessica might be considering changing career to become a comedian.

 

References:Horrible Histories (2008-Present) You're Dead to Me (2020-Present)

What happens when the First World War meets pulp science fiction?   This month we read the novel: Black Hand Gang (the first in the No Man's World trilogy) by Pat Kelleher. The book depicts a fictional battalion of British soldiers who are transported from the Somme to a strange alien world. As a result we discuss supernatural horror and the war, the use of slang, and whether this book was written explicitly for Chris.   References: Pat Kelleher, Black Hand Gang (No Man’s Word Book 1) (2011) Daniel Dafoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719) Dennis Wheatley, The Devil Rides Out (1934) Pat Barker, Regeneration (1991) Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (1989 - present) Juno Dawson, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (2022) Reginal Hill, The Wood Beyond (1995) Blackadder Goes Forth, BBC TV (1989) Pat Mills, Charley’s War (1979-1986) Brian Lumbley HG Wells HP Lovecraft

What happens when fantasy meets the First World War?   This month, we read 'The Warm Hands of Ghosts' by Katherine Arden, a novel which follows Canadian nurse Laura Iven as she searches for her brother behind the lines in the militarised area known as the ‘Forbidden Zone’. The plot hinges around a mysterious character called Faland, who runs an elusive hotel with no set location that men find to drink and relax   In the discussion, we consider the fictional use of historical characters, whether the war began in 1917, and Chris' new scale for measuring war-related novels.

Links:

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (1989-present) Alice Winn, In Memoriam (2023) Robert Graves, Good-bye To All That (1929) Mary Borden, The Forbidden Zone (1929) L. M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside (1921) The Battle of the Somme (1916) R. H. Mottram, The Spanish Farm Trilogy (1930) Lesley Glaister, Blasted Things (2020) Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (1975) Owen Davies, A Supernatural War (2018) Lucifer (2016-2021) Pierre Purseigle, Mobilisation, Sacrifice et Citoyenneté. Des communautés locales face à la guerre moderne. Angleterre – France, 1900-1918 (2013) Women at War (2022) Rachel Duffett, The Stomach for Fighting (2012) Kate Macdonald, The first cyborg and First World War bodies as anti-war propaganda (2016) Kim Newman, The Bloody Red Baron (1995) Pat Kelleher, Black Hand Gang (2010) Nicci French

 

This month Angus, Chris and Jessica discuss Jessica's professorial inaugural lecture, 'No (Wo)man's Land: writing history at the intersection of gender and First World War studies'.   Along the way we consider the problem of masculinity as an empty analytic category, the importance of the centenary for the study of the First World War and what Jessica might have done if she hadn't gone in to academia. There is also a sneak preview of exciting forthcoming and future projects from all three of us.     References: Jessica Meyer, ‘On Being a Woman and a War Historian’ Jessica Meyer, Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (2008) Jessica Meyer, Equal Burden: The Men of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War (2019) Kate Adie, Fighting on the Home Front: The Legacy of Women in World War One (2013) Kate Adie, ‘Don't write first world war women out of history’, The Guardian, 23rd September, 2013 Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (1962) Deborah Thom, Nice Girls and Rude Girls: Women Workers in World War 1 (1998) Tammy Proctor, Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War (2003) Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers (2001) Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War (2008) Jeremy Paxman, Great Britain's Great War (2013) John Tosh and Michael Roper (eds), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain Since 1800 (1991) Denise Riley, Am I That Name?: Feminism and the Category of ‘Women’ (1988) R.W. Connell, Masculinities (1993) Joan W. Scott, ‘Rewriting History’ in Margaret R. Higonnet, et. al. (eds), Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (2008) Branden Little (ed), Humanitarianism in the Era of the First World War, special issue ofFirst World War Studies, vol.5, no.1 (2014) Heather Perry, Recycling the Disabled: Army, Medicine, and Modernity in World War I Germany (2014) Michele Moyd, Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa (2014) Susan Grayzel, Women and the First World War (2002) Alexander Mayhew, Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness and Morale on the Western Front (2024) Alice Winn, In Memoriam (2023), https://ohwhatalovelypodcast.co.uk/podcast/in-memoriam/ Sam Mendes, 1917 (2019), https://ohwhatalovelypodcast.co.uk/podcast/sam-mendes-1917-and-the-landscape/ Peter Mandler, ‘The Problem with Cultural History’, Cultural and Social History, vol.1, no.1 (2004), 94-117. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (1975) Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That (1929) Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) Rosa Maria Bracco, Merchants of Hope: British Middlebrow Writers and the First World War (1993) Pat Barker, Regeneration (1991) Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong (1993) Alison Light, Forever England: Femininity, Literature, and Conservatism Between the Wars (1991) Jessica Meyer, Chris Kempshall and Markus Pöhlman, ‘Life and Death of Soldiers’, 1914-18 Online, 7th February, 2022 Chris Kempshall, The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire (2024) Katherine Arden, The Warm Hands of Ghosts (2024)

What happens when three historians watch a key play about the First World War?

This month we took a field trip to see Oh What A Lovely War at the Leeds Playhouse. As a result we discuss the nature of the performance, the changing image of Douglas Haig, and wonder whether audiences were supposed to sing along.

ReferencesAlan Clark, The Donkeys (1961) John McCrae, In Flanders Field (1915) William Phillpot, Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century (2010) Dan Todman, The Great War in Myth and Memory (2005) Oh! What a lovely war (Original London Cast) (1983)

 

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:GallipoliPeter Stanley, Bad CharactersAlexia Moncrieff, Expertise, Authority and ControlAlan Beyerchen and Emre Spencer (eds.), Expeditionary Forces in the First World WarTomas Irish, Universities at WarRudyard Kipling, KimThe 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 guiding a group of French soldiers through the war. Along the way they discuss the morale boosting merits of different drinks, the difference between 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 Spanish Farm,  (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.   ReferencesRobert 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)