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Publications, Presentations and Conference Papers

Publications:
PhD Thesis   'The Planning, Design and Reception of British Home Front Propaganda Posters of the Second World War', University of Winchester, June 2004. (Passed without corrections)
Electronic:  

A full portfolio is available at: http://www.mydesigna.ww2poster.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio.htm

Book Chapter  
Journal Article  
  • "'Careless Talk Costs Lives': The Government's Information Security Campaign on the Home Front", in Everyone's War: The Journal of the Second World War Experience Centre (No.15, Spring/Summer 2007)
Book Review  
Damaris Culturewatch  
Referenced  
Leaflets  

The following leaflets were written in my role as IT Centre Advisor at University College Winchester, and are accessible in PDF form. Download the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

  • Dreamweaver 1: introduction, different views, inserting text/images, page properties, viewing/saving
  • Dreamweaver 2: sites, tables and templates
  • Dreamweaver 3: layers, cascading style sheets, alt tags, meta tags, web hosting
  • Scanner advanced: editable text, changing the resolution, photoshop, image file types
  • CD-Writer: Instructions on how to make best use of the College CD-writers
  • CD-Writer 2: Instructions on how to copy CD-to-CD and use the cover designer.

I re-edited and added information to the following leaflets, to make the information more understandable, and the leaflets more visually appealing.


Presentations and Conference Papers:
October 2008   'Bex Lewis: An Ordinary Life, An Extraordinary Journey', Ladies Group, Cradley Baptist Church
Invited by my Oak Hall guests to come and give my testimony, interwoven with stories of my travels. I aimed for a colourful presentation, plenty of images, thoughts on comparing the Christian life journey to some of my travels around the world.
November 2006  

'Addressing Different Audiences and Creative Approaches to K.T.' to 'Beyond Academia? A Conference on Knowledge Transfer' at University of Manchester
Invited to be an expert panel member, and run a workshop at a postgraduate conference, drawing on my experience in working with CIDRA to organise discussions and events, working with regional 'cultural assets' to promote interdisciplinary 'out of the box' thinking. Encouraging students to think about innovative ways in which they could engage across the subject borders and with the cultural assets.

June 2002  

'Informal Education: VD Posters of the Second World War' to Launch Conference for the Centre for the History of Women's Education.
"The Centre provides a forum for research into the gendered nature of educational provision, practice and thought in order to provide a sound evidence base for policy and practice in respect of education for women and girls. The Centre takes a broad cultural definition of Education: one which transcends schooling to encompass learning and teaching (formal and informal) at any phase of the life-cycle, in any setting or historical period, including the recent past."

I presented a short paper on 'informal education', regarding the representation of men and women in VD posters.

May 2000  

'Nostalgia and the Visual Image: The memory of propaganda posters of the Second World War' for 'Public History Now' at Ruskin College, Oxford
ABSTRACT: This paper will explore the place that Second World War Home Front posters have in popular memory, with a particular focus upon the nostalgia industry that has grown up around them.

There are countless objects that can be purchased adorned with images and slogans from wartime posters: not only postcards and reprduction posters, but mugs, key rings, T-shirts, chocolate bars, playing cards, and many others. Money would not be spent producing such objects unless it was felt there was a market for them, and such objects have been produced by the Imperial War Museum and the Public Record Office, amongst others, for many years, in the knowledge that they will sell.

The paper will consider why such products do sell, with their appeal based not only upon their immediate visual impact, often the reason they were successful in the first place, but upon their status as social and historical documents, and as a reminder of a past, mythical or otherwise. Many people remember the posters from the war, as can be illustrated by replies received from a questionnaire distributed, in 1997-9, as part of the PhD project.

Posters often trigger memories, in particular causing people become nostalgic about, for instance, 'the Blitz spirit'. This has largely been deemed a myth, and it will be interesting to consider how far such a 'spirit' was propagated through the war posters, and how far the posters have contributed to such a 'myth'. Yet, memories of war posters are not restricted to those who can remember the war, people of all generations can list many war poster slogans, such as 'Careless Talk Costs Lives'. There are two probable factors which account for this: many slogans have become tied up with the mythology of war; and war posters are used extensively as illustration in both children's and populist 'coffee table' books, where the poster is used to get across a point pictorially, as was the original purpose.

The paper will take into account the original purpose of propaganda and advertising posters, designed to be ephemeral, but also memorable. It will attempt to define what factors determine if a poster can be deemed a 'success', especially from a later point in time. The paper will also briefly reflect upon how changes in history have enabled the poster to be considered as a historical source.

With Gary Peatling 'Appeasement and public history now and in the future'.

September 1999  

'World War II Propaganda Posters and the Image of Britain' for King Alfred's College Research Day: 'National Identities'.
This was a very successful, well attended event. Short papers were given by a student and tutor from each research centre on the common theme of national identities.

The day included a paper given by myself, entitled 'World War II Propaganda and the Image of Britain'. Once a brief definition of propaganda and the job of the poster had been established, three posters from the First World War were considered, demonstrating the belief that most appealed to either a mythical past, a sense of good sportsmanship, or obedience to a sense of authority. The Second World War was even more of a 'total war' than the First had been, and those involved needed to know that they were not only fighting AGAINST something, but also FOR it. The main focus of the paper was then upon two posters 'Your Britain, Fight for it Now', produced in 1942, around the time of the Beveridge Report. On the one hand we saw the nostalgic image, depicted by Frank Newbould, of a pastoral and rural Britain, which encourages effort in order to maintain perceived past traditions, whilst Abram Games depicted an urban image as an image of change for a better Britain, a real fight for the future.

June 1999  

'British Home Front Posters of WW2' for 'The 1940s Society' in Kent.

Based upon my undergraduate thesis, and progress of the research project so far, "In June, Rebecca Lewis spoke to us on the subject of British Home Front Posters of WW2. Rebecca is very knowledgeable about her subject and spoke not only on the design of the posters but also on the political motivations behind them. The talk was illustrated by a large number of slides and we certainly came away with a better understanding of the subject."
Ian Bayley, The 1940s Society

May 1999   'Research Project Design' to Postgraduate Training Course, King Alfred's College.
A brief presentation (20 minutes) summarising how I had chosen to lay out my research project.

March 1999  

'The Planning, Design and Reception of British Home Front Propaganda Posters in the Second World War' Humanities and Social Science Research Seminar at King Alfred's College
After 18 months of study, an overview of the progress of the research project, and preliminary findings, to academic peers within the History Department.


Other Conferences Attended:
October 2008   Launch of 'Art for All' exhibition, and accompanying book 'London Transport Posters: A Century of Art and Design', at the London Transport Museum
A retrospective exhibition of over 60 original artworks on display at London Transport Museum. The art of the poster - a century of design celebrates a century of outstanding poster design for London's public transport network. Featuring leading artists of their day and many previously unseen artworks, The art of the poster explores how the first graphic poster commission for London Underground in 1908 led to the company becoming a pioneering patron of poster art - a legacy that continues today.

The book places posters within the wider context of design, fashion, 20th century advertising, printmaking, two world wars and suburban development from a range of perspectives.

July 2008   'Justifying War: Propaganda, Politics and War in the Modern Age', University of Kent
In the modern age, propaganda has become synonymous with warfare, the battle for hearts and minds occupying a central position within military and civilian planning. This conference intends to promote a broader, comparative approach to the themes of justifying war and the ‘just war’, drawing on social, political, military, cultural and economic studies from the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th Century through to the current war in Iraq. While the conference is mainly historical in focus, there is naturally a contemporary resonance between the experience of past efforts to justify war and more recent activities, notably in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. We would like to encourage interdisciplinarity, especially the cross-fertilization of history with the wider military and media communities. Scholars will have the opportunity to compare and contrast studies drawn from such diverse chronological, thematic and methodological positions to test the inception and development of the concept of justifying war in the modern era. This will be the first major international conference of its kind to explore these issues and will, we hope, identify further research synergies forming the basis for future collaboration.
December 2007   'Institute for International Studies Annual Research Workshop', University of Technology, Sydney
I attended a morning's session, which covered the museumisation of the aborigines in central Australia, and queer approaches.
September 2006   'Authenticity: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference', University of Salford
An interdisciplinary postgraduate conference covering the following panels: punk; myth and time; ordinary people; consumerism; memories and autobiographies; the spectacle; political movements; marginalities; the writer and the artist; popular music; locations; and aesthetics and reifications.
September 2005   Humanities Beyond Digitisation, Institute for Historical Research
Papers covered: the impact of digital resources on academic research and scholarship; preservation, dissemination and sustainability; making connections, changing boundaries; supply and demand; the role of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
September 2005   'Perspectives on Conflict: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference', University of Salford
An interdisciplinary postgraduate conference considering current and changing perspectives on conflict in cultural, social, political and military life.
August 2005   'New Directions in the Humanities: The Humanities in a Knowledge Society', Humanities Conference (hosted by University of Cambridge)
Themed papers were given on: 'The Meaning of 'Knowledge' (including interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity); ' The Nature of the Social'; 'Trajectories of Change'; and 'Roles for the Humanities'. The scope and concerns of the conference covered: 'New Directions for the Humanities'; 'Humanities-Science-Technology'; 'Humanities-Economy-Commerce'; 'The Humanities Themselves'; 'Interdisciplinarity'; 'Globalism and Diversity'.
July 2005   Inaugural Conference 2005: "Culture and Social Change: Disciplinary Exchanges" (University of Manchester/Open University), CRESC
From Craig Calhoun's opening sweeping account of different disciplinary (sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, history, science and technology studies, to name the most salient) approaches to culture, to Veena Das's meticulous use of an ethnography of health care in India to open up huge questions about suffering and hope, which closed the conference, and to the breath of papers sandwiched between, this inaugural conference epitomised some of CRESC's key commitments: to disciplinary exchanges; to an intentional intellectual openness, at times eclectic, but a committed refusal to be constrained by the possible limits of disciplines; to the use of empirical research to tease out questions of socio-cultural change; and to a conceptual and methodological creativity in thinking through how we can understand such processes.
June 2005   'Visualising the City', University of Manchester
'Visualising the City' will explore how popular film and other forms of visual representation filter and shape the way we understand and interact with the urban environment. This international conference draws on interdisciplinary interests in film and television, photography, architecture and urban studies, art history, cultural geography, sociology and related fields.
June 2005   'One Size Fits All: Integration and Fragmentation', postgraduate conference, University of Manchester
Integration and fragmentation affect every aspect of contemporary life, and the conference seeks to explore whether our worlds of communication, business, law, art and community are being integrated or fragmented. Organised by the Faculty of Humanities, the conference will draw upon ideas from across the academic board, making it a truly interdisciplinary event.
November 2002   'Re-making Londoners: Models of a Healthy Society in the Nation's Capital, 1918-1939' at the Centre for Metropolitan History.
The creation of a healthy society was, perhaps, the dominant concern of social reformers in the first half of the twentieth century and many historians have considered the legislative processes through which such a society was produced. What have, hitherto, been little studied, are the locations in which the ideologies of a healthy society were produced, especially in the inter-war decades. It is the aim of this workshop, using London as a case study, to investigate how social reformers developed particular models, practices and environments of reform in order to re-make London's population into a race of healthy, active and educated citizens between the end of the Great War in 1918 and the declaration of the Second World War in September 1939.

July 2002   'Past and Present' Anglo-American Conference at the Institute of Historical Research
"This year sees the fiftieth anniversary of Past and Present and one of the purposes of the seventy-first Anglo-American Conference is to mark and to celebrate this half-century. First published in February 1952, Past and Present has long been recognised as one of the foremost historical journals in the English-speaking world. From the very beginning, it sought to encompass the whole of human history, to draw its contributors from around the globe, to encourage controversy and disagreement, to welcome approaches and contributions provided by other disciplines, and to address large issues and broad themes in prose that was both scholarly and accessible.

But as befits a journal which has constantly sought to stress the interconnectedness of the past and present, and to identify and stimulate new approaches to the study of history, this anniversary conference will be primarily concerned with a timely and substantive task: to ask how and why and where and by whom the past has been - and still is - regularly re-written.

This continual re-writing is partly because of the dynamic inherent in the scholarly process; but it is also because of broader changes and specific imperatives in politics, society and culture. Under the general heading of 'Re-Writing the Past', the conference will explore such themes as: the liquidation of the past; the invention and dis-invention of tradition; the politics of historiographical revision; history as myth, memory and identity; the creation and contestation of historical epochs and periods; competing versions of the same past; history as propaganda and history as protest; history as orthodoxy and history as heresy; globalisation, IT and world history."

September 2001   'War and the Media', School of History, University of Kent
"This is the first major international conference on the impact of the media on war. Enormous social and technological changes have radically changed our lives over the past 150 years. The aim of the conference is to analyse how these developments have altered the relationships between politicians, the military and the media in the shaping of policies that may lead to conflict and the manner. The complex relationship between propaganda and censorship and the effect of the media on the formation of public opinion together with journalistic ethics and motives are also probed."

June 2001   Claire Langhamer 'Women, Leisure and Drink in the Second World War', Institute of Historical Research
Drawing on both archival sources, including Mass-Observation, and Public Record Office sources, along with material from more recent historians, Langhamer questioned how the context and nature of war shaped women's leisure experiences and the impact of war on gender hierarchies, concentrating on representations of women in war, particularly as regards the appropriateness of their leisure time.

May 2001   'Beyond Museums', Oxford Union, Oxford University
"Is the new digital age the answer to the prayers of museums, archives, and libraries? Does it free up collections allowing unprecedented access facilities for scholars and the public? Or is it all built on a house of cards? Do the new technologies really offer us anything, and are they sidetracking the holders of the nation's heritage into areas that really have unproven benefits? Is funding being diverted away from more needy services? Can the museum, or similar institution, actually survive in such a fast-changing culture?"

May 2001  

'Health Propaganda in History', Wellcome Institute, University of East Anglia.
Presentations Included:

  • 'Statistical Images of Diseases in Health Exhibitions in Britain in the 1930s'
  • 'No One Receiving?' The Audience for Health Education Films, 1919-48'
  • 'Health Promotion and the Transformation of Chronic Diseases after the Second World War (1945-1955)'
  • 'The Cycle of Conflict, the Historic Development of the Public Health and Health Promotion Movements'
July, 2000   'Aspects of Gender in Contemporary Britain' at Institute of Contemporary British History
"The conference aims to bring together contemporary historians as well as researchers in related fields including cultural studies, sociology and social anthropology, to explore aspects of gender history which have been neglected in previous research."

July, 2000   'War and Peace' Anglo-American Conference at Institute of Historical Research
Seminars Attended: 'Health and Education'; 'Representing War' 'and 'Cold War Culture'

June, 1999   'Special Interest Day: The Art of Propaganda' at Duxford, Imperial War Museum
An interesting day through which four presentations were given on the subjects of propaganda as shown through film, posters, Nazi radio, and black propaganda.

June, 1998   'Posters: persuasion and subversion', Victoria & Albert Museum in conjunction with 'The Power of the Poster' exhibition
The effectiveness of the poster as a publicity medium and the pervasiveness of the poster image were examined in the context of developments in 20th century graphic communication. The conference examined the history of the poster from the 'artistic' posters of the late 19th century, to the large-scale billboard campaigns of the modern day, which are an inescapable feature of the modern landscape
 

 

 



 

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Last Updated November 19, 2008
© Bex Lewis, 1997-2007. Original concept: mydesigna