Arts of War on the Web

The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is sponsoring a unique arts-oriented Veterans Day event, Veterans Reclaim Armistice Day, on November 11 at the Indiana War Memorial in Indianapolis. The event consists of lectures, performances, sculpture, readings, and paintings “in an exploration of how artistic expression can help veterans and military personnel communicate their experiences to others,” according to the event’s organizers.

The non-profit library is an apt venue for this event. “Kurt Vonnegut was huddled captive in a former meat locker when the bombs fell that leveled Dresden, Germany, in World War II. He was forced to pull out dead men and women and children and pets, and he was a 22-year-old kid. It’s why he wrote Slaughterhouse-Five,” Julie Whitehead, the library’s executive director, said.

The event includes a talk by Mark Vonnegut on his father’s World War II experiences and Slaughterhouse-Five, and a Keynote speech by Jonathan Shay, the author and long-time PTSD expert.

The artist Tom Hubbard will give a presentation on his “Semper Fidelis: How I Met My Father” mixed-media fine art exhibition, which is a combination of Hubbard’s work in ceramics, photography, and graphic design. It includes USMC reports, letters written by Hubbard’s Marine Corps Vietnam veteran father, and archival photos of Hubbard, senior, who was killed in Vietnam was his son was just two years old.

The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are suggested. To do so and to see a complete schedule of the activities, go to the event’s web page.

The Veterans Writing Project will hold two days of seminars November 5-6 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. This free series of seminars is open to all veterans, as well as to current active duty and reserve service members, along with military family members. The sessions include instruction on many elements of writing, such as setting, scene, dialogue, narrative structure, and point of view. The seminars are led by writers who have served in America’s wars.

You can register by sending an email to info@veteranswriting.org with the following information:

Name:
Service Connection (veteran, active service or reservist, family member) and period of service:
Writing form(s): (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, … or still figuring that out)
Previous writing experience and/or classes:

The George Washington University’s Veterans Services Office and the University Writing Program are sponsoring the seminars. For more information, go to the VWP’s website.

During the 1980s and 1900s colleges and universities seemed to be putting on some sort of Vietnam War academic conference, seminar, panel discussion or other type of similar event on a fairly regular basis. But these days academic Vietnam War conferences are about as rare as kind-hearted drill instructors.

The good news is that beginning on Thursday, April 14, Hofstra University on Long Island will present “Into Sunlight: The Impact of War on the Social Body From the Vietnam Era to the Present,” a three-day, multi-faceted academic conference. On the agenda: lectures, panel discussions, speak-outs, art exhibits, and performance events.

The guest star is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss, the author of the exceptionalVietnam War non-fiction book, They Marched Into Sunlight. Maraniss will be the Keynote speaker and will take part in several other events.

What’s unique about this conference is that it was conceived of by a Hofstra Professor of Dance, Robin Becker, who, inspired by Maraniss’ book, created a full-length dance piece, “Into Sunlight,” which will be performed at the conference.

Also on the wide-ranging and ambitious agenda: the world premiere of a play, Undeclared History, which is based on Vietnam War era oral histories of Hofstra graduates, including veterans, antiwar activists, journalists, and faculty members.

On Friday, April 8, the panels include “Diagnosis and Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” with Edward Tick, the founding director of Soldier’s Heart: Veterans Safe Return Programs.

You can find out more by calling 516-463-5669 or going to the conference web site.

Mark your calendars for November 18, 19, 20. Those are the dates for “…Next Stop Is Vietnam: The War on Record, 1961-2008,” a three-day symposium examining the music of the Vietnam War sponsored by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison.

The event is co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Integrated Liberal Studies Program, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Wisconsin Public Television, and the Monona Terrace and Convention Center. It also is part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The opening event is a presentation beginning at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, November 18, at the Museum titled “Distant Drums, Sky Pilots, and Green Berets: The Music of the Vietnam Era.” The evening’s speaker is Hugo Keesing, the producer of the massive new 13-disc CD, Next Stop is Vietnam.

On Friday, November 19, at noon the Museum will host “I Believe I’m Gonna Make It”: A Conversation about Southern Music and the Vietnam War with Charles Hughes, a PhD candidate in history at UW-Madison, and Bill C. Malone, the host of “Back to the Country” on WORT-FM.

At 3:00 that day at the Monona Terrace and Convention Center Theater there will be a panel discussion entitled “Does Anybody Know I’m Here?”: Black Music and the Black Experience in Vietnam. Taking part will be William Bell, a Stax Records artist who served with the 25th Infantry Division in 1962-63; Art Flowers, a Vietnam veteran, novelist, poet, and Professor of English at Syracuse University;  Clyde Stubblefield, a drummer who played with James Brown during his 1968 Vietnam tour; and Lauren Onkey, Vice President of Education and Public Programs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Saturday at noon the Museum hosts a concert by singer/songwriter and VVA member Lem Genovese; Marty Heuer, who served with the 174th AHC and was a founding member of High-Priced Help and Three Majors and Minor; Jim Walktendonk, a singer/songwriter and former 18th MP Dog Handler; and Hugo Keesing.

The final event begins at 2:00 at the Museum: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”: Music and the Vietnam Experience, a panel discussion with journalist and Vietnam veteranDoug Bradley and author Craig Werner, who is an professor of Afro-American Studies at UW-Madison.

All events are free and open to the public. For more info, call 608-261-0541, or go to the museum’s website.

Next year’s annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association will take place in San Antonio from April 20-23, 2011.  The conference in previous years has had a section devoted to the Vietnam War. Next year, that will be expanded to include all of America’s wars following World War II.

As was the case with the Vietnam area, all aspects of literature, history, culture and the arts involving the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the wars in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan–and from all sides–are relevant for discussion.

The call for proposals has just gone out for papers and panels. According to Mary Sue Ply, who coordinates the war section:  “All approaches and points of view—creative, scholarly, interdisciplinary, multicultural—are welcome:  film, literature, history, sociology, political science, linguistics, ethnicity, folklore, original fiction, poetry, drama, art, music, Vietnamese writers and artists and culture, non-American perspectives on any of these wars–whatever interests you about these wars and their genesis or aftermath.”

Send a 250-word abstract (including the title) for a paper or for a complete panel to the address below.  For each presenter, include name, department and university affiliation (where appropriate), mailing address, phone number(s), and e-mail address. And mention Arts of War on the Web if you do.

Mary Sue Ply
Department of English
Southeastern Louisiana University
SLU 10861
Hammond, LA 70466
mply@selu.edu
985-549-3383 (office)

DEADLINE:   DECEMBER 15, 2010

Richard Curry, the former Vietnam War Navy corpsman whose novel, Fatal Light, is among the best literary treatments of the war, will be taking part in a series of workshops called “Veterans Tell Their Stories” March 12-13 at Marshall University in Huntington in Currey’s home state of West Virginia

Currey, along with Iraq War veteran and short-story writer James Mathews, will read from his work, do a round table discussion, and conduct workshops. Although the target audience is veterans of all eras, the event is open to all, and is free.

For more information, or to register in advance for a workshop, call 304-696-6637 or email vankirk@marshall.edu

December 15 is the deadline for proposal submissions for presentations for this year’s Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference, which will be held March 31-April 3 at the Renaissance Grand Hotel in St. Louis–and which also has a Vietnam War component.

All approaches and points of view—creative, scholarly, interdisciplinary, multicultural—are welcome in the areas of Vietnam War film, literature, history, sociology, political science, linguistics, ethnicity, folklore, original fiction, poetry, drama, art, music, and Vietnamese writers and artists and culture.  Or “whatever interests you about the war and its genesis or aftermath,” Mary Sue Ply, who coordinates the PCA/ACA Vietnam War activities, told us.

The rules: Send a 250-word abstract (including title) for a paper or for a complete panel. For each presenter, include name, department and university affiliation (where appropriate), mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address.

Write to Mary Sue Ply, Department of English, Southeastern Louisiana University, SLU 10861, Hammond, LA 70466; call 985-549-3383; or email mply@selu.ed

On Friday, May 22, the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, will present a screening of the documentary, Muse of Fire, a film by Lawrence Bridges that looks at the National Endowment for the Arts’ Operation Homecoming project, which brings together some of the nations top writers (many of whom are Vietnam veterans) and aspiring young veteran writers. Jon Peede, NEA’s Director of Literature Grants Programs and a driving force behind Operation Homecoming, will introduce the film. He will lead a roundtable Q&A after the showing with the poet E. Ethelbert Miller, workshop instructor James Mathews, and one or two workshop participants. The Writer’s Center is located at 4508 Walsh Street in downtown Bethesda. The event is free and open to the public. To register, go to the center’s website. Muse of Fire includes readings and interviews with U.S. troops and their families, along with commentary from a slew of authors and actors who took part in the program. That includes Dana Gioia, Mark Bowden, Ray bradbury, Jeff Shaara, and Andrew Carroll. The original Operation Homecoming workshop participants included Vietnam veteran writers Tobias Wolff, Joe Haldeman, and Richard Currey.

Every year the Popular Culture Association National Meeting has a significant Vietnam War component. The 2009 meeting, which will be held April 8-11 in New Orleans, will be no exception. The meeting’s organizers are looking to include papers and panels on a wide variety of disciplines that make up the popular culture community.

“All approaches and points of view—creative, scholarly, interdisciplinary, multicultural—are welcome,” the organizers tell us, “film, literature, history, sociology, political science, linguistics, ethnicity, folklore, original fiction, poetry, drama, art, music, Vietnamese writers and artists and culture. Whatever interests you about the war and its genesis or aftermath.”

If you’re interested, send a 250-word abstract (including title) for a paper or for a complete panel by December 1 to Mary Sue Ply, Department of English, Southeastern Louisiana University, SLU 10861, Hammond, LA 70466. For each presenter, include a name, department and university affiliation (where appropriate), mailing address, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.

For more info, e-mail: mply@selu.edu or call 985-549-3383

The 2008 American Veterans Conference will be held November 6-8, the weekend before Veterans Day, in Washington D.C. This is the 11th annual conference put on by The American Veterans Center. The headliner this year is Lt. General Hal Moore (above), the hero of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, who received a VVA Excellence in the Arts Award for his book We Were Soldiers Once and Young. Among other things, the conference will feature a panel called “Baseball Goes to War,” featuring an array of ballplayer veterans including Hall of Famer Bob Feller.

For registration information and the schedule of events http://www.americanveteranscenter.org/AVC_conference-schedule.html For more information email Tim Holbert tholbert@americanveteranscenter.org or call 571-480-4152