This year’s Space Between conference topic is “Peace and Conflict in the Space Between.” This theme seems all too apposite for the times in which we find ourselves; however, one of the things, that Space Between tends to do, as a scholarly society, is look beyond the obvious and over-studied.  What are you looking forward to hearing explored beyond the immediately obvious questions of world wars, growing authoritarianism, and intolerance?

As you note, the specter of war and authoritarianism looms large. We’ve received proposals that consider literary resistance, war poetry, memoirs written by nurses on the front lines, and numerous other topics that promise sharp insights into the relationship between literature, culture, and conflict. The National World War I Museum and Memorial will also offer a behind-the-scenes tour to conference attendees. That said, I am excited to consider the concept of peace. While writing the CFP, the conference planning committee (myself, Christina Hauck, Jessica Kim, Lydia Noland, Ann Rea, Mike Williamson, and you, Luke Seaber) lamented the poverty of our collective scholarly vocabulary for peace. We have a rich array of terms and frameworks to theorize conflict, but discussions of peace tend to stall at well-worn references to utopias and flying doves. I am looking forward to an expanded vocabulary for discussing peace and, perhaps, a larger toolkit for the work of bringing it about.

That’s very exciting, and let’s indeed hope! You mention nurses’ memoirs, which reminds me of the image on the conference poster. There can be a tendency to think in terms of a binary associating women with peace and men with conflict: to what extent is that complicated if we look at some of the things going on in the period 1914-1945?

I think the exhibit that the Spencer Museum of Art, which is on the University of Kansas campus, is putting together specifically for Space Between demonstrates that these binaries are much more complicated when we look at the actual experience of war. I recently came across a woodcut in their collection titled “Août 1914: Mobilisation,” which was created in 1915. In it, two soldiers kiss in front of railroad tracks. One solder holds a gun, the barrel of which has been turned into a makeshift vase for roses. The men wear different uniforms, suggesting an international love story: these men, mobilized for war, are saying a final goodbye before boarding separate military transport trains. This image is part of Hermann-Paul’s “Calendrier de la Guerre, 1er année.” Another image in the series, “Jun 1915: Obus,” depicts a woman working in a factory that makes artillery shells for howitzers. A reception for conference attendees will be held at the Spencer Museum of Art.

Our conference will consider all manner of conflict and efforts toward peace, not only those related to war. Apart from the context of war, the peace/conflict gender binary was routinely undermined in the Space Between era. We might think of the suffragettes, that militant wing of suffragists whose direct action, civil disobedience, bombing, and arson helped precipitate the Representation of the People Act in 1918, which gave the vote to some British women. Many men, of course, were deeply involved in pacifist causes. Most readers will be familiar with the pacifism of the men associated with the Bloomsbury Circle, especially Duncan Grant and David Garnett. Conference presenters will discuss less well-known examples of men who created art that promoted or depicted peace, such as the pacifist erotica of Hungarian novelist Nándor Ujhelyi, Chinese American artist Yun Gee’s recriminations of what he saw as militaristic aesthetics, and Solomon Sir Jones’s amateur films that were revolutionary for their depiction of Black American life as peaceful and prosperous.

Those images are remarkable! They remind me that the Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945 is very much not a body focusing solely on literary culture, but also visual and material culture. Furthermore—and it’s always been one the things I’ve found most rewarding about the conferences—the organization spreads its net far more widely. Literature and painting, yes, but also architecture, dance, design. . . Would you like to say some more about the interdisciplinary aspect of this year’s conference?

It’s something of a truism about conferences that the most generative panels will be the ones outside your area of expertise (within reason). That’s because you learn about theories or books that haven’t reached your networks yet, or because topics you work with everyday are defamiliarized by a new approach. I’m a literary critic who focuses on depictions of pregnancy, birth control, and other reproductive topics. I love attending panels that feature scholars who work on similar topics and with similar methods, but I also make a point to attend panels that are far afield. Various papers on photography given at previous Space Between conferences, including ones about war, motorcycles, and fashion, have shifted my attention to book covers and given me language to discuss the images that appear there. Papers on architecture directed my attention to the buildings that my characters move into, out of, and pass on the street. But such interdisciplinarity is not strictly utilitarian. Learning about the idiosyncratic, wacky, obscure, censored, or submerged topics that catch the eye of my fellow Space Betweeners is one of the chief delights of my academic life. This year’s conference will feature papers that discuss architecture, photography, and film, to be sure, but also dolls, aviation, art dealers, and linguistics.  

I think you’re absolutely right—one of the things I love about Space Between conferences is that, at their best, there’s that sense of serendipitous learning about topics you didn’t even know you didn’t know about. It can feel almost like taking on information on the period in the way that one would have in the period: that is, an immersion in the details of the period that our so-often siloed academic training rarely gives us. That sense of breaking us out of our disciplinary comfort zones is very valuable, I think, but there’s also how the conferences aim to break down barriers between academia and non-academia, involving the local community and local scholars in a way that allows literal “spaces between” to be put to the fore. What are some of the local venues or events that will be of interest to conference attendees?

KU’s campus is about six blocks from downtown Lawrence. The walk between campus and downtown is full of prairie-style bungalows built in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as many older homes from the nineteenth century. The heart of downtown is Massachusetts Street, a bustling shopping and restaurant district. Local favorites include Jungle House (plants), Silas and Maddy’s (ice cream), Red Lyon (soccer pub), The Bourgeois Pig (cocktails), 1900 Barker (James Beard-award winning bakery), and Limestone (pizza). Space Betweeners will be particularly interested in The Raven, which was named the best bookstore in America in 2022 by Publisher’s Weekly. Liberty Hall is a theater in the broad sense of the term: they screen movies (new releases, indies, and classic films), as well as hosting live music and speakers. Liberty Hall screened the first talkie in Kansas in 1924 (“The Canary Murder Case”). 

Langston Hughes lived in Lawrence from 1909-1914; he was not a fan. William S. Burroughs lived here too, and liked it much better. A walking path on the edge of downtown is named after him. 

For folks interested in events prior to the Space Between era, Lawrence is rich with Civil War history. Kansas was a free state, and Lawrence was a center of abolitionist activism, including serving as a hub of the Underground Railroad. Much of downtown Lawrence was destroyed in Quantrills Raid in 1863 when a pro-slavery mob attacked the town. The abolitionist John Brown, best known for his role in Harper’s Ferry, led a guerrilla army against the mob. Conference attendees can learn more about Lawrence’s Civil War history at the Watkins Museum of History. The Museum is downtown and admission is free. 

The conference will be held May 28-30 at the University of Kansas (KU) in Lawrence, KS. For more information, see the conference website.