Freie Universität Berlin, Department of History and Cultural Studies, Koserstraße 20, Lecture Hall B

(Wednesday, 27 to Friday, 29 September 2023)

organized by Martin Clauss/Gundula Gahlen/Oliver Janz.

English conference report by Alexander Reineke at H-Net 

Klänge des Schreckens. Conference report "Der Sound des Krieges" by Dennis Yücel (Campus.leben und Tagesspiegel-Beigabe)

War is an extreme aural experience and is one of the loudest events of human history. The cacophony of weapons, the sounds of signal instruments, the shouts of combatants and the cries of wounded people and animals make military combat an exceptional situation. War is not only inseparable from violence, but also from sound. The 2023 inter-epochal and interdisciplinary symposium is dedicated to precisely this acoustic conglomerate and its significance for the experience and memory of war. The term 'sound' will be used to refer to all acoustic phenomena in a value- and context-neutral way, based on the concept as established in sound studies. The conference will be the first to examine the sound of war in a longitudinal historical perspective from antiquity to the present, and to explore the theoretical and methodological potential of sound studies and sensory history for military history.

We will ask how and why the sound of war has changed over the course of history and how it has been perceived, interpreted, and remembered. Since antiquity, instruments of war and weapons have undergone various innovations, resulting in changes to the sound of war. In addition to the sound of weaponry, other sounds of war such as those stemming from movement, voices, and music all belong to the soundscape of war, creating diverse acoustic backdrops, which depend on temporal and spatial contexts. It should also be taken into account that combatants spent most of their time not in combat but rather in army camps or on marches, with each of these spaces comprising their own acoustic backdrop, and that the soundscape of combat could often be influenced or superimposed by other soundscapes, such as those of town, village, or church. The specific acoustic dimension of a war shaped the wartime experiences of the societies involved, and particular sounds inscribed themselves in collective memories.

Conference Program

Wednesday, 27.09. 

from 13.00 Registration

14.00    Martin Clauss/Gundula Gahlen/Oliver Janz: Introduction

(Moderation: Hannah Potthoff)

14.30    Olga Radchenko (Cherkassy):
Belliphonie des russisch-ukrainischen Krieges in den Ego-Narrativen der ukrainischen Zeitzeugen (Moderation: Hannah Potthoff)

Section 1: Soundscape Combat: Violence and Sound (Part 1)

(15.00-16.00, Moderation: Isabelle Deflers)

Daniel Bonenkamp (Münster) / Lukas Grawe (Bremen):

Geräusch des Terrors – Die Sirene des Ju- 87 Sturzkampfbombers

Daniel Richter (Göttingen):

Der Klang der fallenden Stadt - Akustische Dimension von Stadteroberungen im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (1631-1632)

 

16.00-16.30 Break

 

Section 1:Soundscape Combat: Violence and Sound (Part 2)

(16.30-17.30, Moderation: Isabelle Deflers)

Sarah von Hagen (Göttingen):

Sounds und Soundscape als strukturierende Elemente in frühneuzeitlichen Seeschlachten und deren Darstellungen

Marian Füssel (Göttingen):

Der Klang des Anderen. Akustische Repräsentationen des globalen Siebenjährigen Krieges (1756-1763)

 

17.30-18.00 Break

 

18 Uhr, Martin Daughtry (New York):

Keynote: The Belliphonic (online)

(Moderation: Martin Clauss)

19.00 Concluding Remarks

19.00 Conference dinner with active participants

 

Thursday, 28.09.     

09.15    Welcom

Section 2: Battle Songs and the Music of Occupation

(9.30-11.00, Moderation: Georg Hoffmann)

 

Franziska Quaas (Hamburg):

Vom Schlachtgesang zur Siegeshymne. Gesang in kriegerischen Konflikten des frühen und hohen Mittelalters zwischen militärischer Taktik und historiographischer (Re-)production

 

Alexandra Dick (Tübingen):

Affektiv und effektiv – Funktionen der Wirkmacht jhadistischer Anāshīd

 

Heike Frey (München): Besatzungssound. Hegemoniale

Musikpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (online)

 

11-11:30 Break

Section 3: Sounds of War and trauma

(11.30-13.00, Moderation: Lukas Grawe)

Jan-Martin Zollitsch (Berlin):

Das „Rasseln der Mitrailleusen“ und die „sensiblen Nerven“ – der „Sound des Krieges“ 1870/71 und seine Auswirkungen

Gundula Gahlen (München):

Krank vom Sound des Krieges. Erfahrungen in Deutschland während des Ersten Weltkriegs

Stefanie Linden (Maastricht):

The Sounds of Shell Shock

 

13-14.30 Lunch Break

Section 4: Silence and Quiet in Combat

(14.30-15.30 Uhr, Moderation: Oliver Janz)

Łukas Różycki (Poznan):

In Silence they came. The Late-Roman Art of Silent Intimidation in the Light of Selected Sources

Robin Preiss (New York):

Tactics of Silence: ‚Skulking’ and the Persistent Trope of Native American Embodiment

 

15.30-16.00 Break

 

Section 5: Narrative Belliphonic

(16-17.30 Uhr, Moderation: Martin Clauss)

Conor Whately (Winnipeg):

Agathias and the Sounds of War in the Age of Justinian

Boris Gübele (Göttingen):

Lautsphären der Kreuzzugschronistik: Belliphonie bei Wilhelm von Tyrus und anderen

Hannah Potthoff (Chemnitz): Zwischen Klage und Kampf: Frauen (-figuren) in der Belliphonie des Mittelalters

 

17.30-18.00 Break

 

18-18.45 Award of the Wilhelm-Deist-Preis; presentation of the Portal Militärgeschichte

 

Friday, 29.09.           

09.15    Welcome

Section 6: Sound as a Political Means of War Commemoration

(9.30-10.30, Moderation: Daniel Morat)

Karsten Lichau (Berlin):

Wie die Kanonen das Verstummen lernten. Die Schweigeminute als Sound des Friedens?

Elias Berner (Wien) / Birgit Haberpeuntner (Wien):

„Deine Vergangenheit war groß“: Kriegsresonanzen im österreichischen Nachkriegsradio (1945–1955)

 

10.30-11.00 Break

 

Section 7: The Sound of War in Art

(11-12.00, Moderation: Christoph Nübel)

Pauline Lafille (Limoges):

Visualizing the Belliphonic, Writing Art Aloud. Mute Renaissance Battle Scenes in the Aural Eye of Artists and Art Historians

Giovanna Carugno (Castelfranco Veneto):

War Memories in Keyboard Music of the Late Renaissance: Notes on The Batell by William Byrd

 

12.00-12.15 Break

 

12.15 Closing Commentary by Daniel Morat (Berlin) and final discussion (Moderation: Gundula Gahlen)

 

13.00 End of the Conferencee

Please click here for the English language flyer.

Please click here for the Call for Papers.

Please click here for the FU press release.

Please click here for an interview with conference organizers Gundula Gahlen and Martin Clauss.

Please find the Youtube conference stream here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoZki1bO4H1d6cgsvPM0eCUNn1MgFLukf