Great War Centenary Talk on Friday 18 May

Speaker: Katie Longo (Balliol College, Oxford)
Title: Towards to Great War Centenary: selections for an exhibition

Location: Seminar Room, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
Date: Friday 18 May 1pm

On Friday 18 May Katie Longo will give a talk, Towards the Great War Centenary: selections for an exhibition (1:00 pm, Seminar Room, Pitt Rivers Museum).  This is also an opportunity to hear about plans for the Bodleian’s 2014 exhibition.

Katie was appointed to this year’s Balliol-Bodley Scholarship, which affords Balliol postgraduates the opportunity to work with Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in support of cataloguing or curatorial research.  With the 2014 exhibition in mind, Katie has been exploring the papers of Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford.

Murray is a good starting point for asking certain questions about contemporary perceptions of the Great War.  He is well known for his association with conscientious objectors and with the foundation of the League of Nations; and yet in 1914 he wrote a pamphlet justifying the British war position. Katie has been surveying the Murray papers, concentrating on the early part of the war, with several questions in mind. What is his general attitude to the war?  Does he have a realistic understanding (in terms of the scale, duration, likely losses, strategy etc.)?  What is the source of his information (official sources, friends, newspapers, propaganda, soldiers at the front etc.)?  What is his attitude to Germany and the Germans? – from the blog of the centenary preparations, posted by Mike Webb (Bodleian Library, Western Manuscripts)

Related links: Centre for the Study of the Book Events Calendar | Oxford World War I Centenary Blog | Murray Papers Bodleian Library Catalogue Record | The Great War Archive | Gilbert Murray Trust

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