Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation

Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation was an international Mellon-Sawyer Seminar Series which ran at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University in 2017-18. It brought together academics from many different fields, politicians, people who have played a role in peace negotiations, and leading figures from cultural policy and the charitable sector. They were joined by novelists, poets, artists and musicians whose work marks war in some way.

The Series focused on the following questions:

  • Who is commemoration for and why?
  • How does commemoration lead to reconstruction and reconciliation?
  • What is the future of commemoration?

Contributors include the world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, the award-winning novelists Aminatta Forna and Rachel Seiffert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz and the human rights lawyer and Gifford Baillie Prize-winner Philippe Sands QC.

The Series culminated in the publication of a book, On Commemoration: Global Reflections upon Remembering War, published by Peter Lang.

The Series was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in memory of John E. Sawyer. You can follow the series on Twitter @PostWarOx

Explore blog posts, films and audio podcasts created by the project on the TORCH website and Oxford University Podcast site  – see some highlights below.

Blog posts

You can explore a selection of blog posts documenting the Series' activities and events and adressing key research questions on the TORCH website

Filmed performances, panels and workshops

You can browse a small selection of the project's filmed events below more films are available on the Oxford University Podcast site.

Audio podcasts

You can browse a small selection of the project's audio podcasts below more podcasts are available on the Oxford University Podcast site.