Friday 17 to Sunday 19 September 2010

Exeter University Maritime History conference (Ends 19th Sept)

Who Did They Think They Were?: The Sea and the making of Identities

A conference focusing on the relationship between the sea and identity in
widest possible sense, naval or maritime; local, regional, national or
international; gender and sexuality; fact, film or fiction. It will look
beyond the usual nationalistic rhetoric to explore how identity has been
moulded by attitude to and relationships with the sea. The conference will
interrogate the idea of identity in its various manifestations in order to
examine the importance of the sea to different audiences.

Papers include:
* Identifying 'seagoing races': Britain's colonial naval volunteers and the
forging of identity during the Second World War.
* The Athenian Navy in the fifth century: facts and fiction.
* The Navy at Home: The creation of British identity in the domestic sphere
1793-1815.
* The bridge, the river and the ocean sea: concepts of space in the
seventeenth-century London maritime community.
* The identity of RN submarine commanders in the Second World War.
* Regional voices: national causes 1930-1945.
* Defying Conformity: Using tattoos to express individuality in the
Victorian Navy.

This, the 44th Exeter Maritime History conference, is open to all and may be
attended in full or on a daily basis. Accomodation is available close-by on
the Exeter campus which is an easy walk from Exeter St David's Station.
Further information and booking form are available from the
conference website (Opens in a new window)