The Royal Air Force Museum Conference 2021
16-17 September 2021. Note revised date. RAF Museum, London
The Royal Air Force Museum is pleased to announce a call for papers for its conference on ‘New Thinking in Air Power’, which will be held on 16–17 September 2021.
The deadline for submissions is 14 March 2021.
The conference aims to present research which challenges the accepted historical consensus in studies of Air Power. Works of historical revision change our historical understanding by adding to our knowledge, changing how we frame that history, and challenging the conclusions of previous studies. It thus involves close engagement with existing arguments, and endeavours to take our understanding further, and in a different direction perhaps, than offered by existing studies.
The Museum is keen to encourage submissions from a wide-range of academic fields including but not limited to:
- Business and Economic History
- Gender Studies
- International Relations
- Law and Ethics
- Military History
- Race and Ethnicity
- Social History
- Strategic Studies
The organisers welcome proposals, addressing any period, that approach the conference’s broad theme of ‘New Thinking in Air Power’. Proposals should demonstrate how their paper does at least one of the following:
- Challenges received views, as opposed to reinforcing the current consensus
- Tests established explanations with methodologies not previously applied to the topic
- Creates new interpretations of previously studied historical events
- Studies Air Power from non-traditional perspectives, producing novel interpretations
- Analyses the development of established Air Power thought or historiography
- Represents ‘post-revisionism’ by either contesting or succeeding previous ‘revisionist’ views
If you are unsure whether your topic would fit the Conference theme, or would like further details, you are encouraged to contact the Museum’s historian for an informal discussion.
The conference will be held on-site at the RAF Museum, London. Proposals are also welcome from those unable to attend the conference in-person and would need to present their research remotely by video. The conference will be live-streamed. If circumstances permit, the Conference will also have an audience.
Proposals for short papers (of 15 minutes) and long papers (of 30 minutes) should consist of a title, 300-word abstract, and a short biography (maximum 200 words). Proposals are also welcome for Poster Presentations (with accompanying 5-minute talks).
Proposals should be addressed to the Museum’s historian, Dr Harry Raffal, at harry.raffal@rafmuseum.org Please indicate in your email whether you will be able to attend the conference in person or would need to deliver your paper remotely.
The deadline for submissions is 14 March 2021.
