On October 27 & 28, 2016, the Ohio State University Department of History, in partnership with the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission, hosted a symposium marking the 100th anniversary of the war. The symposium included presentations on:

  • The Military History of World War I, 1914-1918
  • Financing the First World War
  • War, Death, and Remembrance in 1914-1918
  • WWI and the Emerging Laws of War
  • Shell Shock: Core Insights of the Recent Historiography
  • KEYNOTE: The Redefinition of Battle: Verdun and the Somme, 1916

Prior to each presentation, Ohio State students in theatre and the arts departments recited selections of World War I poetry and even shared a period song. Their participation offered a poignant and powerful combination of “cleansing the mental palate” and preparation for diving into an hour-long perspective on various aspects of the war.

Videos of these lectures are being posted to the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission website. See below for two of the lectures.

Financing the First World War
by Professor Jennifer Siegel

Introductory poetry reading
“The Song of Mud”
by Mary Borden (1886-1968)
Read by Blake Edwards, Joe Kopyt, and Ambre Shoneff, MFA actors

Speaker

Jennifer Siegel
joined the OSU Department of History in the fall of 2003. She received her PhD at Yale University. Professor Siegel specializes in modern European diplomatic and military history, with a focus on Britain, France, and ImperialRussia. She is the author of For Peace and Money: French and British Finance in the Service of Tsars and Commissars (2014), and Endgame: Britain, Russia and the Final Struggle for Central Asia (2002). She has published articles on intelligence history, and co-edited Intelligence  and Statecraft: The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society (2005).

The Military History of World War I, 1914-1918
by Professor Peter Mansoor

Introductory poetry reading
“To Germany”
by Charles Hamilton Sorley (1885-1915)
Read by Benito Lara, MFA actor
AND
“The Dancers (During a Great Battle, 1916)”
by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Read by Mandy Mitchell, MFA actor

Speaker

Peter Mansoor,
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), is the General Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair of Military History and a frequent commentator in the media on national security affairs. He assumed his position at OSU in 2008, after a 26-year career in the U.S. Army that culminated in his service as the executive officer to General David Petraeus, Commanding General of Multi-
National Force-Iraq. Professor Mansoor received his PhD from the Ohio State University. He is the author of The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945 (1999), awarded the Society for Military History book of the year, Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq (2008), awarded the Ohioana Library Association nonfiction book of the year, and Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (2013), a finalist for the inaugural Guggenheim-Lehrman Military History Prize.

Adrienne Landry Dunavin is a member of the Kansas WWI Centennial Commemoration Committee and is the primary administrator of KansasWW1.org. She worked at the KU Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies as their Outreach Coordinator from 2010-2016. During that time she served on the KU WWI Centennial Commemoration Working Group. She continues to volunteer as a representative for CREES and KU WWI on this blog.