War & Society Workshop at UGA

Welcome to the W & S Workshop

Welcome to the War & Society Workshop, an interdisciplinary forum sponsored by the History Department at the University of Georgia. The WSW supports the study of social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of armed conflict and its aftermath through a variety of programs, including guest lectures, writing workshops, conferences, film series, and round table discussions. In all of its programs, the WSW seeks to place past acts of mass violence (from Thermopylae to Juarez) in the broadest comparative and global contexts and to heighten our understanding of, and sensitivity to, collective, political, and state-sponsored violence in the present. To study war is not to legitimate its use -- quite the opposite. By understanding the origins and consequences of such violence (from physical impacts on the gendered body to the psychological impacts on the political imagination), the WSW hopes to promote a safer, juster, more secure, and less hateful world.

News: Gregory Chair to be Established at UGA

Amanda and Greg Gregory (pictured at left) have donated one million dollars to establish a new chair in UGA's history department devoted to the study and understanding of the Civil War Era. President and CEO of the commercial real estate firm Industrial Developments International, Greg retired in 2007. His wife Amanda earned her bachelor of science at UGA in education and taught in public and private elementary schools in Atlanta for more than a decade. "My husband and I are very interested in history, and we loved (studying) the Civil War era," says Amanda. "We just think it's important that it's taught correctly and people get all the facts." As the Athens Banner-Herald notes, the new chair will allow UGA "to bring Civil War studies front and center, just in time for the 150th anniversary of the war that shaped the country."

News: UGA Press to Inaugurate New CW Series

In fall 2011 UGA Press kicks off its new series, "UnCivil Wars," with Weirding the War: Stories from the Civil War's Ragged Edges. Taking a “freakonomics” approach to Civil War studies, each contributor in this essay collection uses a seemingly unusual story, incident, or phenomenon to cast new light on the nature of the war itself. Collectively the pieces remind us that war is always about damage, even at its most heroic and even when certain people and things deserve to be damaged. "It is well that war is so terrible," Robert E. Lee reportedly said, "or we would grow too fond of it." The essays collected here make the case that we have grown too fond of it, and therefore we must make the war terrible again.

Find Out More

Questions? Email us at wsw@uga.edu.