Séminaire « De plus Grandes Guerres », journée d'étude : « Les quotidiens du soin en guerre »

Wednesday 10 June 2026 | 9am - 4pm | Sciences Po Aix, Espace Philippe Séguin, room 001 (Aix-en-Provence) + videoconference

The aim of this seminar is to build bridges between historiographies that are dynamic yet too often hermetically sealed off from one another: those of the conflicts that animated the first twentieth century. It proposes to study the societies involved in all forms of conflict from upstream to downstream of the two world wars, in other words, from the «Greatest War» (John Horne and Robert Gerwarth), taking into account the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) which prefigured the First World War and the long period of post-war periods (1919-1923), to the «world war» (Alya Aglan and Robert Frank) that gradually set the globe ablaze from the Japanese invasions (1937) through to the cultural and military demobilisation of societies in this time of «violent peace» (Peter Gatrell).

The approach is resolutely comparative, since the seminar brings together two researchers specialising in similar subjects but in different conflict contexts. This cross-disciplinary thematic approach should prove fertile by crossing and questioning historiographical perspectives.

On the programme for the day:

8.45 am - Welcome of participants

9.00 - Introduction by Claire Miot (Sciences Po Aix, MESOPOLHIS)

9.15am-11.45am PANEL 1: The battlefields of care in war

Discussant: Damien Accoulon (University of Tours, CeTHiS/Centre Marc Bloch)

Speakers:
- Sylvain Bertschy (Avignon University, Centre Norbert Elias) : «Politicizing care. The Wounded and Sick of the Great War as the Object of Daily Struggles».»
- Benoit Pouget (Sciences Po Aix, MESOPOLHIS) : «Blood transfusions in the French army, from one war to another (1914-1945)».»
- Raphaële Balu (Service historique de la défense, Histemé) :«Clandestine care in occupied France (1940-1944)»

11.45am - 1.30pm LUNCH

1.30 pm - 4 pm PANEL 2: Care, adaptation and post-war recovery

Discussant: Walter Bruyère-Ostells (Sciences Po Aix, MESOPOLHIS)

Speakers :
- Davye Cesbron (Université Lumière Lyon 2 / Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) : «De la blessure au retour: soins, contrôle sanitaire et stratégies d'évasion des prisonniers de la Grande Guerre» (From injury to return: care, health checks and escape strategies for prisoners of the Great War)»
- François Dumasy (Sciences Po Aix, MESOPOLHIS) : «Coming out of the war through care. UNRRA, the United States and child relief in Italy, 1943-1946».»
- Taline Garibian (University of Geneva, Maison de l'Histoire) :«Taking care of the war dead: funeral actors and practices in the Lyon region (1940-1954)».»

16h - Conclusion of Guillaume Linte (CNRS, MESOPOLHIS) and closing ceremony

Registration required: https://forms.gle/AY4ykmK6A9RAUbkn7

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