Considering Vietnam

The Vietnam War is evolving from contemporary memory into history. Fifty years on, it still serves as a benchmark in the history of war reporting and in the representation of conflict in popular culture and historical memory. This conference seeks to explore the legacy of the US involvement in South East Asia and the resonances it still has for the coverage of contemporary warfare. In particular, the conference will reassess the role of the media in covering the war and the implications this has had for the coverage of subsequent conflicts, the impact of the war on popular culture, the ways that wars and their aftermaths are experienced on the ‘home front,’ and issues around memorialisation and memory, particularly in museum culture. The conference will bring together practitioners, academics and curators in an interdisciplinary engagement with this complex but important issue.

This conference is organised in support of The Imperial War Museum's major exhibition 'Shaped By War: Photographs by Don McCullin'.