Shock and Awe Revisited: Legacies of the Iraq War Twenty Years Later

March 31, 2023

9:00AM - 4:00PM

Hybrid Event | Thompson Library 165

Add to Calendar 2023-03-31 09:00:00 2023-03-31 16:00:00 Shock and Awe Revisited: Legacies of the Iraq War Twenty Years Later Registration In the Mershon Center’s tradition of bringing the humanities into dialogue with conventional security studies, this one-day conference gathers experts from history, anthropology, journalism, and other fields to discuss the costs, consequences, and historical legacies of the Iraq War, twenty years after the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. The anniversary provides an important occasion for a collective remembering of the Iraq War and an analysis of its long-term implications and impacts. How did the war shape the future of military intervention, state-building, governance, and security? How did it affect the peoples, groups, societies, and nations involved? Mershon Center postdoctoral fellow and conference organizer Dr. Zaynab Quadri will offer framing remarks. The main event will consist of three panels with room for discussion and audience Q&A: “The Political and Social Costs of Intervention,” “Historical Contexts and Memories,” and “Culture, Journalism, and the First Draft of History.” Informal conversation will continue during lunch and refreshment breaks; lunch will be provided for registered attendees. The event will be in person with a Zoom attendance option. Organizer Zaynab Quadri received her PhD in American Studies from The George Washington University. Her research project analyzes private military contracting in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, arguing that private military contractors (PMCs) functioned as both brokers of U.S. empire, and opaque figures onto which public anxieties around war, democracy, and capitalism were displaced. Her work has been published in American Quarterly and the Journal of Transnational American Studies. Her research has been supported by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars and Mellon Foundation. Hybrid Event | Thompson Library 165 OSU ASC Drupal 8 ascwebservices@osu.edu America/New_York public

Add to Calendar 2023-03-31 09:00:00 2023-03-31 16:00:00 Shock and Awe Revisited: Legacies of the Iraq War Twenty Years Later Registration   In the Mershon Center’s tradition of bringing the humanities into dialogue with conventional security studies, this one-day conference gathers experts from history, anthropology, journalism, and other fields to discuss the costs, consequences, and historical legacies of the Iraq War, twenty years after the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. The anniversary provides an important occasion for a collective remembering of the Iraq War and an analysis of its long-term implications and impacts. How did the war shape the future of military intervention, state-building, governance, and security? How did it affect the peoples, groups, societies, and nations involved? Mershon Center postdoctoral fellow and conference organizer Dr. Zaynab Quadri will offer framing remarks. The main event will consist of three panels with room for discussion and audience Q&A: “The Political and Social Costs of Intervention,” “Historical Contexts and Memories,” and “Culture, Journalism, and the First Draft of History.” Informal conversation will continue during lunch and refreshment breaks; lunch will be provided for registered attendees. The event will be in person with a Zoom attendance option. Organizer Zaynab Quadri received her PhD in American Studies from The George Washington University. Her research project analyzes private military contracting in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, arguing that private military contractors (PMCs) functioned as both brokers of U.S. empire, and opaque figures onto which public anxieties around war, democracy, and capitalism were displaced. Her work has been published in American Quarterly and the Journal of Transnational American Studies. Her research has been supported by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars and Mellon Foundation. Hybrid Event | Thompson Library 165 Mershon Center mershoncenter@osu.edu America/New_York public

Registration

In the Mershon Center’s tradition of bringing the humanities into dialogue with conventional security studies, this one-day conference gathers experts from history, anthropology, journalism, and other fields to discuss the costs, consequences, and historical legacies of the Iraq War, twenty years after the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. The anniversary provides an important occasion for a collective remembering of the Iraq War and an analysis of its long-term implications and impacts. How did the war shape the future of military intervention, state-building, governance, and security? How did it affect the peoples, groups, societies, and nations involved?

Mershon Center postdoctoral fellow and conference organizer Dr. Zaynab Quadri will offer framing remarks. The main event will consist of three panels with room for discussion and audience Q&A: “The Political and Social Costs of Intervention,” “Historical Contexts and Memories,” and “Culture, Journalism, and the First Draft of History.” Informal conversation will continue during lunch and refreshment breaks; lunch will be provided for registered attendees.

The event will be in person with a Zoom attendance option.

Organizer

Zaynab Quadri received her PhD in American Studies from The George Washington University. Her research project analyzes private military contracting in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, arguing that private military contractors (PMCs) functioned as both brokers of U.S. empire, and opaque figures onto which public anxieties around war, democracy, and capitalism were displaced. Her work has been published in American Quarterly and the Journal of Transnational American Studies. Her research has been supported by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars and Mellon Foundation.

9am - 9:30am | Coffee & Conversation

9:30am - 9:45am | Opening Remarks

Dorothy Noyes, Director of the Mershon Center, and Zaynab Quadri, Postdoctoral Researcher and Conference Organizer

9:45am - 11:15am | Social & Political Costs of Intervention (Panel 1)

Facilitator: Zaynab Quadri (Conference Organizer)
Zainab Saleh (Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Haverford College)
Catherine Lutz (Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor Emerita of International Studies and Anthropology and Co-Director of the Costs of War Project, The Watson Institute, Brown University)
Bridget Guarasci (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Franklin & Marshall College)

11:15am - 11:30am | Coffee

11:30am - 1pm | Historical Contexts & Memories (Panel 2)

Facilitator: Lydia Walker (Assistant Professor and Myers Chair in Global Military History, OSU)
Alex Lubin (Professor of African American Studies and History, Penn State)
Osamah Khalil (Associate Professor of History, Syracuse University)
Carly Krakow (Scholar, Journalist, and Activist, New York University)

1pm - 2:15pm | Lunch

2:15pm - 3:45pm | Culture, Journalism, & the First Draft of History (Panel 3)

Facilitator: Christopher Nichols (Professor of History and Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies, OSU)
Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Journalist, Author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City)
Moustafa Bayoumi (Author of How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?, City University of New York)
Deepa Kumar (Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, Rutgers University)

3:45 pm - 4pm | Closing Remarks

Christopher Nichols and Zaynab Quadri

This event is being recorded and may be posted to our YouTube channel. If you choose to participate in discussion, you are presumed to consent to the use of your comments and potentially your image in these recordings. If you do not wish to be recorded, please contact Kyle McCray (m ccray.44@osu.edu).

If you require an accommodation such as live captioning or interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Kyle McCray, mccray.44@osu.edu. Requests made two weeks before the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Any unruly, disruptive, threatening, or illegal behavior, including verbal harassment or any foul, harassing, or abusive language towards any participant, will result in immediate removal from the event.

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