Profile

Hanna Smyth

Institutional affiliation: University of Oxford
Postgraduate student
Other relevant affiliations: University of Leicester School of Museum Studies (alum), Museum of Oxford
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RESEARCH INTERESTS
My research examines how Imperial War Graves Commission sites represented, reinforced, and performed different aspects of identity for South Africa, India, Canada, & Australia in France and Belgium between 1917-1938. With a material-culture-centred approach that utilizes memorials and cemeteries as primary sources, this project lies at the intersection of research on the social history of war remembrance, imperial history, the First World War, collective memory, grief & mourning, and material culture theory. Of particular interest are the relationships between collective/individual and 'national'/'imperial' identities, and the spatial & conceptual relationships between memorial, cemetery, landscape, and the dead. Case study sites include Neuve Chapelle, Vimy, Delville Wood, Villers-Bretonneux, Thiepval, and Menin Gate.

RESEARCH TAGS
1. war memorials 2. social history 3. cemeteries 4. British empire 5. remembrance
Geographic Interests
South Africa, India, Australia, Canada, Western Front
Period Interests
1917-1938