Poetry under fire: what poems did during the First World War
5.30pm, Tuesday 11 November 2025
Craiglockhart Campus, Edinburgh Napier University
What did the First World War do to poetry? What did poetry do during the First World War? In this lecture, Dr Julia Ribeiro Thomaz will explore a brand new corpus of war poets to interrogate not what is a good or bad war poem nor what war poems say about the war, but rather the social and cultural functions accomplished by poetry in 1914-1918: inventing itself, creating social links, anchoring the war in relation to a poetic past and multiple imagined futures, mediating the experience of war, and producing knowledge about the conflict. She will explore how the expansion of our definition of war poetry allows us to ask new questions about the First World War, as well as future possibilities to continue broadening our understanding of what war poetry was and, above all, what it did and continues doing for those writing and reading it.
Dr Julia Ribeiro Thomaz is a postdoctoral researcher at Université de Lille. She completed her doctorate, on French poetry of the First World War, at Université Paris Nanterre. Julia has already published widely in academic journals, and is a Fellow of the International Society for First World War Studies.
This lecture continues the annual series of Remembrance lectures at Edinburgh Napier University, marking the historical significance of Craiglockhart as a War Hospital during the First World War, famously the meeting place of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. We also remember our late colleague Catherine Walker, who was for many years curator of the War Poets Collection. Funding comes from the Centre for Arts, Media and Culture and the Centre for Military Research, Education & Public Engagement.
This year the event is also the Dennis Showalter Memorial Lecture, selected by the International Society for First World War Studies. Named after Dennis Showalter, the leading historian of Germany during the war and a longtime friend and supporter of the Society it is delivered each year by a leading early career researcher in First World War Studies.
The event is held in the Rivers Suite at Edinburgh Napier University’s Craiglockhart Campus (Google map | travel info). There will be a wine reception from 5.30pm; the lecture will start around 6pm. The event will also be streamed online via Zoom.
If you have any queries about the event, please contact Dr Andrew Frayn (a.frayn@napier.ac.uk).
This event is both in person and online. If you wish to attend online, please buy an 'online Ticket'. Zoom information will be found in the email confirmations.
