• Project Leader: Prof. Dr. Oliver Janz
• Project coordination and research: Dr. Oliver Stein
• Duration: October 2013 – September 2016
• Funding: Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA)
• Website: www.mwme.eu (online until 30 September 2021)

Prof Dr Oliver Janz is the project leader on a ‘Humanities in the European Research Area’ (HERA) Joint Research Programme Grant, which is a collaboration between Freie Universität Berlin, Trinity College Dublin, the University of York and the University of Swansea. 

“Making War, Mapping Europe” is an international collaborative research project, analysing militarized cultural encounters. It examines one of the most significant forms of mass cross-cultural contacts in Europe and its borderlands from the Revolutionary Wars to the First World War. The project explores the experiences of German, British and French soldiers stationed on the European periphery and in the Middle East as well as researching the persistent impact these encounters had on the society of their respective home country. 

The main question is: to what extent did military cultural encounters help to shape collective perceptions of ‘the self’, ‘the other’, of Europe and of its borders in the period between 1792 and 1920? 

The research project will utilize a comparative and synthesizing approach as well as interdisciplinary methodology. This will allow for the comparison of conditions, forms and impact of cross cultural contact on three different levels: synchronically by comparison of different armies and nationalities in a given time span; spatially by comparison of different cultural spaces and zones of contact; and, finally, diachronically by comparison of different periods within the ‘long 19th century’, from the Revolutionary Wars to the First World War. The consortium of the collaborative research project is comprised of sub-projects organized by four principal investigators from Germany (Freie Universität Berlin), Ireland (Trinity College Dublin) and the United Kingdom (Universities of York and Swansea).

Principal Investigators:

• Prof. Dr. Oliver Janz, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
  Project “Deutsche Soldaten und das Osmanische Reich, 1835-1918” 

• Prof. Dr. John Horne, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

• Dr. Catriona Kennedy, University of York, United Kingdom

• Dr. Leighton James, University of Swansea, United Kingdom