We are very pleased to announce our partnership with EuropaNova Germany, and their flagship initiative, the Young Security Conference (YSC).
Stay tuned for more exciting news regarding the partnership!
War Studies Society Events
We arrange academic talks, careers events and socials.
Find Our Event Recordings on Soundcloud!
You can listen the recordings of our events now on Soundcloud, including the panel discussion “The Future of Transatlantic Security.”
You can find the recordings here
South Asia After the 2019 Indian Elections
4th of March, 6:30 PM
Join us as Dr Adnan Naseemullah, Dr Louise Tillin, Dr Anastasia Piliavsky, and Dr Thorsten Wojczewski discuss what lies ahead of South Asia after the 2019 Elections in India. With our panellists specialising in a variety of fields ranging from security to anthropology, this event will be highly beneficial in developing an enhanced understanding of South Asia. The event will be held in the War Studies Meeting Room on Strand Campus. Open to all University of London students.
SPEAKERS
Dr Adnan Naseemullah
Dr Naseemullah’sresearch interests include the political economy of industrial development, state formation and political order, all in relation to the South Asian region. Dr Naseemullah’s book, Development after Statism: Industrial Firms and the Political Economy of South Asia, published by Cambridge University Press in 2017, focuses on the strategies of Indian and Pakistani manufacturers in acquiring capital, managing labour and engaging with international markets after the withdrawal of the state from industrial governance in India and Pakistan.
Dr Louise Tillin
Dr Louise Tillin is a political scientist in the India Institute and works on contemporary India. She is an editor of Regional and Federal Studies, a leading journal on federalism and territorial politics across the world. She also writes regular columns in the Indian media (including Caravan, Indian Express, The Hindu, India Today) and comments regularly on Indian politics for media outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, Sky News.
Dr Anastasia Piliavsky
Dr Anastasia Piliavsky is a social anthropologist who specialises on India’s democratic politics, political corruption and crime, and the role of vernacular values, especially the hierarchical, in India’s politics and otherwise social life. She has written about crime, policing and corruption in India, about secrecy and the public sphere, about India’s ‘criminal castes,’ political gangsterism, patronage and democracy, and on social theory and the history of anthropology at large.
Dr Thorsten Wojczewski
Thorsten Wojczewski is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow specialising in Indian foreign and security policy, International Relations Theory, populism, world order and critical security studies.His research has been published in International Studies Review, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, and Third World Quarterly, amongst others. He is the author of the book ‘India’s Foreign Policy Discourse and its Conceptions of World Order: The Quest for Power and Identity’ (London: Routledge, 2018).
Tea and Biscuits with Dr Christine Cheng
We are pleased to announce this month’s Tea and Biscuits session will be joined by Dr Christine Cheng!
Tea and Biscuit are small, exclusive events where we get experts from the department to speak about their research with a selected few students – allowing you to engage in personal discussions with the brilliant scholars from the department.
Dr Cheng is the Course Director for the MA in Conflict, Security, and Development (CSD), and holds a DPhil from Oxford (Nuffield College) and an MPA from Princeton University (Woodrow Wilson School). She has worked for the UN Commission on Human Security, the World Bank’s Gender Group, Environment Canada, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. She is a commentator on international affairs for a variety of media outlets including the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera, Radio France International, and Real Clear World.
The event will be held in room S3.05, at Strand Campus.
We will release tickets soon, so stay put!
Exploring Strategic Communications
Join us for a panel held together with King’s Centre for Strategic Communications, and learn more about the emerging field of strategic communications!
Topics like propaganda, public relations and even corporate communications often cause some confusion, however, King’s College is one of the few universities in the world to teach strategic communications (SC) as an MA.
King’s Centre for Strategic Communications (KCSC) aims to be the leading global centre of expertise on SC. Led by internationally renowned experts from the Department of War Studies and partners from the policy and practitioner communities, it provides practical solutions to contemporary communication challenges rooted in cutting-edge academic research. The Centre provides intellectual rigour and clarity of thinking to enhance understanding of an increasingly dynamic information environment.
Three academics from KCSC will be joining us, in addition to a few War Studies alumni, who are currently working in the SC field.
Dr Francesca Granelli is a teaching fellow at the Department of War Studies. Before joining, she spent 15 years working in the private sector before returning to academic life. Dr Granelli holds a BA (Hons) in Geography and Psychology from the University of Manchester, alongside her MA in International Relations and PhD in War Studies from King’s College London. Her doctoral thesis is the first full-length study of the relationship between trust and revolution.
Dr Ofer Fridman is a Lecturer in War Studies and Director of operations at the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications. Prior to his academic career, Dr Fridman served in the Israeli Defence Forces. He holds the degrees of BA (Military History and Security Studies) from Hebrew University; MA (Counter-Terror and Homeland Security) from Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya; and PhD (Politics) from University of Reading.
Leonie Haiden is a doctoral researcher specialising in strategic communications, international nuclear politics, and discourse analysis. She holds an undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford and a postgraduate degree in Non-Proliferation and International Security from King’s College London.
As for the KCL alumni, we have decided to keep them as a surprise until the event!
Room number will be posted shortly.
See you there!
WSS visits Chatham House
We are proud to announce this year’s visit to Chatham House!
Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is a world-leading policy institute based in London. Its mission is to help governments and societies build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world. It was founded in 1919 by British and American delegates to the Paris Peace Conference, seeking to establish an Anglo-American Institute of foreign affairs to study international problems with a view to preventing future wars.
We will be given a tour and have representatives from the Russia and Eurasia Programme speak to us about Chatham House. Afterwards, we have been invited to attend the event “Moscow Rules”, where Keir Giles of the Russia and Eurasia Programme will be speaking about the importance of understanding Russia’s worldview and need to challenge the West in order to establish relationships with it. More on the event here https://www.chathamhouse.org/event/moscow-rules-what-drives-russia-confront-west
Tickets are limited, and we will have a draw to select who will be chosen to participate. Only members will be prioritised, so get your WSS membership if you want a chance to participate.
Tickets to be released soon!!
Wine and Cheese with Dr Malcolm Murfett
Instead of doing our classic Tea and Biscuits, we have the pleasure to invite you all to a Cheese and Wine event with the War Studies Society and Dr Malcolm Murfett, a professor in the Department of War Studies. We will be meeting at Daly’s Wine Bar, located between Strand and Maughan. The society will provide wine and cheese plates. We only have 18 places available, and the tickets can be found here!
How to get published
The War Studies Society have teamed up with several prominent student publications and one external publisher who will tell us more about how to get your work published! Members of Strife, IR Today, the Shield, Sensus and ‘Analyse Defence’ will be here to give us tips and advice about what they are looking for in an article. This is an opportunity for you to join them and to start getting published!
Strife is a dual format publication comprised of an academic Blog, as well as a peer-reviewed academic Journal. Strife’s thematic focus is ‘conflict’ in all its shapes and forms.
International Relations Today is a blog on current international affairs. The content published focuses on issues relevant today and aims to facilitate discussion of these.
The Shield is a platform for analysis, discussion and debate on defence and security matters.
Sensus is an international student journal on political and social issues. Its publishings are based on a monthly theme, with the aim of covering lesser discussed or under-represented topics.
Analyse Defence is a French platform which publish articles from both professionals and students about defence-related news, often focusing on industry, on new technologies and on market news. They aim to export their website to the U.K. with English based articles.
LOCATION: Bush House South East Wing, 8th floor, activity room D
We look forward to seeing you there!
WSS Panel: Social Media and Propaganda in Contemporary Conflict
We are pleased to announce our final academic event of the season.
We have invited an excellent team of speakers from the department on board to discuss the implications of propaganda and social media in contemporary conflict with us. There will be room for questions after the debate.
The event will take place in room MB4.2, formerly known as Tutu’s.
SPEAKERS
Dr Peter Busch – Before joining the department in 2004, Dr Busch was a Senior Broadcast Journalist in the News and Current Affairs department of Germany’s public television station ZDF. His research focuses on the role of social media in war reporting, and propaganda and strategic communication from a historical perspective.
Professor David Betz – Professor Betz joined the department immediately after completing his PhD in 2002. His main research interests are insurgency and counterinsurgency, information warfare and cyberwar, propaganda, also civil-military relations and strategy and especially fortifications both historic and contemporary. He is head of the Insurgency Research Group at KCL.
War Studies Society 