Visualising War and Peace in Antiquity with Alice König

In this episode of Two Friends Talk History, Zofia interviews Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of St Andrews, and founder of the Visualising War and Peace Project, Dr Alice König. In this interview, Zofia asks Alice about ideas of representing war in antiquity, and if concepts like a ‘peace movement’ was possible in a period of Roman Imperium. We discuss the absences in war narratives, and war’s impacts on women and children, and then turn our attention to the podcast series that Dr König and Dr Nicolas Wiater, launched in 2021, the Visualising War and Peace podcast. The Visualsing War and Peace podcast has over 60 episodes and seeks to present listeners with cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives on how war and peace were visualised in the past and how new narratives these established frameworks are seeking to disrupt the ways we talk about, teach and reproduce conflicts.

We also discuss the upcoming exhibition Alice has organised with the artist, Diana Forster, opening May 25th at the Wardlaw Museum in St Andrews, 'Somewhere to Stay’. The exhibition focuses on the forced migration experienced by Diana's mother, a young Polish woman, during WWII.
To hear Diana's episodes, you can listen to Art and War with Diana Forster or Visualising Forced Migration Through History.

We also discussed the upcoming exhibition collaboration with Hugh Kinsella Cunningham,  titled 'Picturing Peace in the Congo'. you can find more information linked here.

You can get in touch with Dr Konig at the University of St Andrews and her work on the Visualising War and Peace project here. Alice is also on Twitter @KonigAlice or @VisualisingWar. You can also follow the project on Facebook and Instagram, and there is an excellent blog series that you can follow through the project website/blog.

For links to show topics:
On the appropriation of Classics topics/symbols etc by alt-right groups, helpful scholarship can be read here on Pharos' website: https://pharos.vassarspaces.net/

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
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Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at twofriendstalkhistory@gmail.com.

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.