Centre for the Study of War, State and Society, University of Exeter, UK

Studentships

The AHRC funded Bombing, States and Peoples in Western Europe, 1940 - 1945 project is supporting two dedicated doctoral students, Marc Wiggam and Lindsey Dodd. Marc is attached to the Centre for the Study of War, State and Society at Exeter, and is supervised by Professor Richard Overy. Lindsey is based in the Department of French Studies at the University of Reading and is supervised by Professor Andrew Knapp.

The principal method of investigation for both studentships is archive-based research supplemented by the exploitation of local historical studies, museums and permanent exhibitions, libraries and newspaper collections and, where appropriate, by recorded oral testimony. The research also involves the selection of suitable documents, images, archive film, and possibly recorded oral testimony for a web site exhibition. The exhibition and written outputs are designed to reach as wide a potential audience as possible and reflect the comparative nature of the proposal.

Marc Wiggam

Blackout instructions

Blackout instructions

Marc was awarded a BA (Hons) Journalism, Film and Broadcasting in 2002 from Cardiff University, and went on to specialize in International Relations for his MA.

Marc has also worked as a Research Assistant at Cardiff University and been employed as an Administrative Officer and Policy Adviser for the Welsh Assembly Government.

Marc's research for his Ph.D will be a comparative study of the blackout during the Second World War within the United Kingdom and Germany. Little has been written on the effects of the blackout on civilian populations, and its development as a tool of passive defence in air warfare. Specifically, he will examine the interaction between state and public in their response to the blackout, what forms of dissent it may have engendered within the public, and what the blackout meant as an instrument of social control within two very different nation states.

Lindsey Dodd

The church tower Aunay-sur-Odon

In the weeks following the D-Day landings, many Normandy towns suffered terrible Allied bombing resulting in significant civilian casualties.

Lindsey was awarded a BA (Hons) History with French and European Studies in 2000 from University of Sussex, and went on to specialize in Life History Research: Oral History and Mass-Observation for her MA.

Lindsey has worked as an English teacher in Belgium and Poland, and been employed as a translator by the University of Manchester. More recently she worked as a producer for the online seminar series Henry Stewart Talks.

In France around 60,000 civilians were killed as a result of the Allied bombing raids between 1940 and 1945, with thousands more injured, their homes and towns destroyed. Lindsey's Ph.D research will explore the experiences of the survivors of these raids, comparing different regions and different moments during the war and examining the effects of these events on individual lives, on the social structures of family and community, their contemporary and subsequent portrayal in politics and media, and their place in local and national memory.