Bryan McClure

Supervisor

Prof. Jonathan Vance

Second Reader

Prof. Francine McKenzie

Main Research Interests

My research has been focused upon the construction of memory and identity through memorials, particularly those around the First World War. My current project explores how individual memory was formed in relation to the collective memory of the British Empire of the First World War. I am comparing memorials constructed in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for my dissertation. Beyond memory and the First World War, my other research interests are focused on British, Irish, and cultural history.

Publications

Review of The Other Wars: The Experience and Memory of the First World War in the Middle East and Macedonia. By Justin Fantauzzo. In H-Net Empire Reviews (March 11, 2021).
Review of Politics of Forgetting: New Zealand, Greece, and Britain at War. By Martyn Brown. In Journal of Military History, 85, no. 1 (2021).
Review of War Beyond Words: Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present. By Jay Winter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017 in Canadian Military History, Volume 28 Issue 1 2019.
Review of Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster. By Guy Beiner. In Essays in History, 52 (2019).

Conference Papers

Saints and Soldiers in Stained-Glass: Memorial Windows to the First World War. Dealing with the Dead: War, Burial, and the Commemoration of the Dead from Ancient to Modern Conference at Manchester Metropolitan University (virtual conference). June 2022.
Memorials to Imperial Service: Historic Churches and Memorials to Imperial Servants. Culture, Things and Empire: Virtual Seminar Series. May 2022. https://culturethingsempire.wordpress.com/
National Military Memorials Databases: Remembering First World War Memorials in the 21st Century. International Society for First World War Studies Conference at Gettysburg College. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (virtual conference). September 2021.
‘Between the crosses, row on row’: Battlefield Crosses as Sites of Mourning and Memory. Royal Canadian Regiment Museum Speakers Series 2021. June 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqt4P1TrENA&ab_channel=TheRoyalCanadianRegimentMuseum
Defending the War Graves: Body-Snatching and Resistance to the Imperial War Graves Commission, 1918-1939. Canadian Military History Colloquium at Wilfrid Laurier University. Waterloo, Ontario. May 2021.
From Petitioning to Body-Snatching: Resistance to the Imperial War Graves Commission, 1918-1939. Canadian Military History Colloquium at Wilfrid Laurier University. Waterloo, Ontario. May, 2020. (Cancelled due to Covid-19, delivered as part of Western History Virtual Thursdays Workshop Series, May, 2020.)
The Individual in the Empire: Memory, Memorials and Imperial Identity after the First World War, University of North Texas: Imperial Legacies of 1919 in Denton, Texas, April 2019.
Island of Ireland Peace Park: Negotiating Anglo-Irish Relations on the Battlefields of Flanders, Western University Graduate History Conference: Pathways to the Past in London, Ontario, April 2019.
The Peace Conference, the Imperial War Graves Commission, and the Memory of Peace, Royal Military College of Canada Annual History Symposium: The People's Conference: The Transnational Legacies of 1919 in Kingston, Ontario, November 2019.
Remembering the Imperial Dead: Personal Memory and Identity of the First World War. Reframing Empire: Imperialism, Anti-Imperialism and Their Legacies in Public History at Queen’s University Belfast Centre for Public History. Belfast, Northern Ireland. December, 2019.
'He Died Fighting For the Country He Loved So Much': Epitaphs of Canadian Soldiers in the First World War, Canadian Military History Colloquium in Waterloo, Ontario, May 2018.
'Now We See Through A Glass Darkly': Memorialization of the First World War in Dublin, Canadian Association of Irish Studies Annual Conference in Banff, Alberta, May 2016.