Impact case study database

Sharp noted that dissenting voices and German perspectives, particularly women’s anti-war activism, were being overlooked in the UK’s WW1 centenary commemorations, and sought to embed them into the public narrative. The main beneficiaries were Sharp’s external partners from the peace history and activist community, the creative and heritage industries as well as theatre, conference and exhibition audiences and MOOC learners.

(i) Peace History and Activism: amplifying and internationalising anti-war voices.

Sharp worked closely with leading activists within the peace community, sharing her knowledge of German anti-war resistance and women’s role within it and inspiring others to make their own contributions to peace history awareness. This work was informed by her study of the historical roots of contemporary peace organisations and the many continuities that help us understand and measure the effectiveness of anti-war campaigns over time.

The reach and resonance of Sharp’s research is reflected in the unusually high number of national and international invitations to contribute to commemorative events beyond the academy, including some high profile international events such as the German Foreign Office (December 2014), the Kiel Maritime Museum (March 2016), the Kansas National WW1 Museum, America’s official WW1 museum and memorial (October 2017), the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom centenary conference in Zurich (May 2019), and the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, South Africa [I].

Between 2014 and 2019, Sharp’s public-facing activities included 53 related talks, interviews, podcasts and lectures locally, nationally and internationally as well as published articles for a wider readership [I]. The scale and scope of the interventions show that Sharp’s ongoing and sustained efforts to link her historical research to present-day anti-war and gender activism resonated strongly with the public. In 2016, she organised two public-facing international peace history conferences in Leeds in 2016 (300 delegates from activist and academic communities), that took a comparative approach across several countries to questions of gender and peace history.

In 2014, Sharp co-founded the national Peace History working group, which brought activists and academics together to coordinate and amplify peace history efforts during the centenary. She worked in particular with the Convenor of the Peace History working group and Peace History Conferences at the Imperial War Museum, who is also a member of the First World War Peace Forum, and a Vice-President of the international peace society Pax Christi. For this person Sharp’s work ‘brought an otherwise missing dimension’ to their events, and made it ‘impossible to consider planning a WW1 “peace history” event that did not examine the German experience’ [A]. She felt that Sharp’s inclusive approach ‘made a real difference, helping to bridge the gap between academics and campaigners’ and thus challenging entrenched hierarchies of knowledge. In particular, it stimulated local groups ‘to research the history of opposition to the war in their area, to create exhibitions and local events of their own to mark the centenary – and to make sure the experience of women was included’ [A].

(ii) Women of Aktion: play and exhibition

Changed Practice

Sharp worked collaboratively over 18 months with partners Bent Architect Theatre Company (BA), on the Women of Aktion theatre project, focused on the Kiel Uprising [E]. BA is a socially engaged theatre company with a commitment to bringing lesser known historical stories to the contemporary stage which brings cultural value to Bradford, a culturally diverse city with a high proportion of economically deprived citizens. Sharp’s research and translations of primary sources in German allowed BA to create a historically accurate and ethically justifiable portrayal of the protagonists, which spoke powerfully to the audience’s emotions and sense of justice. BA attest that their experience of working with Sharp caused a shift from highly localised, site-specific projects to a more ambitious national and international approach. ‘It is the first time we have toured abroad’ and ‘we reached new and wider audiences with untold history’ [D]. Sharp’s input enabled a more nuanced, layered historical understanding and gave BA access to German-language materials. ‘It’s really brought us on professionally, I think it’s really changed the way that we will work from now on’ [C] ‘and opened up a whole new working methodology for us’ [D].

Changed Understanding

The play has won critical accolades as a piece of theatre ( [H/i] ‘What’s on Stage Top Pick’ 30.10.2019) that was ‘powerful, funny and taught me loads!’ [H/iii] and successfully ‘sneaks research into an engaging and entertaining show.’ [H/iii] It toured in theatres in the UK and Germany, with 17 performances reaching a total audience of 1,000. Audience responses recorded on film [C] and social media show empathy with the characters’ suffering, admiration for the women and surprise, even anger, that these powerful stories had been suppressed [H/iii]. This was especially important in the German city of Kiel, where the city’s role in the revolution has historically been forgotten or considered shameful [F] and the commemoration privileged male accounts while erasing women’s history. One viewer commented: ‘The actors play their roles with such appealing energy that you can’t help sharing their outrage at being left out of the history of the revolution.’ [H/iii]

Sharp also worked with the Chair of the Bradford Peace Museum to produce an exhibition entitled Women of Aktion informed by her research insights into women’s contribution to the Kiel Uprising of November 1918. The exhibition has so far been displayed at the Bradford Peace Museum, a pop-up shop in Bradford city centre, MShed Bristol, Manchester Central Library, Manchester Working Class Library, Leeds City Museum, Glasgow Women’s Library and Richmond Barracks, Dublin, mostly accompanied by public talks. Commenting on the Bradford iteration, the Museum Chair noted that ‘For a largely British audience, used to a male, military, patriotic and establishment analysis of that time, it was revelatory to engage with narrative and critique that were female, civilian, German and revolutionary’ and that Sharp’s input had ‘changed the historical understanding and perception of all who engaged with it’ [B]. Responses elsewhere have included emotional engagement and identification with the revolutionary women: ‘[t]he rallying call of revolutionary German foremothers echoes down the century’ [H/iv] (Tweet 30/08/2019).

Further plans to exhibit as part of the Newington Green Revolutionary Ideas since 1708 festival in April-May 2020 were interrupted by COVID-19. The project has an accessible database [G] that offers a template for academics wanting to work effectively with creative partners, reflections on the project and teaching materials including mini-lectures, worksheets and summaries for schools and colleges wishing to follow up on topics raised by the project.

**(iii) MOOC: **Changing Faces of Heroism

Sharp led the Leeds bid to work in partnership with the BBC, culminating in the BBC/Futurelearn MOOC ‘Changing Faces of Heroism’/’Heroism through Art and Culture’. This reached a global audience (39,172 participants from all inhabited continents registered from October 2014 to December 2018) and attracted highly positive evaluations and 22,550 unique participant comments, 2,344 specifically on Germany [J]. Sharp’s transnational anti-war activism research was prominent in the course, challenging dominant attitudes to heroism coded as masculine and nationalist.

Participants’ comments and engagement reveal that they thought more comparatively and critically about a wider range of heroic figures, including women, war resisters and German nationals as the course progressed. E.g. ‘Where have I been all this time! I have been giving the women who took part in the war very little consideration and got swept along with the attention given to the men’ [J] (comment ID 2555400).