Ana Carden-Coyne

Professor Ana Carden-Coyne is Director of the Centre for the Cultural History of War (CCHW) in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures.  

I am a cultural historian and curator inspired by people’s creative responses to war and conflict, acts of resistance, and calls for civil and human rights. Working closely with other disciplines, cultural practitioners, and museums energises my thinking. Listening to experts with lived experience has changed my understanding of the past. When activated through collaboration, co-curation, and shared decision-making, the cultural leadership of contemporary communities and artists not only enriches our collective knowledge but also transforms our human connections. My work is grounded in deep respect for the makers of objects, artworks, and stories that are held dear in the past and present, which can be brought to light for future generations.

Recent funded projects: (with CI Prof Charles Green, Melbourne University); AHRC project, Understanding Displacement Aesthetics and Making Change in the Art Gallery with Refugees, Migrants and Host Communities (2021-24). Partners: Manchester Art Gallery; the Whitworth Art Gallery; In Place of War (IPOW).

https://www.alc.manchester.ac.uk/history/research/centres/cultural-history-of-war/displacement-aesthetics/

See the project book: Understanding Displacement Aesthetics: History, Art and Museums (MUP, 2026) - open access: https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526181503/9781526181503.xml

International Co-I, ARC Linkage project Art in Conflict (with Curtin, Melbourne, UNSW). Partner: Australian War Memorial. Australia-wide touring exhibition and book, Art in Conflict: The Politics of Artists in War Zones (Bloomsbury, 2023).

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/politics-of-artists-in-war-zones-9781350385993/

Other recent works:

Special Issue: 'Classicisms and Modern War in the Long Twentieth Century' (War and Culture Studies, 2025). ‘Mastering the Mural: War Disability and Mervyn Napier Waller’s Classical Utopia’.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17526272.2025.2600789

'Visualisations of Violence'. In Joanna Bourke, A Cultural History of Violence in the Modern Age. (Bloomsbury, 2025).

Select Bibliography:

The Politics of Wounds: Military Patients and Medical Power in the First World War, (Oxford University Press, 2014);

Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism and the First World War (Oxford University Press, 2009); 

‘No Laboratory of Illusions’: UNESCO’s Human Rights Exhibition and Album, 1949-1951’, in The Humanitarian Exhibition, 1867-2016, (Georg, 2022). Open Access.

https://www.georg.ch/l-humanitaire-s-exhibe

 ‘Decolonising War Disability: Disabled Indian Veterans after WW1' (Brill 2022)

https://www.schoeningh.de/display/title/58503

(with Kate Darian Smith), 'Young People and the Two World Wars: Visuality, Materiality and Cultural Heritage', Cultural and Social History, 2020. See also 'Boy Mascots, Heroes and Orphans: The state, the family and cultural heritage, 1914-1918'.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14780038.2020.1857567

Curatorial projects: Traces of Displacement (Whitworth, 2023-24); Rethinking the Grand Tour (Manchester Art Gallery, 2023 on-going); The Sensory War, 1914-2014 (2014-2015), Visions of the Front, 1916-18 (Whitworth, 2015); consultant, Unsilenced: sexual violence in conflict (Imperial War Museum, 2025). 

Podcast: Imperial War Museum, London (Conflict of Interest, 2024) The War Dead and Wounded (with Carl Miller and Claire Brennard).

https://www.iwm.org.uk/podcasts/conflict-of-interest/series-3

The Centre for the Cultural History of War (CCHW) includes Prof. Bertrand Taithe, Dr Max Jones, Prof. Jean Marc Dreyfus, Dr Jo Laycock, Dr Laure Humbert, Dr Ewa Ochman, Dr Claire Morelon, and Dr Mark Baker.

The CCHW book series with Manchester University Press can be found here:

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/cultural-history-of-modern-war/

Specific research interests:

The main research interests include the following:

• history and impact of displacement on artists and cultural representations
• children's experiences of war and displacement
• war medicine & surgery
• visual arts as a humanitarian and human rights project
• memorialisation and commemoration
• sexuality, gender & queer studies
• disability studies
• museums and cultural heritage
• visual culture of war and the ethics of representation
• war photography and filmmaking

Current PhD Students:

Laura Bernier, Visual Economies of the UNHCR. 

ESRC Case Award with the UNHCR.

Current teaching:

Teaching Specialities:

• Curating War and Human Rights: methods in public and cultural history (Level 3)
• The Cultural History of War, 1914 to the Present Day (Level 2)
• MA Core Course in the Cultural History of Modern War
• MA Introduction to Documentary Filmmaking - a practical filmmaking course
• MA History of Gender, Sexuality and the Body