Designed to Kill

Joanna Bourke, professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London, will present “Designed to Kill: The Science and Art of Killing, 1914-1945” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 21, in Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, Room 101.

Bourke says “Weapons have a social life. They move in time and space. They have a trajectory. They create temporary and permanent cavities. They are designed to literally explode inside living bodies. Their effects on human and non-human animal bodies continue well after their energy has been dissipated. In this talk, I want to focus on the dark science of wound ballistics between 1899 and 1945. How has the science and art of researching, designing, and manufacturing weapons aimed at causing the most debilitating wounds in other people changed between 1899 and 1945?”

Joanna Bourke is the prize-winning author of eleven books, including histories on modern warfare, military medicine, psychology and psychiatry, the emotions, and rape. Her books have been translated into Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Turkish, and Greek. An Intimate History of Killing won the Wolfson Prize and the Fraenkel Prize. She is a frequent contributor to TV and radio shows, and a regular correspondent for newspapers.

This free public lecture is the latest in the Center for the Humanities year-long theme “A Century of War: 1914 and Beyond.”

Grinnell welcomes and encourages the participation of people with disabilities. Rosenfield Center has accessible parking in the lot to the east. Room 101 is equipped with an induction hearing loop system. You can request accommodations from the event sponsor or Conference Operations.