G. Kurt Piehler, director
The Institute on World War II and the Human Experience is committed to advancing the study of this global conflict by supporting research and teaching projects at the national, international, and local levels. To fulfill its mission, the Institute organizes conferences, exhibitions, public lectures, documentaries, and teacher workshops, often collaborating with prominent institutions across Florida and the United States. Since its founding in 1997 by the late professor William Oldson, the Institute has specialized in documenting the war’s impact on the men and women engulfed in the conflict. Professor G. Kurt Piehler has served as Institute Director since 2011. Piehler has written extensively on the history of World War II. His recent works include "A Religious History of the American GI in World War II" (University of Nebraska Press, 2021) and the "Oxford Handbook of World War II" (Oxford University, 2023).
Institute Accomplishments
Conferences
In 2012, the Institute partnered with FSU’s Department of Religion to convene a three-day conference exploring religion and World War II. In 2018, the Institute worked with Professor Suzanne Sinke of FSU’s Department of History to convene a one-day conference titled “Letters in Troubled Times: Evaluating Epistolary Sources.” This conference was supported by a grant from the Bostiber Institute for Austrian American Studies. In 2014 the Institute worked with Professor Judy Litoff of Bryant University in sponsoring a two-day Comparative Home Front Conference. Student interns from FSU assisted in organizing all aspects of these three conferences.
In April 2020, the Institute organized a two-day conference to be held at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York City exploring World War II front-line journalism. Working with Professor Ingo Trauschweizer of Ohio University, we assembled over $80,000 of support, including a grant from FSU’s Provost Office for this international gathering. Although COVID-19 prevented us from gathering, we collected the contributions of participants and published these in a subsequent conference proceeding, "Reporting World War II" (Fordham University Press, 2023).
In 2017, the Institute coordinated the annual meeting of the Society for Military History. This conference brought over 600 military historians from 42 states and 12 countries to Jacksonville and generated $200,000 of activity for the local economy. Twelve undergraduate interns and volunteers and four graduate students from FSU ran every aspect of the four-day meeting, from managing the receptions, meal events and field trips, to overseeing registrations, managing the book exhibit, and drafting the conference program.
Teachers Workshops and Educational Outreach
The Institute has partnered with the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York City to host several one-day teaching workshops. In 2022, the Institute’s director, Kurt Piehler, served as a visiting scholar for the National Endowment for the Humanities’ K-12 teachers workshop “Perspectives on World War II and the Pacific” held by the Intrepid Museum. In 2022, the Institute worked with professor Sarah Meyers of Messiah University to hold three workshops engaging women veterans to reflect on their services. These workshops, which were held at FSU and five other universities, were supported by a Dialogues of War Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2024, the Institute partnered with the Thomasville History Center to offer a one-day program for area educators in North Georgia and the Florida Panhandle offering an overview of new scholarship on the Holocaust and World War II.
Exhibits
The Institute has curated several exhibits on World War II, including ones at Chipola College in Marianna, Florida and the Holocaust Resource and Education Center in Maitland, Florida. In 2015, the Institute partnered with the FSU Museum of Fine Arts to host an exhibit using material objects, visual arts, and documents to explore the human dimension of World War II. In 2021, the Institute assisted the Historic Capitol Museum in organizing an exhibit examining the impact of World War II on Florida in commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Working with the museum staff, we incorporated artifacts from over twenty museums and drafted the storyline and labels for this exhibit. In addition, the Institute worked with museum staff to hold a speaker’s series.
Media
In 2020, the Institute worked with professor Brian Graves of the FSU School of Communications to produce a 27 minute documentary about the career of Woman Army Corps photographer Charlotte Mansfield, who was stationed in England during World War II. This documentary was aired by American Public Media on more than 100 public television stations nationwide.
For a a complete list of past programming, see below.
Future Programming
Conferences
The Institute continues to convene conferences. In February 2026, the Institute will convene “The Africa and African Diaspora in the World Wars” in partnership with the Society for Black Military Studies. Future conferences are expected to examine the humanitarianism, art and culture, and reassess battle history. The Institute continues to invite scholars and advanced graduate students to present their scholarship to the wider Florida State University community.
Supporting Undergraduate and Graduate Education
The Institute supports undergraduate and graduate students at Florida State University. The Institute director regularly directs undergraduate theses exploring a range of topics related to World War II with many garnering competitive IDEA grants from FSU to support their projects. The Institute offers modest research grants to FSU graduate students to conduct research topics related to World War II. Since becoming director of the Institute, Kurt Piehler has supervised 12 doctoral dissertations and several master’s theses related to World War II.
Publishing Cutting-Edge Scholarship
Since 2003, Institute director Kurt Piehler has edited "World War II: The Global, Human and Ethical Dimension." Over 36 books have been published in the series that not only explore the political, military, diplomatic, and economic dimensions of the war, but also the social, intellectual and cultural elements. Prospective authors are encouraged to contact professor G. Kurt Piehler at kpiehler@fsu.edu. For a list of works published in the series visit fordhampress.com.
Resources
The Institute has access to several important collections. The Florida State University Libraries has extensive documents related to World War II, most notably the papers of the nuclear physicist Paul Dirac and U.S. Senator Claude Pepper. The library also maintains and an extensive set of documents and physical artifacts tracing the human experience of World War II. The Florida State Archives in Tallahassee holds collections tracing Florida’s involvement in World War II. The Camp Gordon Johnson Museum in Carabelle, Florida possesses a collection examining amphibious warfare training in World War II. In Pensacola, Florida the National Naval Aviation Museum has an extensive Special Collections that includes personal papers tracing the rise and deployment of carrier-based warfare.
Cumulative Programming 2012–2025
Scholarly Conferences Convened
2012
November 29 – December 2, 2012
World War II and Religion Conference
Hotel Duval, Tallahassee, Florida
2016
January 14 – 16, 2016
Comparative Home Fronts Conference
Hotel Duval, Tallahassee, Florida
2017
March 30 – April 2, 2017
Society for Military History, 84th Annual Meeting “Global War: Historical Perspectives”
Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, Jacksonville, Florida
2018
February 16, 2018
Letters in Troubled Times: Evaluating Epistolary Sources
FSU Alumni Center, Tallahassee, Florida
2020
April 23-24, 2020
Reporting World War II: American Correspondents at the Front Lines
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York, New York
[Cancelled as result of Covid-19 pandemic]
Conference Proceedings: "Reporting World War II," edited by G. Kurt Piehler and Ingo Trauschweizer, New York: Fordham University Press, 2023.
Exhibits Organized
2013
June 21 – October 27, 2013
Witness to War
John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Searing Wing, Sarasota, Florida
2015
February 13 – March 29, 2015
The Human Experience Exhibit
FSU Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, Florida
February 14-15, 2015
World War II Writers’ Weekend
- Marcus Cox, The Citadel
"Segregated Soldiers: Military Training at Historical Black Colleges in the Jim Crow South" - Nick McCall, J.D.
"Pogiebait’s War: A Son’s Quest for His Father’s Wartime Life" - Michael Neiberg, U.S. Army War College
"The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944" - Annika Culver, Florida State University
"Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo" and "Motherhood and War" - Pieter Kohnstam
"A Chance to Live: The Liberation of Paris" - Robert Gellately, Florida State University
"Stalin’s Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War" and "Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945" - Whitney Bendeck, Florida State University
"'A' Force: The Origins of British Deception during the Second World War" - Graham Farmelo, Cambridge University
"Churchill’s Bomb" and "The Strangest Man" Talk: “Winston Churchill: A Nuclear Visionary?”
2018
March 13 – April 16, 2018
Artistic Expression Through Conflict 1939-1945
Chipola College, Chipola Center for the Arts, Marianna, Florida
2019
February 3 – April 5, 2019
Artistic Expression Through Conflict 1939-1945
Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida, Maitland, Florida
March 14 – April 22, 2019
Love, Dolly: Letters Home in World War II
Chipola College, Chipola Center for the Arts, Marianna, Florida
2020 – 2024
Online Exhibit: Women at War: At Home and In Service
Originally scheduled open at the Chipola Center for the Arts, Marianna, Florida, but shifted to on-line format as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
December 7, 2021 – March 20, 2022
“Rendezvous with Destiny: Florida and World War II
Florida Historic Capitol Museum, Tallahassee, Florida
G. Kurt Piehler, Guest Curator with support from Mike Kasper
Veteran Outreach, Florida State University
2021
Dialogues of War series engaging American women veterans with humanistic texts, Claude Pepper Center, Tallahassee, Florida, October 30, 2021 (Civil War: Identity, Heroism, and Patriotism, November 6, 2021 (World War II; Culture & Gendered Dynamics) and November 13, 2021 (Afghanistan and Iraq Wars: Recognition of Military Service). Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities grant administered by Messiah College.
Public Lectures, Florida State University
2012
Spring Lecture – March 26, 2012
Guest Speaker: Conrad C. Crane, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center
“The Cigar Who Brought the Fire Wind: Curtis LeMay and the Incendiary Bombing of Japan”
Fall Lecture – October 11, 2012
Guest Speaker: Judy Litoff, Bryant University
“One’s Woman’s War in China: An American Red Cross Club Director in World War II”
2013
Spring Lecture – February 6, 2013
Guest Speaker: Mark Wilson, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
“American Business and the Winning of World War II”
Fall Lecture – November 4, 2013
Guest Speaker: Scott H. Bennett, Georgian Court University
“How Jewish Radical Pacifist Igal Roodenko Opposed and Resisted World War II”
Special Lecture – November 14, 2013
Guest Speaker: Tony Austin
“Living in Postwar Japan”
2014
Spring Lecture – February 18, 2014
Guest Speaker: Serge Durflinger, University of Ottawa
“Remembering the Second War in Canada”
Special Lecture – April 8, 2014
Guest Speaker: Barak Kushner, Ph.D., Cambridge University
“’Men to Devils and Devils to Men’ Japanese War Crimes and Cold War Sino-Japanese Relations (1945-1965)”
Fall Lecture – October 21, 2014
Guest Speaker: Michael Bryant, Bryant University
“Speaking the Name of the Unspeakable: The West German Treblinka Trial, 1964-65”
2015
Spring Lecture – January 30, 2015
Guest Speaker: Sheldon Garon, Princeton University
“WWII Allied Bombing Campaigns in Japan and Europe”
Fall Lecture – November 16, 2015
Guest Speaker: Panteleymon Anastasakis, City University of New York
“The Church of Greece and the Holocaust"
2016
Special Lecture – September 15, 2016
Guest Speaker: Lawrence J. Friedman, Indiana University
“’A World Without Nations’: The Pragmatic Visionaries after 1945”
Fall Lecture – November 1, 2016
Guest Speaker: John Kinder, Ph.D., Oklahoma State University
“Open Wounds: Disabled Veterans and the American Century”
2017
Fall Lecture – September 19, 2017
Guest Speaker: Peter Dunbar, Attorney at Law and FSU Alumnus
“A Son Discovers His Father’s War: Before They Were the Black Sheep”
Special Lecture – October 19, 2017
Guest Speaker: Nigel Young
“Commemorative Politics and the World Wars: Contested Memories and Current Policy in Europe”
2018
Spring Lecture – February 6, 2018
Guest Speaker: Ronit Y. Stahl, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
“Four Chaplains Day: Religious Pluralism and the U.S. Military, Then and Now”
Fall Lecture – October 18, 2018
Guest Speaker: Jonathan Grant, Ph.D., Florida State University
“Bounced Czechs and Forged Alliances: The Armaments Business and the Road to World War II”
2019
Special Lecture – January 9, 2019
Guest Speaker: Marion Dorsey, Ph.D., University of New Hampshire
“A Weapon of Last Resort: World War II and Chemical Warfare”
Spring Lecture – February 12, 2019
Guest Speaker: Charissa Threat, Ph.D., Chapman University
“Sweethearts and Pin-ups: Gender, Race and Intimate Relations in Wartime America, 1941-1945”
Special Lecture – April 5, 2019
Guest Speaker: Stephen A. Bourque
“Beyond the Beach: The Allied War Against France”
Summer Lecture – May 14, 2019
Guest Speaker: Alex Kershaw
“The First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II”
Co-sponsored with Midtown Reader
Fall Lecture – September 12, 2019
Guest Speaker: Andrew Huebner, University of Alabama
“For Home and Country: An American Great War Love Story”
2020
Spring Lecture – March 3, 2020
Guest Speaker: Kara Vuic, Texas Christian University
“Fun in the Foxhole: Bringing Home to the Front Lines of War”
2021
Fall Lecture – December 7, 2021
Florida Historic Capitol Museum
Guest Speaker: Sidney Pash, Fayetteville State University
“The Failure of Containment and the Coming of the Pacific War”
2022
Spring Lecture – February 22, 2022
Guest Speaker: Roy Domenico, Ph.D., University of Scranton
“Italy’s War at Home: The Fronte Inferno, 1940-1945”
Spring Lecture – March 1, 2022
Guest Speaker: Patricia Kollander, Florida Atlantic University
“Unsung Heroes of World War II: German and Austrian Emigres in the U.S. Army”
Works in Progress Presentations
January 31, 2019
Nicholas Utzing, Harvard University
“Bearing Hamlet Like a Soldier to the Stage: Maurice Evans’ G.I. Hamlet”
February 14, 2019
Erin Lee Mock, University of West Georgia
“’It Was Easy’: American Popular Culture and Veteran reintegration after World War II”
March 28, 2019
Susan L. Eastman, Dalton State University
“Memorializing the War on Terror: Immediacy, Proliferation, and Forgetting”
Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Programs
2012
December 7, 2012
Peter Dunbar, (Attorney at Law and FSU Alumnus)
Before They Were The Black Sheep
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Historic Asolo Theater, Sarasota, Florida
2013
December 7, 2013
John Whiteclay Chambers II, Ph.D. Rutgers University
“What’s New About World War II”
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, Florida
2014
December 7, 2014
Jonathan Grant, Ph.D., Florida State University
“Arms Race and the Road to Pearl Harbor”
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, Florida
Veterans Day Programs (Co-sponsored with Fordham University Press)
2012
November 12, 2012
Scott H. Bennett, J. Garry Clifford, Sidney Pash, Ann Pfau, Kurt Piehler
“Five Historians Reflect on World War II: What We Know, What We Still Need to Learn, and What We May Never Know”
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, New York, New York
2013
November 11, 2013
Peter M. Dunbar, Judy Barrett Lifoff, G. Kurt Piehler
“Heroes and Stories of Heroism from the World War II Generation”
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, New York, New York
2014
November 11, 2014
Craig L. Symonds, Ph.D.
“The Story of the D-Day Landings”
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, New York, New York
2016
November 10, 2016
Panteleymon Anastasakis, Ph.D., City University of New York
“The Church of Greece and the Holocaust”
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, New York, New York
2017
November 9, 2017
Kent Puckett, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
“Splendid Propaganda”: Henry V at War
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, New York, New York
2018
November 8, 2018
Jonathan Grant, Ph.D., Florida State University
“Bounced Czechs and Forged Alliances: The Armaments Business and the Road to World War II”
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, New York, New York
Public Lectures, Jacksonville Historical Society
2012
Special Lecture-June 17, 2012
Guest Speaker: Peter M. Dunbar, Attorney at Law and FSU Alumnus
“A Son Discovers His Father’s War”
Teachers Workshops
2012
March 24, 2012
Friends of the National World War II Memorial Education Summit
Keynote speaker, Kurt Piehler, Ph.D.
National Memorial to Women in Military Service to America, Arlington, Virginia
2013
April 21, 2013
Holocaust Teacher Training Workshop
Gilya Gerda Schmidt, Ph.D.
Rural Jewish Germany and the Holocaust
Co-sponored with Holocaust Education Resource Council (HERC)
Strozier Library
2015
March 18, 2015
Florida Department of Education, Commissioner’s Task Force on Holocaust Education
Kurt Piehler, Ph.D.
“GI Religion and the Struggle Against Nazi Germany: The Life and Times of Rabbi David Max Eichhorn”
Florida State University Conference Center
May 1, 2015
Rutgers Institute for High School Teachers
Kurt Piehler, Ph.D.
“Teaching the U.S. Occupation of Postwar Japan: The Oliver Austin Photographic Collection Digital Archive”
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
2018
November 6, 2018
Teacher Professional Development
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York, New York
2020
January 27, 2020
Teacher Professional Development
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York, New York
2024
February 24, 2024
Thomasville History Center, Thomasville, Georgia
Teaching the Holocaust and World War II
(A program for area K-12 educators)
Film Screenings
2017
April 3, 20217
Casablanca
Askew Student Life Center, FSU
2018
April 29, 2018, Saving Private Ryan
Askew Student Life Center, FSU
October 22, 2018, Empire of the Sun
Askew Student Life Center, FSU
November 13, 2018, Memphis Belle
Veteran Film Festival
Ruby Diamond Hall
Exhibited a selection of the Institute collections on the U.S. Army Air Corps
2019
November 12, 2019, The Sound of Music
Askew Student Life Center, FSU
FSU Day at the Capitol
April 2, 2013
April 4, 2017
February 6, 2018
April 9, 2019