Call for Papers: Gendered Memories of War & Political Violence

Call for Papers

Gendered Memories of War and Political Violence

Budapest, 7-8 December 2012

Young Researchers Conference

Central European University

Workshop organized in the framework of the Central European University-Sabancı University Joint Academic Initiative

20^th century has been a century of wars, genocides, and other forms of political violence. It has also been a century of feminist struggle and theorizing globally. At the peak of what is sometimes called the “memory boom,” this conference seeks to explore the different ways in which wars, genocides, and other forms of political violence are remembered through a gender lens. Central questions include (but are not limited to):

• How have wars, genocides and other forms of political violence been narrated and represented by men and women?
• How do women remember and narrate sexual violence in war?
• How do (written, oral or visual) testimonies challenge or reinforce the hegemonic accounts of wars and genocides?
• How are wars memorialized and gendered through monuments, museums, and other memory sites?
• What is the impact of the ethnicization/racialization of violence on the making of gendered memories?
• How is the relationship between the “personal” and the “public/national/political” (re)conceptualized in popular culture, film, literature, and (auto)biographical texts dealing with war, genocide, and other forms of political violence?
• How are “humanitarian interventions,” post-conflict processes, and transitional justice gendered?
• How do women’s, feminist, and LGBTQ movements contribute to critical memory work on wars?
• What kind of impact has feminist scholarship had on war and militarism studies, genocide studies, and memory studies?
• What new concepts or theoretical frameworks (queer? postcolonial? critical race studies?) promise new openings in feminist analyses of memory work on wars and genocides?

 Applications:

The working language of the conference will be English. Students working on their MA or PhD thesis, or recent graduates (up to one year), from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to papers that deal with Europe (in the largest sense of the term) or Europe’s connection to the discussed context, but other papers will also be considered.

Please submit an abstract (max. 500 words) outlining the relevance and novelty of your contribution, together with a 200 words resume. Presenters will be required to submit their presentation in writing prior to the workshop (on 15 November the latest).

There are no registration fees. Lunch, tea and coffee will be provided for all participants and the CEU staff will assist in finding reasonable accommodation in Budapest. Sabancı University students are eligible for travel and accommodation funding. Please indicate your funding needs when you submit your application.

The application deadline is 10 August 2012.

To submit your proposal and for more information: wargenderstudent@ceu.hu

Organizing Committee:

Andrea Petö

Ayşe Gül Altınay

Borbala Klacsmann

Çiçek İlengiz