Call for Papers: Gendered Memories of War and Political Violence

Call for Papers: Gendered Memories of War and Political Violence
Young Researchers Conference
25-27 April 2014, Istanbul
Sabancı University, Karaköy Minerva Palace

The application deadline is December 15th, 2013.

The 20th century has been a century of wars, genocides, and other forms of political violence. It has also been a century of feminist and LGBTQI struggles 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 gendered lens. Central questions include (but are not limited to):

• How have wars, genocides and other forms of political violence been narrated and represented by people with different gender and sexual identifications?
• What are the different ways in which sexual violence in wars has been remembered, narrated, and theorized on the basis of gender and sexuality?
• How do (written, oral or visual) testimonies challenge or reinforce the hegemonic accounts of wars and genocides?
• How are wars memorialized, gendered, and sexualized 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 feminist and LGBTQI 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?
• What are some current initiatives that deal with the gendered memories of war and political violence in order to provide means of coming to terms with past atrocities? What challenges do they face and how do they cope with them?

Applications:

The conference is open to young researchers from all disciplines and backgrounds. Students working on their MA or PhD thesis, or recent graduates, as well as young independent researchers are encouraged to apply. The principal intention of the conference is to bring together young people and groups working on issues around gender, sexuality, memory, and political violence, and enable the sharing of a diversity of experiences in research, civil society, and activism.

The working languages of the conference will be English and Turkish. Simultaneous translation will be provided. The applications can be made in either language.

Please submit an abstract (300-500 words) outlining the relevance and novelty of your contribution, together with a 200 words biographical statement.

There are no registration fees. Lunch, tea and coffee will be provided for all participants. The organizing committee staff will assist in finding reasonable accommodation in Istanbul. There may also be limited accommodation funding available. Please indicate your need for accommodation funding in the application.

The application deadline is December 15th, 2013.

To submit your paper and for more information: younggenderconf@sabanciuniv.edu

For more information on past workshops in the framework of Central European University – Sabancı
University Joint Academic Initiative: http://myweb.sabanciuniv.edu/genderconf/

Organizing Committee:

Bürge Abiral
İrem Az
Doğu Durgun
Marhabo Saparova
Sertaç Kaya Şen
Ezgi Şeref