March 4, 2012

WEBSITE: Glasbrechen e.V.

Description: »Glasbrechen e.V. ist die einzige Organisation, die sich die Aufgabe gestellt hat, die Belange von Opfern pädosexueller Gewalt an der Odenwaldschule wahrzunehmen und gleichzeitig nach Kräften präventiv potentiellen Opfern zu helfen und potentielle pädosexuelle Täter zukünftig von möglichen Taten abzuschrecken.«

Link: Glasbrechen e.V.

CFP: Law and Gender in Nineteenth-Century England

Journal: Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies
Guest Editors: Katherine Gilbert and Julia Chavez
Submission deadline: May 15, 2012

Description: »This special issue of NCGS invites scholars from across the arts and humanities to contribute their work on the intersections between law, gender, femininity, masculinity, and sexuality.«

More information: CFP website

CFP: Sex, Courtship and Marriage in Victorian Literature and Culture

Journal: Victorian Network
Guest Editor: Greta Depledge
Submission deadline: May 30, 2012

Description: »The sixth issue of Victorian Network, ..., is dedicated to a reassessment of nineteenth-century constructions and understandings of sex, courtship and marriage. Although the heteronormative and companionate marriage was vital for economic and reproductive reasons - as well as romantic impulses - recent scholarship has illuminated its status as but one of several diverse paradigms of marriage/sexual relationship accessible to the Victorians
Across the nineteenth century, profound crises of faith, extensive legal reforms and the new insights afforded by the emergent discipline of anthropology all contributed to a culture of introspection about the practice of marriage, at the same time as advances in science and medicine opened up new interpretations and definitions of sexual practices and preferences.«

More information: Victorian Network

CFP: Women, Children, and the Domestic Sphere

Journal: Saber and Scroll Journal
Editor: Candace McGovern
Submission deadline for abstracts: April 1, 2012
Submission deadline for manuscripts: May 1, 2012

Description: »Sponsored by APUS' Saber and Scroll History Club, this edition will accept works on all topics of history, however priority will be given to those topics focusing on the journals theme of Women, Children, and the Domestic Sphere. All historical time periods and geographic regions are welcome provided they address a topic of historical interest.«

More information: Saber and Scroll

CFP: Violence Against Women in Contemporary American Popular Culture

Book: Violence Against Women in Contemporary American Popular Culture
Editor: Kara Mollis
Submission deadline for abstracts: April 1, 2012

Description: »Despite significant political advancements for women in the United States in the twenty-first century as well as important feminist work to combat gender-based violence in recent years, statistics on violence against women continue to be staggering. This edited collection seeks to explore the role that American popular culture plays in this social phenomenon by bringing together analyses of representations of violence against women in various popular cultural texts and practices of the twenty-first century, including but not limited to television, film, music, bestsellers, magazines, blogs, fashion, sports, and cultural movements.«

More information: CFP website or H-Net Announcements

CFP: Nollywood, Women, and Cultural Identity

Conference: International Conference on Nollywood, Women, and Cultural Identity
Place: Makurdi, Nigeria
Date: May 8-11, 2012
Submission deadline for abstracts: March 30, 2012

Description: »Nollywood and its films may have short-changed women, thereby creating not only a lopsided picture of the human resource, but the limitation of women’s participation and contribution to national identity and development. In this regard, the movie industry has a major role in reversing the hitherto challenging issues of exclusive practices, negative portrayal, cultural, and gender stereotypes. ... Possible themes to consider for your individual or panel presentation include, but not limited to, the following:
...
Women and Violence in Nollywood
...
Sexuality in Nollywood Films
...«

More information: CFP website

PRIZE: Cromwell Article Prize

Prize: Cromwell Article Prize for 2012
Submission deadline: May 31, 2012

Description: »The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation has generously funded a prize of $2,500 for an excellent article in American legal history published by an early career scholar in 2011. Articles published in 2011 in the field of American legal history, broadly conceived, will be considered.«

More information: American Society for Legal History

PROJECTS: Legal history research projects

Institution: Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte
Submission deadline for applications: March 31, 2012

Description: »The MPIeR promotes excellent legal history research projects with its scholarship programme. In exceptional cases, projects from related fields may be considered as long as these projects can be expected to contribute to progress with regard to legal history research questions.
...
Applications on the following subject areas will be given priority for 2013
* Global circulation and reproduction of legal knowledge in the early modern and modern periods
* History of the relation between judicial and extrajudicial conflict resolution
* Legal history in early modern Latin America

More information: Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte

February 5, 2012

Book: Das Geheimnis unserer Großmütter

Authors: Svenja Eichhorn and Philipp Kuwert
Title: Das Geheimnis unserer Großmütter
Subtitle: Eine empirische Studie über sexualisierte Kriegsgewalt um 1945
Place: Gießen
Publisher: Psychosozial-Verlag
Year: 2011
Pages: 112pp.
ISBN-13: 9783837921311
Series: Forschung Psychosozial
Language: German

Description: »Mehr als 65 Jahre sind vergangen, seitdem zwei Millionen Frauen auf deutschem und benachbartem Gebiet innerhalb weniger Monate durch Vergewaltigungen schwer traumatisiert wurden. Diese Gewalterfahrungen am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs sind bis heute sowohl privates als auch gesellschaftliches Tabu. Scheinbar setzte ihr »Vergessen« bereits mit ihrem Geschehen ein, jedoch verbirgt sich dahinter eine unsagbar große Verletzung.
Die vorliegende Untersuchung nähert sich verständnisvoll den Erlebnissen einer Generation von Frauen. Zunächst wird Traumatisierung im Allgemeinen, im Krieg, durch sexuelle Gewalt und deren Folgestörungen betrachtet und somit an die Auswirkungen sexualisierter Kriegsgewalt herangeführt. Eindrückliche und emotional bewegende Zitate aus Interviews mit traumatisierten Frauen machen die Untersuchung zu einem wertvollen Zeitzeugenbericht.« [Source: Psychosozial-Verlag]

February 4, 2012

ART: The absent piece of skin

Author: Nayanika Mookherjee
Title: The absent piece of skin
Subtitle: Gendered, racialized and territorial inscriptions of sexual violence during the Bangladesh war
Journal: Modern Asian studies
Volume: 46
Issue:
Year: 2012
Pages:
ISSN: 0026-749X - eISSN: 1469-8099
Language: English
Full Text: Cambridge University Press [Free preview]

Abstract:
»This paper addresses how the wombs of women and the absent skin on the circumcised penises of men become the predominant sites on which racialized and gendered discourses operating during the Bangladesh War are inscribed. This is explored by examining instances of sexual violence by Pakistani soldiers and their local Bengali collaborators. The prevalence of these discourses in colonial documents about the Bengali Muslims underscores the role of history, the politics of identity and in the process, establishes its link with the rapes of Bangladeshi women and men. Through this, the relationship between sexual violence and historical contexts is highlighted. I locate the accounts of male violations by the West Pakistani army within the historical and colonial discourses relating to the construction of the Bengali Muslim and its intertextual, contemporary citational references in photographs and interviews.
I draw on Judith Butler's and Marilyn Strathern's work on gendering and performativity to address the citational role of various practices of discourses of gender and race within colonial documents and its application in a newer context of colonization and sexual violence of women and men during wars. The role of photographs and image-making is intrinsic to these practices. The open semiotic of the photographs allows an exploration of the territorial identities within these images and leads to traces of the silence relating to male violations. Through an examination of the silence surrounding male sexual violence vis-à-vis the emphasis on the rape of women in independent Bangladesh, it is argued that these racialized and gendered discourses are intricately associated to the link between sexuality and the state in relation to masculinity.« [Source: Modern Asian studies]