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The intense debate in political science about the increasing islamist terror has in the last few years stimulated historiographic research into terrorism. In Germany, this research at first focussed on the development of the RAF and the organisations which followed it since the 1970s; at present, the 19th and 20th centuries’ predecessors of current terrorism as well as transnational/international perspectives have come into view. Recently, historians have also turned to research from the angle of gender history, for example with regard to the RAF.
According to common definitions terrorist acts of violence aim both at delegitimizing political systems and winning sympathisers. Terrorism needs the public as proper venue of the conflict: it can be interpreted as an arena for winning sympathisers, but also for producing and passing on knowledge in which it is possible to negotiate about concepts of the state, the legitimacy of the governing system, security concepts, concepts of political participation, and about the dealing with political minorities. It has however often been neglected that these de-bates also (re)produce notions of masculinity and femininity as well as gender roles and gender relations.
These observations are the starting point of our conference. Thematically it is positioned at the intersection of research into terrorism, into gender, and research into the production respectively the handing down of knowledge.
The focus of interest are 19th and 20th centuries’ European media, their dealing with terrorist events and the impact of this dealing on gender discourses.
The following questions are to be dealt with: In which way do public debates about terrorism produce knowledge about gender orders? How are interpretations pushed through and how are they handed down? To what extent are well-known gender stereotypes and patterns of interpretations reactivated or modified in these processes? What is the role of actors from diverse interest-groups? How are hegemonic interpretations incorporated into the culture of memory? What is the role of gender concepts in these processes?
We ask for papers on selected examples of terrorist events in 19th, 20th, and 21th centuries’ Europe which concentrate on the following:
1. Competing production of knowledge (popular media coverage, historiography, expert culture, archives, etc.)
2. Media of knowledge production (images, film, art, etc.)
3. Culture of memory (creation of tradition(s), heroic cults, remembrance days, monuments, etc.)
Every contribution should take into consideration the category gender.
Proposals with an abstract (one page max.) and a short CV are welcome. Deadline: 30. November 2009. They should be submitted via email to: christine.hikel@unibw.de.
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