Klicktipp: The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony (Podcast)

The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony (Web)

Description: „Lesbians and queer women have been excluded from the official historical record, but their experiences tell a great deal about the past. They reveal what it meant for a woman to desire and love other women, and to survive and resist against a culture that treated them as sinful and deviant. Their stories open a window onto a world that once was, and help us imagine a world that might yet be.“

The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony is a Canadian initiative. It collects and makes available the oral histories of people who presently or at one time identified as same-sex and same-gender attracted women.

The Podcast

By mid-2018, the acitvists of the Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony were also running „The Lesbian Testimony Podcast“. More than 25 episodes are available online on the website.

In each episode, the radio producers spoke with dedicated researchers from the broad field of lesbian history and queer history – as well as with activists from the women’s, lesbian and trans community (Web).

The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony

The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony was founded in 2010 in Canada. The acitvists digitize and make available online oral histories and testimony of same-sex and same-gender attracted women, inclusive of Two Spirit, queer, bisexual, and lesbian women, transmen, and others. The archives and the web site is supported by and operates out of Simon Fraser University Library’s Special Collections and Rare Books. Read more … (Web)

CfP: From Italy, To Italy: Transnational Communication and Intimate Worlds, 19th-21st Centuries (Workshop Series, 2022/23, virtual space and Montpellier); by: 20.12.2021

Workshop Series: Italies on the Move – Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3; Sonia Cancian and Isabelle Felici

Venue: virtual space and Montpellier
Time: 2022-2023
Proposals by: 20.12.2021

Since time immemorial, communication between individuals and groups has been a vital element in the migration process. This communication has occurred at every stage of the process, from the preparation for a departure or return, in the delivery of news and information, and throughout periods of absence and waiting. This research initiative aims to focus on transnational communication revolving around Italy as both a sending and receiving country and as a country of transit, from the end of the 19th century to today. The project explores all forms of communication (letters, life writings, memoir, diary, audio and video cassettes, and ICTs) produced throughout migration, a term used broadly to signal all forms of displacements, both temporary or permanent.

The objective is to examine the intimate universes identified or represented in different communication forms tied to a migration process. What are the emotions and tensions that migrants feel at each stage of migration? Are such emotions and tensions influenced or determined by gender, class, religion, race, and other dynamics, whether they are claimed, experienced or assigned by societies? What part of these emotions and tensions are attributed to migration as opposed to other experiences of life? What are the effects of transnational experiences on family ties? In what ways does the experience of migration change a migrant’s relationship with public and private spaces? How are social and political relations with societies privately represented and intimately experienced by migrants? Are there specific dynamics in relation to Italy? How is the heritage of migration represented across generations? Are there parallel and imaginary life courses identified in the exchanges exploring alternative questions like, „what if migration had not been initiated?“

Among the project’s activities are the following workshops, which will provide a space for discussion and reflection. The following themes are based on the different stages involved in migration processes:

  1. Workshop: The decision to leave
  2. Workshop: Travelling, waiting, absence Continue reading →

CfP: Masculine Wars, Feminine Exterminations: Between Experiences, Traumas and Revolts (Event, 03/2022, Baltimore); by: 30.09.2021

Panel at the 53rd annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA 2022) (Web)

Time: 10.-13.03.2022
Venue: Baltimore, MD
Proposals by: 30.09.2021

  • Opening Event Speaker: Valeria Luiselli
  • Keynote Speaker: Judith Butler

In general, war implies the use of force that could be declined in automatic, arbitrary and excessive violence. War is being used as a strategy to conquer territories and subjugate people in order to safeguard interests, be it strategic or not (Pius Ngandu Nkashama: Guerres African and historical writings).

Today, war is no longer reduced to murderous combats where victories are proclaimed at the cost of blood (Jacqueline Ching: Cyberterrorism). In addition to military wars, symbolic, ideological, mediatic and even institutional wars where bodies, and more precisely female bodies, serve as sites of confrontation and places of extermination have been notorious (Christina Lamb: Nos corps, their field of battle – What war does to women). In African and Caribbean literature, the connection between masculine wars and feminine bodies reveals inequalities and stereotyped representations of the feminine experience of wars in which women are mostly vulnerable (Koulsy Lamko: La phalène des Collines).

However, taking into account masculine and / or feminine works (literary and/or artistic), or even their intersections, gives rise to imaginaries at the confluence of passivity and revolt (Emmanuel Dongala: Johnny chien méchant; Ahmadou Kourouma: Allah is not obligated; Tanella Boni: Curfew Mornings; Léonora Miano: The Interior of the Night). This dichotomy between passivity and revolt inherent in women’s experiences of conflict proposes striking scenarios and complex avenues for research. What are these new / modern forms or expressions of masculine wars? Where is the violence against women located? What imaginaries do French and French-speaking authors build around the female experience of wars?

Encouraging multidimensional and interdisciplinary analyzes of the poetics of female bodies in a context of conflict, this panel opens the debate on the traditional and contemporary representations and imaginaries of wars in literature and arts with an emphasis on the place occupied by the female(s) character(s), the abuses, exploitations, and martyrdoms of her/their body(ies), as well as her/their responses and Continue reading →

Konferenz: Mit Vergnügen! Höfische Kultur im mitteldeutschen Raum des 18. Jahrhunderts, 17.-18.09.2021

Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde Dresden; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv – Staatsarchiv Chemnitz; Dance & History e.V. (Web)
Zeit: 17.-18.09.2021
Ort: Chemnitz und virtueller Raum
Anmeldung bis: 10.09.2021
Bis heute orientieren sich die Vorstellungen von der höfischen Kultur des 18. Jhds. weithin am Ideal der großen europäischen Königshöfe – eine durchaus einseitige Betrachtungsweise. Welche Formen höfischer Kultur gab es jenseits von Dresden oder Wien auch an den kleineren Höfen im mitteldeutschen Raum und anderswo im 18. Jhd.? Wie wurden bestimmte Formen der höfischen Repräsentation an begrenzte Rahmenbedingungen angepasst? Werden Transfer- und Austauschbeziehungen zwischen den Höfen erkennbar? Diese und andere Fragen sollen bei der Tagung im interdisziplinären Austausch unter anderem zwischen Historiker:innen, Kunsthistoriker:innen sowie Musik- und Tanzwissenschaftler:innen ergründet werden.
Dabei wird ein breiter Begriff der höfischen Repräsentation zugrunde gelegt, der ökonomische, rechtliche und soziale wie auch architektonische, künstlerische und performative Aspekte umfasst. Nicht zuletzt wird zu fragen sein, inwiefern, etwa im Vergleich zum Hof in Dresden, im 18. Jhd. auch an den kleineren Höfen der Übergang von Absolutismus und Barock zur Aufklärung Spuren hinterlassen hat. Der tanz- und musikgeschichtliche Akzent der Tagung resultiert aus dem überraschenden Fund eines Tanzbuchs aus dem 18. Jhd. im Staatsarchiv Chemnitz, das wahrscheinlich dem Waldenburger Hof der Fürsten von Schönburg zuzuordnen ist und derzeit näher erforscht wird.
Bei einer durch Darbietungen von Musik des 18. Jhds. umrahmten Podiumsdiskussion im Schloss Glauchau soll zudem erörtert werden, mit welchen Strategien zwischen Bildungsanspruch und Edutainment das Interesse der Öffentlichkeit heutzutage für die überkommenen Schlösser und Burgen geweckt bzw. wachgehalten werden kann und sollte.
Weiterlesen, Programm und Quelle … (Web)

CfP: Von „lustigen Täntz“ und „wahrer Tantzkunst“ – Tanz in Deutschland von 1500 bis 1900 (Event, 01/2022, virtueller Raum); bis: 15.09.2021

Dance & History e.V. (Web)

Zeit: 29.-30.01.2022
Ort: virtueller Raum, via Herrsching
Einreichfrist: 15.09.2021

Ziel der zum zweiten Mal ausgerichteten Online-Tagung ist die Auseinandersetzung mit Tanz in Deutschland im Speziellen und dem weiteren deutschsprachigen Raum vom 16. bis 19. Jhd. Die Tagung wendet sich nicht nur an ein interdisziplinäres Fachpublikum sondern auch an interessierte Tänzer:innen, denen die Veranstalter:innen einen fundierten Einblick in den aktuellen Stand der Forschung zu Tanzgeschichte und Tanzpraxis geben wollen.

Dementsprechend suchen sie Beiträge, die sich mit Tanz im deutschsprachigen Raum vom 16.–19. Jhd. befassen. Diese können z.B. tanzpraktische Aspekte, Fragen zum Tanzrepertoire, zu Tänzer:innen und Tanzmeistern behandeln, Gesellschaftstanz und Bühnentanz beleuchten, sich mit dem soziokulturellen Hintergrund auseinandersetzen, sich mit Fragen zu regionalem bzw. internationalem Austausch und politischen Einflüssen befassen oder Bezüge zu Kunst, Musik und Literatur herstellen.

Die Veranstalter:innen suchen im Speziellen Beiträge in vier Kategorien:

  1. Übersichtsarbeiten, die den aktuellen Stand der Forschung zu einem bestimmten, weitergefassten Thema zusammenfassend darstellen.
  2. Neue Forschungsergebnisse zu einem bestimmten Thema.
  3. Präsentationen mit Tanzdemonstrationen. Zusammen mit einer erläuternden und einordnenden Einführung soll die praktische Demonstration im Vordergrund stehen. Gesucht sind dem aktuellen Forschungsstand entsprechende Rekonstruktionen/Interpretationen z.B. eines bestimmten Tanzes, eines Tanzstils oder sonstiger technischer Aspekte.
  4. Beiträge, die sich mit der künstlerischen Umsetzung von Tanz früherer Epochen in der heutigen Kulturlandschaft auseinandersetzen.

Jeder Beitrag umfasst 30 min, dazu anschließend 10 min Diskussion. Zum Abschluss jedes Konferenztages ist eine Diskussionsrunde der Referent:innen mit Fragen der Teilnehmer:innen geplant. Die Tagung wird über die Online-Plattform Zoom durchgeführt. Die Continue reading →

Klicktipp: Sexing History – A podcast on history of sexuality (Podcast)

Podcast by Gillian Frank and Lauren Gutterman (Web)

Sexing History is an US-American podcast about how the history of sexuality shapes our present. It is co-hosted by Gillian Frank and Lauren Gutterman, two scholars in American Studies.

This podcast uses oral histories, archival sound clips, commentary and analysis, and interviews with other scholars in the field to tell compelling stories about the past to illuminate our present. Between 2017 and 2020, around 20 episodes were produced (Web).

Episodes

  • Love and Labor – The history of black midwifes
  • The Pickup Artist – White men’s desire for women in aggressive ways
  • The Stained Glass Closet – Gay men as priests in the 1990s
  • Bandstand and the Closet – Youth culture and sexually innocent teenage romance
  • Sex Over the Phone – Phone sex lines in the 1980s
  • Sherri – The history of abortion in the US
  • Let’s Dance! – Live belly dancing performances in the 1960s and 1970s
  • Against Our Will – The myths about sexual violence
  • Canary – The history of transgender
  • Prom Night – The legal right to attend high school prom with a same-sex date
  • Abortion on Trial – The anti-abortion movement
  • I Must Increase My Bust! – The history of of the spring type breast developer
  • Mixed Blessings – The positive portrayal of an interfaith marriage
  • Touch Me! I’m Yours! – Evangelical bestselling marriage manuals published by women
  • Sexism Takes Flight – The sexualization of stewardesses in order to increase revenues
  • A Church With AIDS – Gay churches and dying from AIDS-related complications
  • Mama Was a Star – Ruth Wallis as a singer, comedian, and performer of sexually suggestive lyrics in the postwar US

CfP: Violence against Women: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Event: 07/2022, London); by: 01.10.2021

The Humboldt Foundation Anneliese Maier Award (Web) and the German Historical Institute London

Venue: German Historical Institute London
Time: 14.-16.07.2022
Proposals by: 01.10.2020

  • Convenors: Christina von Hodenberg and Jane Freeland (German Historical Institute London), Sylvia Walby (Violence & Society Centre, City Univ. of London, Web), Karen Shire (Essen College for Gender Research, Univ. Duisburg-Essen)

Violence always matters: It wrecks and destroys lives. But gender-based violence has also varied enormously over time and place. Bringing together sociologists and historians, this conference explores the relations between gender regimes and gendered violence in different settings. It looks at Britain and Germany in the 20th and 21st centuries in a global context and encourages comparative studies of gender violence, especially outside of armed conflict. We draw particularly on the concept of gender regimes, as a way of thinking about the structural nature of gender at a macro-level.

The organizers aim to understand the following questions: What does violence against women tell us about the historical development of different societies? What can we learn from history as to the circumstances under which such violence changes, and about successful strategies of feminist resistance, coalition-building and making violence visible? What are the implications of diverse varieties of gender regimes for historical variations/changes in gendered violence? What are the implications of different concepts of violence and of gender for historical and comparative work? What are the diverse forms of feminist responses to and engagement with violence and their implications for reducing violence? Is feminism more successful in identifying violence and reducing it when it works autonomously, identifying women as the political subject, or when it works as part of a wider coalition, and if so, a coalition with what other forces? Does feminism make a difference? How does comparative and interdisciplinary work help us to investigate these questions?

The conference will bridge the disciplinary divide. The organizers are particularly interested in theoretical papers that open up to historical perspectives, or historical papers that test theoretical assumptions.

The conference will be held from 14-16 July, 2022, at the German Historical Institute London. Economy travel will Continue reading →

Klicktipp: 21 English-speaking Podcasts for Women’s History (Compilation)

Syeda Khaula Saad and Lauren Grant on „Bustle“

In recent years, a large number of different podcasts have emerged – many of them with feminist claims and on topics of women’s and gender history.

The journalists Syeda Khaula Saad and Lauren Grant published a compilation on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2021 on the portal „Bustle“ (March 5, 2021). The list contains no less than 21 English-speaking podcasts for women’s history. Some of this podcasts ran for several years and contain a great many episodes (Web).

The compilation and the descriptions are the following:

  • The History Chicks (Web)

The History Chicks covers real and fictional women and the contributions they’ve made to women’s history in general. According to the site’s description, „You want to know how the women are remembered, how their legacies live on and how you can learn more. We can do that!“ From Cleopatra to Coco Chanel, you get to learn about all the ways they have helped shape society.

  • Stuff Mom Never Told You (Web)

With new episodes every Wednesday and Friday, Stuff Mom Never Told You gives you the opportunity to learn about feminism and women’s history twice a week. The show discusses „what it is to identify as female through research-based discussion around feminism and how it impacts everyday life.“ You’ll hear about women like NASA’s hidden computer women and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Muta Maathai.

  • HERStory On The Rocks (Web)

HERStory on the Rocks sets up a conversation about women in history the same way that two girlfriends would discuss anything over a chilled drink. The discussions are fun and easy-going but super informative. From talks about the Queen of Sheeba and Sojourner Truth to having young girls discuss the impact Disney princesses had on their lives, it’s bound to give you a well-rounded take.

  • The Profess-Hers Podcast (Web)

The Profess-Hers Podcast features women you may not have necessarily heard of, but have made many contributions to gender equality. From Continue reading →

International Federation for Research in Women’s History (IFRWH): NEWSLETTER, Summer 2021 Issue 69 – With numerous entries from Austria (Publication)

The International Federation for Research in Women’s History (IFRWH)/Federation Internationale pour des Femmes (FIRHF) (Web)

The IFRWH-Newsletter is published every six months. It provides an overview of new international publications on women’s and gender history. Research projects are presented, conferences are announced and calls for papers are placed.

The newsletter thus gives a valuable overview of the relevant research being carried out worldwide. The Newsletter Summer 2021 Issue 69 is online now (PDF).

A list of the previous newsletters can be found on the website (Link).

The International Federation for Research in Women’s History

The IFRWH was founded in April 1987. The first meeting of national committee representatives was held in 1989, in Bellagio, Italy, with the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Aim of IFRWH is to encourage and coordinate research in all aspects of women’s history at the international level, by promoting exchange of information and publication and by arranging and assisting in arranging large-scale international conferences as well as more restricted and specialized meetings. National Committees serve as liaison between communities of researchers and the Federation. Find more information on the website (Link).

Selected papers presented at the Federation’s confrences have been published in several volumes (Link).

Konferenz: Geschlecht macht Arbeit! Arbeit, Wissen und Expert/innentum in der archäologischen Geschlechterforschung, 01.-03.10.2021, Linz

FemArc – Netzwerk archäologisch arbeitender Frauen e.V. (Web) in Koop. mit der Oberösterreichischen Landes-Kultur GmbH
Ort: Schlossmuseum Linz
Zeit: 01.-03.10.2021
Anmeldung bis: 31.08.2021
Zum 30. Jubiläum von FemArc gehen die Veranstalterinnen Fragen zum Zusammenhang von Arbeit und Geschlecht nach. Dabei sollen einerseits archäologische Beispiele als auch Erfahrungen zur modernen archäologischen Arbeitswelt vorgestellt werden, andererseits die Verflechtungen von Arbeit und Geschlecht auf einer theoretischen Ebene erörtert werden.

Anhand von Fallbeispielen aus den archäologischen Disziplinen wird hinterfragt, inwieweit die Geschlechtszugehörigkeit oder -zuschreibung mögliche Beschäftigungsfelder einzelner Individuen beeinflusst bzw. bedingt. Hier steht auch die Frage nach dem Wissen von Expert:innen und der damit verbundenen Macht im Fokus. Eine Rolle spielen zudem soziale Kategorien wie Alter, Status und/oder soziales Milieu. Darüber hinaus soll diskutiert werden, was in der Archäologie unter Begriffen wie „Arbeit“, „Wissen“ oder „Spezialisierung“ eigentlich verstanden werden kann – und für wen sie verwendet werden.
Forschungsgeschichtliche Aspekte zu Arbeit und Geschlecht sollen kritisch hinterfragt werden. Dies betrifft v.a. vorschnelle Ansprachen der Tätigkeit Einzelner wie auch ganzer Genusgruppen aufgrund von Analogieschlüssen zu modernen und subrezenten Gesellschaften. Einen weiteren Aspekt stellen kritische Betrachtungen von stereotypen Interpretationsmustern dar, welche noch immer unreflektiert tradiert werden.
Im Zusammenhang mit den aktuellen Arbeits- und Ausbildungsbedingungen werden die Geschlechtergerechtigkeit in der Archäologie sowie mögliche Verbesserungen und Alternativen zu bisherigen Verhältnissen diskutiert. Wie sieht es im Feld des Berufs derzeit für Archäolog:innen aus: Können sie ihre im Studium erworbenen Qualifikationen adäquat auf dem Arbeitsmarkt umsetzen? Welche Schranken und gläsernen Decken gibt es auf dem Weg zur Karriere (Hierarchisierung und Segregation des Arbeitsmarktes) und wie können diese aufgebrochen und verändert werden?
Quelle: Hsozukult