International multidisciplinary conference

Venue: University of Vienna
Time:15.-17.11.2013
Deadline: 15.06.2013

The field of masculinity studies has found its way into many academic disciplines. The social sciences as well as medical and psychological research have investigated many phenomena around the issue of masculinity. Moreover, there is a consensus that masculinity as the unmarked gender has remained invisible in many contexts. This, it has been argued, is particularly true for the sphere of politics. Thus, it is not surprising that there is an increasing body of research in the social sciences, especially in political science, exploring the interdependence of the construction of masculinities on the one hand and the emerging, maintenance, and modification of concepts such as state and citizenship, nationality, democracy, militarism, policing, and colonialism on the other. As a result, masculinity as structuring politics and political institutions is being made visible. Likewise, political masculinities need to be deconstructed in order to identify and focus on the processes of “engendering” political spaces, institutions and norms. In addition, analysis of the mechanisms and functions of different types of masculinities in variable political and historical contexts, drawing attention to the transformation of masculinist structures and spaces, is required. Finally, for the purposes of this conference, the concept of political masculinity has been widened to include and concentrate on structures of domination at the intersection of gender, sexuality and ethnicity.

Whereas political science has contributed to the understanding of modern politics and states as masculine arenas and empirical research has identified different representations of political masculinities with respect to time, space and state form, cultural and literary research focuses on the representation of political masculinities in cultural artefacts and texts. In an attempt to integrate these findings from different disciplines, the conference aims at shedding light on different modes of representing and constructing political masculinities across time and space. Leading questions will be: What are main characteristics of representing political masculinities? How do they interact with affect and emotions (i.e. rationality, aggressiveness)? How can we trace the transformation of political masculinities across time and space? How does the transformation of stateness impact on political masculinities? Does the current crisis transform political masculinities?

We welcome papers from all academic disciplines, focusing on conceptual questions as well as presenting empirical studies of structures of political masculinities.

Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words.

Please send them to birgit.sauer@univie.ac.at or starck@uni-landau.de by Saturday, 15 June, 2013.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Birgit Sauer
Institut für Politikwissenschaft
Universität Wien
Universitätsstraße 7, A-1010 Wien
Tel.: +43-1-4277 47712
Fax.: +43-14277-9477
Website: www.univie.ac.at/politikwissenschaft
www.birgitsauer.org
Projekt „Genia“: Wissenschaftskarrieren und Geschlecht
http://genderchange-academia.eu/

Quelle: female-l@jku.at