Simon Wendt, Goethe University of Frankfurt
Venue: Goethe-University of Frankfurt
Time: 20.-21.03.2015
In 20th-century America, military heroism became a key symbol of what was regarded as a heterosexual, masculine white nation. Military heroism thus became a major discursive battleground on which dominant notions of race, gender, and national identity were negotiated, challenged, and revised. The conference seeks to probe this complex interrelationship and how it changed between 1914 and 2014, asking how military heroism helped to construct and challenge racialized and gendered hierarchies in the United States. It seeks to examine how praise for heroic behavior on the battlefield or the refusal to give such praise became either a means of marginalization or a resource that minorities could utilize to protest against their marginal status. This process is … read more and source (Web)