This is the first of two sister conferences. The second conference will take place in Vienna in November/December 2013. The Vienna conference is going to focus on the “body politic” whereas the Landau conference is centred around “political bodies” (Web)
Time: November 30th to December 2nd, 2012
Venue: University of Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau, Germany
Deadline: April 30th, 2012
Organizers:
- Kathleen Starck, University of Koblenz-Landau
- Birgit Sauer, University of Vienna
Keynote speakers:
- K.A. Cuordileone – The City University of New York
- Karen Hagemann University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Eva Kreisky – University of Vienna
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 public spheres such as politics. Thus, it is not surprising that there is an increasing body of research in political science and related disciplines such as diplomatic history, exploring the interdependence of the construction of masculinities on the one hand and the emerging, maintenance, and modification of concepts such as citizenship, nationality, democracy, militarism, policing, and colonialism on the other. As a result, masculinity is being made visible in the domain of politics. Moreover, the mechanisms and functions of different types of masculinities in variable political contexts, past and present, are being examined with a special focus on the transformation of masculinities.
Political science has contributed to the understanding of the emergence, the development and the transformation of modern politics and states as masculine arenas. Empirical research identified different representations of political masculinities with respect to time, space and state form. Cultural and literary research, on the other hand, focuses on the representation of political masculinities in cultural artefacts and texts.
This conference intends to integrate these findings from different disciplines in order to shed 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 (i.e. rationality, aggressiveness)? How can we trace the transformation of masculinities across time and space? The focus of all proposed papers should be on political bodies (individuals as political players).
Please send an abstract of ca. 350 words by 30 April, 2012 to one of these addresses: starck@uni-landau.de OR birgit.sauer@univie.ac.at
Conference Fee: 50€
Conference Venue: University of Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau, Germany (Web)