Gender and Memory Studies Research Papers (original) (raw)

This article takes Jenny Erpenbeck’s provocative novel 'Heimsuchung' as an opportunity to consider how the mass rape of German women in 1945 has functioned as a 'mnemonic signifier’, that is, a symbolic figuration of broader memory... more

This article takes Jenny Erpenbeck’s provocative novel 'Heimsuchung' as an opportunity to consider how the mass rape of German women in 1945 has functioned as a 'mnemonic signifier’, that is, a symbolic figuration of broader memory discourses. Through a close reading of this work, I show this mnemonic signifier often dovetails with cultural ‘rape scripts’ that determine whether and how sexual violence is addressed, recognized and understood. Exploring how wartime rape has been remembered thus opens up new perspectives on the social and political salience of memory. This article consequently addresses the need for a ‘mnemographic ethics’ that foregrounds the victims of historical violence and their experiential realities, matters that are all too easily suppressed or transfigured in processes of remembrance and interpretation. It argues that literature can offer a model for such a practice.

Investigates why women's complicity in National Socialism has struggled to capture the collective imagination, examining how a variety of female authors have conceptualized women's role in the Third Reich In recent years, historians have... more

Investigates why women's complicity in National Socialism has struggled to capture the collective imagination, examining how a variety of female authors have conceptualized women's role in the Third Reich
In recent years, historians have revealed the many ways German women supported National Socialism - in political organizations, as teachers, frontline auxiliaries, and nurses. In mainstream culture, however, the women of the period are still predominantly depicted as the victims of a violent twentieth century whose atrocities were committed by men. They are frequently imagined as the post hoc redeemers of the nation, as "rubble women" who spiritually and literally rebuilt the nation.
This book investigates why women's complicity in the Third Reich has struggled to capture the historical imagination. It explores how female authors from across the political and generational spectrum (Ingeborg Bachmann, Christa Wolf, Elisabeth Plessen, Gisela Elsner, Tanja Dückers, Jenny Erpenbeck) conceptualize women's role in the Third Reich. As well as offering innovative re-readings of celebrated works, this book provides instructive interpretations of lesser-known works that nonetheless enrich our understanding of German memory culture.

This talk is centered on reading the iconographic significance of the female body as it emerges in Hans Bellmer’s doll constructions, produced and photographed in the 1930s. At first glance, Bellmer’s distinctive, yet somewhat... more

This talk is centered on reading the iconographic significance of the female body as it emerges in Hans Bellmer’s doll constructions, produced and photographed in the 1930s. At first glance, Bellmer’s distinctive, yet somewhat marginalized work seems to exhibit a high degree of self-reflexivity with respect to both content and form, which is often seen as an artistic validation. But as I shall show, it is equally caught in a reactionary motion that seeks to secure a rather traditional conception of the male self by scandalously staging the female body under the signs of repetition, doubling, and fragmentation.
A more extensive version was published under the same title in Art--Value--Politics. Criticism, Meaning, and Interpretation after Postmodernism. Jonathan Harris. ed. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007.

In what ways do the politics of memory perpetuate gendered images of those directly affected by political violence in Chile? Can the literary rewriting of painful experiences contest existing interpretations of national trauma and the... more

In what ways do the politics of memory perpetuate gendered images of those directly affected by political violence in Chile? Can the literary rewriting of painful experiences contest existing interpretations of national trauma and the portrayal of women in such discourses? How do women participate in the production of collective narratives of the past in the aftermath of violence? This book discusses the literary representation of women and their memory practices in the recent work of seven contemporary Chilean authors: Diamela Eltit, Carlos Franz, Pía González, Fátima Sime, Arturo Fontaine, Pía Barros and Nona Fernández. It locates their works in the context of a patriarchal politics of memory and commemorative culture in Chile, and as part of a wider body of contested interpretations of General Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship (1973–90). By an analysis of novels that depict the dictatorial past through the memories of women, it is argued that these texts understand and explore remembrance as a process by which the patriarchal co-option of women’s memories can be exposed and even contested in the aftermath of violence.

Bu çalışmada travmatik kolektif belleğin aktarılma sürecinde, anlatıların toplumsal cinsiyete göre nasıl farklılaştığı ve anlatının toplumsal cinsiyetle bağı, Türkiyeli Ermenilerin 1915 Tehcirinde yaşadıkları travmanın sonraki kuşaklara... more

Bu çalışmada travmatik kolektif belleğin aktarılma sürecinde, anlatıların toplumsal cinsiyete göre nasıl farklılaştığı ve anlatının toplumsal cinsiyetle bağı, Türkiyeli Ermenilerin 1915 Tehcirinde yaşadıkları travmanın sonraki kuşaklara aktarımı örneği çerçevesinde sorgulanacaktır.

Estudiar la epigrafía religiosa de una determinada localidad o región desde una perspectiva de género, comparando las inscripciones (votivas, honoríficas o de otro tipo) que conciernen a los hombres con las relativas a las mujeres,... more

Estudiar la epigrafía religiosa de una determinada localidad o región desde una perspectiva de género, comparando las inscripciones (votivas, honoríficas o de otro tipo) que conciernen a los hombres con las relativas a las mujeres, permite observar si existe o no una diferencia sustancial con respecto al grado y a las maneras en las que hombres y mujeres participaban en los cultos públicos del lugar. En este sentido, cabe preguntarse si las mujeres, en calidad de agentes rituales o de simples devotas, se implicaban mayormente en las devociones de divinidades vinculadas con su condición femenina, cuál era el grado de libertad, individual o social, de las mujeres para decidir a qué divinidad dirigirse (agency) y si el objeto y las formas de su comunicación con las deidades eran similares a los del género masculino.
Asimismo, puesto que las inscripciones son un soporte fundamental de la memoria en el mundo antiguo, su examen permite apreciar en qué medida hombres y mujeres dejaban constancia de sus experiencias religiosas y la implicación de unos y otros en la vida religiosa de la comunidad era visibilizada y recordada.
El objetivo de la presente comunicación es realizar un análisis de este tipo tomando como caso de estudio la ciudad caria de Cnido en tiempos helenísticos y romanos. La existencia de un santuario de Deméter y Koré en esta localidad, cuya abundante documentación epigráfica concierne principalmente al género femenino, en contraste con las inscripciones procedentes de otros lugares de culto locales, hace de Cnido un caso de estudio especialmente interesante.