Part 1: Feminist Theorizing and re-thinking Gender and War

The lectures in this part address the theoretical challenges of rethinking Gender and War from the different positions of the feminist theorizing. It starts from the marking the core concepts in the discussion of what does the russia’s war in XXIst century change and challenge in terms of societal and gender order, globally, regionally and locally, which theories and concepts can work for better understanding current trends of changes. The next class is devoted to the intersectional analysis as one of the tool in teorising and empirical studies of gender related issues, with the special focus on the homonationalism and peace studies. The next two topics are opening the studies of the war as gendered experience through analysis of violence, from the rethoric and justifications to the focus on sexual violence as a weapon in the war. Finally, we will be back to the discussion of the gender order through the lenses of feminist perspective on the war, nationalism and militarism, going beyond the war and peace dychotomy.

Discription: To start the course we debate the current definitions of gender, war, and peace in terms of both the ontological challenge of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the region in the XXIst century for the world sustainable development, and theoretical grounds of de-colonial feminist theory, world values shift and clash of civilizations concepts. Arguing the global nature of Russia’s war in Ukraine we put in the frontline of rethinking war and peace in categories of gender order, empowerment, solidarity and conviviality (feminist theory), civilizational clash of the values (sociology and cultural studies) and ruling regimes (political science and legal studies), and hence developing interdisciplinary grounds for the further topics of the course.

Lecturer: Svitlana Babenko, Lund University \ Malmö University

Video recording on the YouTube

Reader: Maria Mayerchyk and Olga Plakhotnik, Uneventful Feminist Protest in Post-Maidan Ukraine: Nation and Colonialism Revisited,In Postcolonial and Postsocialist Dialogues: Intersections, Opacities, Challenges in Feminist Theorizing and Practice, ed. Koobak, Redi, Madina Tlostanova and Suruchi Thapar-Björkert (Routledge, 2021).

Additional reading (in Ukrainian)

Discription: In this joint lecture By Terese Anving (Lund University, Sweden) and Andrei Vazyanau (European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania), the concept of intersectionality is introduced. We trace the development of approach from seminal texts of the 1990s towards its more recent applications to the concept of homonationalism as well as peace studies.

Lecturers: Terese Anving, Lund University and Andrei Vazyanau, European Humanities University

Video recording on the YouTube

Reader:

Stavrevska, E.B. and Smith, S., 2020. Intersectionality and peace. In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies (pp. 1-8). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Open access.
Further readings:

Crenshaw, K. W. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of anti- discrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1(8), 138–167.

Kimberlé Crenshaw Ted talk: The urgency of intersectionalityhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o

Farris, Sara R. In the name of women's rights: The rise of femonationalism. Duke University Press, 2017.

Ferguson, Roderick A. Aberrations in black: Toward a queer of color critique. U of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Peterson, V. S. (2007). Thinking through intersectionality and war. Race, Gender & Class 14(3-4):10-27.

Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times. Duke University Press, 2018.

Mole, Richard. "Sexualities and queer migration research." Sexualities 21, no. 8 (2018): 1268-1270.

Sargsyan, Nelli. "“I Am Queer Because I Am Armenian”: On the Queerness of Racially Ambiguous Diasporic Belonging." Transforming Anthropology 29, no. 1 (2021): 43-57.

Yuval-Davis, Nira. "Gender and Nation." Women, ethnicity and nationalism: The politics of transition (1998): 23-35.

Леся Пагуліч. 2016. «Чи можливо квірити націю: інтерсекційність і квір-політики» Політична критика
Юля Сердюкова, Ірина Танцюра, надія чушак. 2021. «Нас не можна включити на ваших умовах»: квір-критика імперіалістичного погляду в «Гейкейшн: Україна». Критика феміністична #5, 2022: 29-52. https://doi.org/10.52323/543921

Discription: In this lecture I propose to discuss the gendered representations of the experience of war in literature, cinema and photography. These experience(s) may be very diverse - be it the affective and bodily experience of facing war; surviving physical violence; fighting the enemy on the battlefield or acting in the underground resistance; surviving under occupation; suffering pain, hunger, cold, fear and uncertainty; being a refugee; worrying about loved ones; coping with the trauma of a survivor or a witness, and much more. It is an experience that is difficult and sometimes impossible to talk about, and yet we gain knowledge on it through various media representations and multivocal documented evidences (many of which later become the basis for films and visual art projects).

Lecturers: Almira Ousmanova, European Humanities University

Video recording on the YouTube

Reader: Alexievich, Svetlana (1985) The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II (New York: Random House, 2017);pp.1 – 11, 144 – 167.

French, Sarah. (2008) ‘From History to Memory: Alain Resnais’ and Marguerite Duras’Hiroshima Mon Amour’, EMAJ.Issue 3, 2008

Gallagher, Jean (1998). The world wars through the female gaze. Southern Illinois University Press.

Sontag, Susan Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003

Filmography:

Before the Rain (Milcho Manchevski, 1994)

Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)

Defiance (Edward Zwick, 2008)

Hannah Arendt (Margarethe von Trotta, 2012)

Hiroshima, mon amour (Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras , 1959)

Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)

In Darkness (Agnieszka Holland, 2011)

Where Do We Go Now? (Nadine Labaki, 2011)
Description: Despite the fact that sexual violence had played a prominent role in different wars in different historical times, only in the 1990s it has become a world human rights issue. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda fostered the reconceptualization of sexual violence in conflicts from a “by-product of war” to a war crime, a crime against humanity, and a crime of genocide. The concept of “rape as a weapon of war” became widespread in political, media, and academic discourses. Nonetheless, modern wars, including the Russian war in Ukraine, show different patterns and functions of sexual violence that could be planned, orchestrated, encouraged, or tolerated by military leadership.

Other forms of sexual violence in armed conflicts are committed out of opportunity and do not pursue group goals. The lecture addresses the following questions: What is sexual/political about conflict-related sexual violence? What is the meaning and functions of sexual violence in armed conflicts? What signs of intended sexual violence in war? What are the constraints of the rape as a weapon of war concept?

Lecturers: Marta Havryshko Clark university, USA

Video recording on the YouTube

Reader:

Havryshko, Marta. 2023. Weapon of War: Sexual Violence of Russian Military during the Full- Scale Invasion in Ukraine, Commons, 2023, February 27.
Link

Buss, Doris. 2009. Rethinking ‘Rape as a Weapon of War'Fem Legal Stud 17(2):145–163.
Link

Additional reading:

Baaz, Maria Eriksson, and Maria Stern. 2013. Sexual Violence As a Weapon of War?: Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond. Africa Now. London: Zed Books.

Muehlhaeuser, Regina. 2017. “Reframing Sexual Violence as a Weapon and Strategy of War: The Case of the German Wehrmacht During the War and Genocide in the Soviet Union, 1941–1944.” Journal of the history of sexuality 26(3): 366–401.

Card, Claudia. 1996. “Rape as a Weapon of War.”, Hypatia, vol. 11 (4): 5-18.

Morris, Madeline. 1996. “By Force of Arms: Rape, War, and Military Culture,” 45 Duke Law Journal, 651-781.

Waller, James. 2012. “Rape as a Tool of ‘Othering’ in Genocide, Rittner, Carol, and John K Roth. 2012. Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide. 1st ed. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 83-100.
Discription: During the lecture I will explore the feminist perspectives on war, violence and militarism, as well as gendered experiences of forced displacement as a result of armed conflicts. I will particularly elaborate on the complex reality of how the wars are experienced beyond the binary conceptualization of war and peace, the problematization of what “postconflict” actually means, the feminist challenges of the monolithic category of women within the contexts of wars, transformed gender roles during and after the wars and feminist perspectives on militarized violence. I will also pay attention to how experiences of extremes of violent events are gendered as they become inseparable parts of the everyday of people who experience wars and forced displacement.

Lecturers: Nargiza Arjevanidze, Ilia State University

Video recording on the YouTube

Reader:

Carol Cohn (2012) "Women and Wars: Toward a Conceptual Framework” in Women and Wars, 2012. Edited by Carol Cohn, pp.1-35.
Link

Cynthia Enloe (2000) Maneuvers, chapter 7. Filling the Ranks: Militarizing Women as Mothers Mothers, Soldiers, Feminists, and Fashion Designers.
Link