»Against Our Will« Forty Years After: Exploring the Field of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict

International Conference 2 – 4 July 2015, Yu Garden, Hamburg, Germany

Conference Programme

Thursday, 2 July

Public Event
»Against Our Will. Men, Women and Rape« 1975-2015. A Book and it's Impact. A Conversation with Susan Brownmiller
Yuki Tanaka and Gaby Zipfel
Moderation: Regina Mühlhäuser

Friday, 3 July

Conference Introduction
Kirsten Campbell, Regina Mühlhäuser and Gaby Zipfel

Section I: War / Power

Plenary Inputs

  • Joanna Bourke, War
  • Aaron Belkin, Military Masculinities
  • Louise du Toit, Armed Conflict
  • Meredeth Turshen, Political Economies

 Moderator: Dubravka Zarkov

Discussion Groups

1. Empowerment / Powerlessness in and of war

  • Input: Atreyee Sen, Mahila Aghadi (Women's Front) - Female Agency in India in Overlapping Situations of Conflict / Non-Conflict, Private /Public
  • Rapporteur: Júlia Garraio
  • Moderator: Claire Andrieu

2. Military Culture

  • Input: Yonson Ahn, »Taming Soldiers«. Gender Politics of Japanese Soldiers in Total War
  • Rapporteur: Raphaëlle Branche
  • Moderator: Valerie Oosterveld

3. War as State of Society

  • Input: Na-Young Lee, Post/Colonial Presence of Japanese Military »Comfort Women«
  • Rapporteur: Debra Bergoffen
  • Moderator: Elma Demir

4. The Normative/ »Normal« vs. the »Abnormal«

  • Input: Na-Young Lee, Post/Colonial Presence of Japanese Military »Comfort Women«
  • Rapporteur: Debra Bergoffen
  • Moderator: Elma Demir

Section II: Violence / Sexuality

Plenary Inputs

  • Renée Heberle, Can Masculinity Survive the End of Sexual Violence?
  • Jan Phillipp Reemtsma, What is Sexual about Sexual Violence?
  • Patricia Viseur Sellers, Legitimacy and Illegitimacy of Sexual Violence
  • Gaby Zipfel, What Do Bodies Tell?

 Moderator: Joshua S. Goldstein

Discussion Groups

1. Changing Practices and Ideas of Sexuality and Violence

  • Input: Chris Coulter, Female Combatants in Sierra Leone
  • Rapporteur: Atreyee Sen
  • Moderator: Gorana Mlinarevic

2. Contested Meanings (Perpetrator / Victim)

  • Input: Mary Louise Roberts, American GIs in France during WW II
  • Rapporteur: Joanna Bourke
  • Moderator: Atina Grossmann

3. Un/Speakability

  • Input: Pascale Bos, Sexual Violence in Nazi Concentration Camps
  • Rapporteur: Elissa Mailänder
  • Moderator: Elissa Helms

4. Sexual Imaginaries

  • Input: Christa Hämmerle, Ego-Documents of Nurses during WW I
  • Rapporteur: Yuki Tanaka
  • Moderator: Tuba Inal

Saturday, 4 July

Section III: Sex and Gender / Engendering

Plenary Inputs

  • Doris Bergen, The Role of Gender in the Analysis of Violence?
  • Dubravka Zarkov, Intersectionality
  • Ruth Seifert, The Disappearance of Gender as Analytical Category?
  • Kirsten Campbell, The Gender of Justice?

Moderator: Debra Bergoffen

Discussion Groups

1. Aftermath: Gendering Effects of Sexual Violence

  • Input: medica mondiale, Narratives of Survivors of Sexual Violence from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from Kosovo
  • Rapporteur: Lisa Gabriel
  • Moderator: Andrea Petö

2. Intersectionality

  • Input: Chiseche Mibenge, Witnesses of Sexual Violence in Rwanda and Sierra Leone and International Law
  • Rapporteur: Miranda Alison
  • Moderator: Mina Watanabe

3. Different Constellations: Male Victims / Female Perpetrators

  • Input: Nayanika Mookherjee, The Genital Inspection of Men during the Bangladesh Liberation War. On the History of a Picture
  • Rapporteur: Dubravka Zarkov
  • Moderator: Jasmina Husanovic

4. Engendering Social Relations

  • Input: Debra Bergoffen and Robin May Schott, A Conversation on Sexual Violence during Genocide
  • Rapporteur: Louise du Toit
  • Moderator: Donna Pankhurst

Round Table
How is Sexual Violence Made In/Visible? A Comparative View

  • Yuki Tanaka, The Denial of the »Comfort Women« Issue in Japan
  • Regina Mühlhäuser, At all Fronts: Sexual Violence by German, Japanese and Allied Soldiers during WW II
  • Ngwarsungu Chiwengo, Human Rights Discourse and Rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Rashida Manjoo, Sexual Violence in War and Peace

 Moderator: Carol Harrington

Results and Perspectives
Elissa Mailänder and Júlia Garraio

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