Women – Violence – 1968

This international conference brings together scholars from literary and cultural studies, politics, history, law, and peace and security studies to explore the relationship of women, violence, and “1968”. We are hoping for an intensive, cross-disciplinary exchange that will enable us to intervene collectively in the discussions that will certainly accompany the 50th anniversary year of “68” in 2018. There are no parallel panels: the intention is to think collaboratively and expansively across disciplines, to explore and develop the potential of interdisciplinary scholarship, and to support a better understanding of the complex issues inherent to studying gender and revolution.

The conference covers four broad areas of enquiry:

• Women-violence-discourse (Keynote: Professor Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey)
• Defining (counter)violence: activism, militancy, resistance (Keynote: Professor Jeremy Varon)
• “1968” inter- and transnationally (Keynote: Professor Claudia Derichs)
• Gender, memory, and historiography (Keynote: Professor Barbara Becker-Cantarino)

Other confirmed external speakers include Professor Julian Bourg, Dr Dominique Grisard, Professor Patricia Melzer, Dr Kristina Schulz, Professor Charity Scribner, Professor Petra Terhoeven.

The conference takes place in the context of a DAAD-sponsored cross-disciplinary research partnership between the Department of German and Dutch at Cambridge and the Institute for Criminological Social Research (IKS) at the University of Hamburg, and the collaborative research project Reading Violent Politics (https://readingviolentpolitics.wordpress.com/). As the culmination of that two-year project, the conference expands the focus beyond Germany to address the internationally relevant phenomena of revolution, radicalism, violence, gender and memory.