Gender, Mass Violence, and Genocide is the 2015-16 Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) colloquium that consisted of eight events tightly linked to a newly established field of research in genocide studies: gender-sensitive scholarship on mass violence and genocide. According to von Joeden-Forgey, a gendered analysis of “genocide as a process: its roots, its immediate causes, its shape, its aftermath, and ultimately, its definition” will lead to both “a better understand(ing) of the crime” and the improvement of “protocols for preventing and responding to it.”[1]
These events had two foci, the first showing how gender structures and mediates experiences of mass violence and genocide, including the nature of pre-genocidal propaganda, the agency and victimization of men and women, and the use and effects of certain genocidal tools (e.g., sexual violence, selective mass killing, and slavery). The second was how attention to gender can help to predict, prevent, and reconcile mass violence and genocide. For example, the events collectively speak to gendered precursors to (and early warning signs of) genocide, gendered memories of trauma, and gendered efforts to rebuild and restore justice after genocide.
To best address these two foci, the events engaged comparative perspectives and in-depth reflections on specific historical events. Consistent with Fein, they address elements of gender-specific and gender-neutral genocides, and they examine both women and men as agents (or perpetrators) and victims of mass violence and genocide.[2] The eight events also offer deliberately diverse disciplinary perspectives on the topics; bringing together fifteen scholars from a range of humanities and humanities-oriented disciplines, including History, Psychology, Philosophy, Women’s and Gender Studies, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Comparative Genocide Studies, Linguistics, Political Science, Sociology, English and Comparative Literature, and Jurisprudence.
[1] Elisa von Joeden-Forgery, “Gender and the Future of Genocide Studies and Prevention,” Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, 7, 1 (2012); 89-107; pp. 90-91.
[2] Helen Fein, “Genocide and Gender: The Uses of Women and Group Destiny,” (Journal of Genocide Research 1, 1 (1989); 43-64.
The 2015-16 Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) & National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) colloquium, Gender, Mass Violence and Genocide, was organized by Dr. Amy E. Traver, Professor of Sociology at Queensborough Community College, CUNY. Initiated in the 2012-13 academic year, this colloquia series was made possible thanks to support from a five year NEH Challenge Grant. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this web resource do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.