Preliminary Programme

Tue 26 February
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 27 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 28 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 29 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Sat 1 March
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 26 February 2008 16.30
D-2 WOR07 Gender History in Transnational Perspectiv (roundtable)
Cave D
Networks: Women and Gender , World History Chair: Judith P. Zinsser
Organizers: - Discussant: Judith P. Zinsser
Ann Allen : "Lost in Translation? Gender History in National and Transnational Perspective."
Because the various cultural, economic, and political factors that shape gender relations overlap national boundaries, gender history lends itself well to transnational and comparative approaches. But as many historians have noted, the writing of this kind of history raises many problems. Some claim that the emphasis on overarching patterns and ... (Show more)
Because the various cultural, economic, and political factors that shape gender relations overlap national boundaries, gender history lends itself well to transnational and comparative approaches. But as many historians have noted, the writing of this kind of history raises many problems. Some claim that the emphasis on overarching patterns and broad, transnational trends tends to flatten out the essentially peculiar, local, and unique character of historical events and actors. This paper will argue that, on the contrary, transnational approaches can bring national and local peculiarities into sharper focus. The example that I will use is the history of feminism, and more specifically feminist conceptions of motherhood. By looking at the ways in which an international ideology was received, modified, and practiced in the context of national cultures, the historian can suggest what was distinctive to each nation. (Show less)

Swapna Banerjee : The Father and the Child : Fatherhood as a Vector of Masculinity in Colonial India
India’s encounter with the West through British colonialism produced a socio-cultural climate that fostered a new group of intelligentsia in the nineteenth century who began to question the past and the continuing social customs and envisioned a series of social practices and behavior that pertained to men, women and children ... (Show more)
India’s encounter with the West through British colonialism produced a socio-cultural climate that fostered a new group of intelligentsia in the nineteenth century who began to question the past and the continuing social customs and envisioned a series of social practices and behavior that pertained to men, women and children in the domestic domain. Bengal, with Calcutta (now Kolkata) as the imperial capital until 1911, was particularly prolific in spawning this social group known as the bhadralok or the educated middle-class who envisioned a new model of womanhood, family, children and the new nation. These early intellectuals as founding fathers of an incipient nation left ample documents of their newly evolved notions of an ideal family, the roles of the new woman—an ideal mother and a perfect wife and normative codes of how to raise a child. My paper is an exercise to reverse the gaze and examine [through autobiographical writings of men and women] how these founding fathers, the members of the intelligentsia performed fatherhood in real life. What role model did they conform to and what was the message they were imparting to children of the future generation? Through an examination of a variety of literary sources such as letters, memoirs, and autobiographies my paper will examine the new visions that were attached to the performance of fatherhood—from the early social reformers writing for children to Jawaharlal Nehru writing to her daughter Indira (Gandhi), later to become the Prime Minister of India. My paper aims to analyze how the practices and notions of fatherhood was produced in colonial India through an intersection with the colonial state and to what extent were they tied to the projects of colonial modernity. Can the use of discipline and punishment in performance of fatherhood be seen as vectors of masculinity? A critical examination of the notion and performance of fatherhood by the intelligentsia of colonial India and its bearings on children’s lives will shed light on the cultures of childhood and the national culture of India. (Show less)

Anne Cova : "Women and Associativism in France, Italy, and Portugal, 1900-1945"
The presentation will compare the development of feminist associations in three Southern European countries: the French Conseil national des femmes françaises, the Italian Consiglio nazionale delle donne italiane, and the Portuguese Conselho nacional das mulheres portuguesas. The period covered will be the first half of the twentieth century.

Jennifer Morris : Father to the World's Children: The United Nations Children's Fund
Few charitable organizations have achieved the status of global recognition enjoyed by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, which embodies the international effort to provide for needy children the world over. Created because of its synchronicity with the UN's stated purpose—to maintain peace in the world—UNICEF launched its operations in ... (Show more)
Few charitable organizations have achieved the status of global recognition enjoyed by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, which embodies the international effort to provide for needy children the world over. Created because of its synchronicity with the UN's stated purpose—to maintain peace in the world—UNICEF launched its operations in 1946. Its founding, early operations and eventual restructuring reveal a great deal about concurrent political and economic events, but also provide keen insight into international ideas about the postwar family as well as the roles of its individual members.
The consequences of UNICEF’s policies, procedures and practices in the post-war world led to the prescription of appropriate roles for family members not on the basis of the UN’s promise to create equality for men and women, but according to sex-specific gender roles. Fluctuations in gender roles and what comprised a family ceased at the end of World War II, and UNICEF’s Executive Committee followed suit by relegating women to the singular role of mother, a person without whom her children would surely perish.
UNICEF, in the unique position to globalize ideas and individual roles for family members due to its rapid expansion throughout the world, failed to make any marked changes to these roles in the West. Its reliance on pre-war images also caused friction when these conflicted with cultures whose notions of family differed from those in the Western world, most evident in UNICEF’s programs in Asia. (Show less)



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