Gender / Violence International Conference

4-6 April 2012
Gender and Women's Studies Research and Application Center (EKOKAM). Izmir University of Economics

With the maturation of feminist, gay and lesbian and queer theories, gender and violence have been inseperable terms in critical discourses of all disciplines. Taking a broad spectrum of forms from the most obvious versions of domestic violence to more subtle forms of intolerance, violence has been a recurrent term in contemporary theory and an embarrassingly convenient strategy of gender discrimination in practice. Inevitably tied to issues of race and class, less visible forms of violence are even more threatening as they cannot be isolated. Far from disturbing everyday life, they constitute commonly acceptable bodies, spaces and politics the gendered nature of which often remains invisible.

The aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to understand and expose the violence involved in the very production of bodies, spaces and politics. It will open up the question of violence to inspire different trajectories of thinking and action towards the production different bodies, different spaces and different politics. In the final analysis this is an ethical project inquiring into the possibility of theorizing and acting from a place of openness to hearing the voice of the other.

Conference Themes
Body
Representations of violence in art
Cosmetic surgery
Gendered violence in the mental health system
The construction of sexed bodies in torture
Everyday constructions of masculinities and femininities
Rape
Migrant bodies

Space
War zones
Constructions of gendered public spaces
Spaces of migration and asylum
Domesticity and violence
Ghettoization of gender / violence
Queering public space
Gendered violence in virtual space

Politics
Theorizing violence / non-violence
Technologies of violence and control
Ethnicity / race / gender / violence
Discrimination
Law as recognition and confrontation
Gendered constructions of political discourse
Representations of gendered violence in the media

Please write an abstract of 300-350 words by October 15, 2011 for your paper proposals on one
of the conference themes. Abstracts should be single-spaced (Arial, 12 pts.) The title of your paper, your name and affiliation should be printed on a separate page. Applicants will be notified on the acceptance status of their papers by November 15, 2011. Please e-mail your abstracts to: ekokam@ieu.edu.tr For further information see the conference website.