Symposium: Men, age and embodiment: Power, hegemony and deconstruction

By Malena Gustavson on 16 Oct | 0 comments

If you wish to attend, please contact Malena Gustavson, malena.gustavson@liu.se before 1 December

Programme

12.30-12.45   Registration

12.45-13.00  Introduction Prof. Nina Lykke and prof. Jeff Hearn (Linköping University)

13.00-14.00  Aging bodies, constructions of masculinities, and the anti-aging industry
                   Professor Toni Calasanti (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA)

14.00-14.30  The slackening self: Concepts of agency in old manhood
                    Associate Professor Neal King (Virginia Tech, USA)

14.30-15.00  Coffee

15.00-15.30  Performing grandfatherhood: The intersections of age and masculinity
                   PhD student Anna Boden (University of Lancaster, UK)

15.30-16.00  Young, male and experiences of aging
                    Dr Niels Ulrik Soerensen (University of Aarhus, Denmark)

16.00-16.30  Getting intimate: Old Age, Masculinity and new(?) Heterosexual Morphologies
                    PhD student Linn Sandberg (Linköping University)

16.30-17.00  Break

17.00-18.00  Roundtable

Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

Mini conference: Men and masculinities in transnational contexts: Power, hegemony and deconstruction

By Malena Gustavson on 16 Oct | 0 comments

If you wish to attend, please contact: Malena Gustavson, malena.gustavson@liu.se before 9 November

Programme

9.15-10.15    Coffee & registration

10.15-10.30  Welcome
                   Prof. Nina Lykke (Linköping University, LiU)

10.30-11.00  Deconstructing the hegemony of men and masculinities
                   Prof. Jeff Hearn (LiU)

11.00-12.00  Male buyers in the global sex industry: Outsourcing women’s
                   subordination in business and leisure prostitution
                   Prof. Sheila Jeffreys (University of Melbourne, Australia)

12.00-13.00  Lunch

13.00-13.30  A bedroom of his own: Intersections of webcams, surveillance
                   and male sexuality in the transnational context
                   PhD student Alp Biricik (Linköping University)

13.30-14.30  Detours for heterosexuality:
                   Young boys viewing male bodies in pornography
                   Dr Niels Ulrik Soerensen (University of Aarhus, Denmark)

14.30-15.00  Coffee

15.00-16.00  Subversions of techno-masculinity in the global economy
                   Dr Winifred Poster (Washington University, St Louis, USA)

16.00-17.00  End panel

17.00           Mingling

Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

Seminar Series Autumn 2008

By Malena Gustavson on 18 Sep | 0 comments

GEXcel Theme 2 and Tema Genus Open Seminars

August 28, Thursday 13.15-15.00
Professor Raewyn Connell (University of Sydney, Australia): 'Globalisation and Gender Relations'
Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

September 17, Wednesday 13.15-15.00
Professor James Messerschmidt (University of Maine, USA): 'Masculinity, G.H.W. Bush and the First Gulf War' (provisional title)
Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

October 16, Thursday 13.15-15.00
Professor Robert Morrell (University of KwaZuluNatal, South Africa): 'Reflections on hegemonic masculinity in African context: Zulu masculinity and stickfighting'
Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

GEXcel mini conference: Men and masculinities in transnational contexts: Power, hegemony and deconstruction

If you wish to attend, please inform Dr Malena Gustavson, Email: malena.gustavson@liu.se 

 November 20, Thursday
Click here for full programme

• Professor Jeff Hearn (Linköping University, Sweden): ‘Deconstructing the hegemony of men and masculinities’

• Professor Sheila Jeffreys (University of Melbourne, Australia): ‘Male buyers in the global sex industry: Outsourcing women’s subordination in business and leisure prostitution’

• Dr Winifred Poster (Washington University in St Louis, USA): ‘Subversions of techno-masculinity in the global economy’ 

• Dr Niels Ulrik Soerensen (University of Aarhus, Denmark): ‘Detours for heterosexuality. Young boys viewing male bodies in pornography’

Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

GEXcel Theme 2 symposium: Men, age and embodiment: Power, hegemony and deconstruction

If you wish to attend, please inform Dr Malena Gustavson, Email: malena.gustavson@liu.se

December 2, Tuesday
Please click here for full programme

• Professor Toni Calasanti (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA): ‘Aging bodies, constructions of masculinities, and the anti-aging industry’

• Dr Niels Ulrik Soerensen (University of Aarhus, Denmark): ‘Young, male and experiences of aging’

• Anna Boden (University of Lancaster, UK): ‘Performing grandfatherhood: The intersections of age and masculinity’

• Associate Professor Neal King (Virginia Tech, USA): TBA 

Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

GEXcel Theme 2: internal seminars

November 19, Wednesday 13.15-17.00
TEMCAS, T-building

• 13.15 Professor Sheila Jeffreys (University of Melbourne, Australia): `Transgenderism and male domination: The social and political implications of a harmful traditional practice’

• 15.30 Dr Winifred Poster (Washington University in St Louis, USA): `Multi-level challenges by Indian professionals to US ICT hegemony’
 
Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

December 4, Thursday 13.15-17.00
Location: Faros, T-building

• 13.15 Professor Toni Calasanti (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA):  ‘Old men, masculinity, and spousal care work’

• 15.30 Anna Boden (University of Lancaster, UK): ‘Older men and ageing: gendered performance, intersectionality and identity’ (provisional title)
 
Chair: Prof. Jeff Hearn

**All speakers at GEXcel events are attached to GEXcel Theme 2 Deconstructing the hegemony of men and masculinities, Linköping University & Örebro University) as professorial, postdoctoral, doctoral or open position fellows, or, in the case of Professor Connell, member of the GEXcel International Advisory Board.
For more information on Theme 2, see: http://www.genderexcel.org/node/101
These Theme 2 events also build on ongoing work of the Research Group on Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities formed at LiU in 2006.

Seminar with Kimberlé Crenshaw: "The Curious Resurrection of First Wave Feminism in the US Elections"

By Gunnel Karlsson on 26 Feb | 0 comments

Kimberlé Crenshaw is one of the visting fellows of GEXcel Theme 1.

Seminar with Stevi Jackson: "Materialist Feminism, the Pragmatist Self and Global Late Modernity"

By Gunnel Karlsson on 26 Feb | 0 comments

Stevi Jackson is one of the visting fellows of GEXcel Theme 1.

Seminar with Ann Ferguson: "Global Gender Solidarity and a Feminist Paradigm of Justice"

By Gunnel Karlsson on 26 Feb | 0 comments

Ann Ferguson is one of the visiting fellows of GEXcel Theme 1.

Seminar with Xingkui Zhang: "Bao Ernai in China – a Contemporary Form of Polygamy or Sexual Exploitation of Women?"

By Gunnel Karlsson on 26 Feb | 0 comments

Xingkui Zhang is one of the visting fellows of GEXcel Theme 1.

Seminar with Eudine Barriteau: "Coming, Coming, Coming Home"

By Gunnel Karlsson on 26 Feb | 0 comments

Coming, Coming, Coming Home: Applying Anna Jónasdóttir’s Theory of Love Power to Theorising Sexuality and Power in Caribbean Gender Relations

Eudine Barriteau is one of the visiting fellows of GEXcel Theme 1.

International Conference: The War Question for Feminism

By Malena Gustavson on 21 Feb | 0 comments

The War Question for Feminism: Gender Aspects on Militaries, Armed Conflict and Peacekeeping

 22-23 September, 2008, Örebro University, Sweden

Gender aspects on militaries, armed conflict and peacekeeping and anti-war activism, 22-23 September, 2008, Örebro University, Sweden
Convenors are Erika Svedberg at Gender Studies, Örebro University and Annica Kronsell at the Department of Political Science, Lund University. The conference is organized in close collaboration with The Institute of Thematic Gender Studies, which is a new two-campus milieu for gender research at Linköping University and Örebro University in Sweden, led by Professors Nina Lykke and Anna Jónasdóttir. The institute is connected with GEXcel - Gendering Excellence (www.genderexcel.org), a five-years Visiting Fellows Programme which started in 2007 supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council. GEXcel gathers prominent senior as well as younger scholars from all over the world.

The full two-day conference will consist of a mixture of speeches by prominent scholars, panel debates and workshops with papers divided according to the three themes outlined below. There will also be a number of social events facilitating informal exchanges between conference participants. Although it is a scholarly conference based on research papers, a limited number or professionals working for governments, the EU as well as international non-governmental organizations have been invited to participate.

Speakers at the conference are:
Helena Carreiras, Cynthia Cockburn, Carol Cohn, Maud Eduards, Zillah Eisenstein, Jeff Hern, Paul Higate, Sophia Ivarsson, Annica Kronsell, Christine Sylvester, Tarja Väyrynen, Dubravka Zarkov.

Please find the programme and more info on the conference at: www.oru.se/sam/genderandwar

Theme 1: War as a Feminist Issue

The central argument for this theme is that war is a feminist issue/question. There is a long-standing and historical split within the women’s movement on whether to be pro-nation or pro-peace which seem to have made feminists somewhat uncomfortable with the war question. War is a feminist concern because conflict relations between states or organized groups affect women as well as men, violence used in violent conflict is often sexualized and because militaries and arms is a substantial part of public resource spending. If there would ever be a truly feminist state, would this state have a military organization? Would it have an army, weapon production and military spending? War is an economic issue and feminist researchers should not ignore the military/defense budget as part of the (welfare) state budget? Arms production and trade is also connected to military budgets and what would a feminist analysis of the arms trade come up with? The means used in the waging of contemporary wars – like rape, forced prostitution and other forms of sexual violence seem to be an integral part of the organized forms of violence. It shows that the means used in war-making are gendered. The trend for some militaries of western democratic states is to engage in the war on terror while another trend is to move much more into international peace-enforcement and peacekeeping. Is the trend to train militaries for peacekeeping tasks a way to de-militarize the military? Are the efforts of gender mainstreaming peacekeeping a way to feminize the military?   

Theme 2: Militarism and Masculinities

This theme takes the starting point in that the military organization historically has been exclusively male and part of nation building. Nation building is highly interconnected with militaries with conscription as an illustrative example. Norms relevant for military practice like hierarchy, group cohesion and organized violence as problem solving, have been tied to norms of heterosexual masculinity. How is masculinity related to the task of the military organization? What is the relationship between masculinity and the role of the warrior, in the ‘war on terror’ militaries, insurgency, and guerrillas or in peacekeeping? Are UN peacekeepers real men or ‘sissies in arms’? Sexuality has been an integral aspect of the military organization with the wide use of pornographic material, sexualized language, sexual harassment within bases and prostitution as well as rape near military bases. As we are seeing sexualized violence in war being used against both civilians and soldiers as part of strategic warfare we might ask; what is the relationship between patriarchy, militarism and misogyny in different contexts in contemporary warfare? What does this tell us about the relationship between military violence and sexuality? Can the military be democratized? Is it possible to think of a military where men and women serve side by side as comrades, without sexism? Is it possible to move beyond the heterosexual masculinity norm as an organizing
principle of the military?

Theme 3: Feminist concepts travelling into the area of security, the military, violent conflicts and peacekeeping operations

The focus of this theme is on travelling concepts. The idea of travelling concepts was developed in the Women’s Studies/Gender Studies project Athena with the aim of considering how concepts introduced and developed by feminist scholars are used for particularly educational but also research purposes in different European contexts. A central question is how feminist concepts may be translated across linguistic and cultural barriers while still conveying the same meaning. What happens when concepts travel? When feminist concepts are put into practice, do they acquire new meanings? When new meanings develop, how can they be understood? What does it tell us about the context in which they are being used? In this theme we are particularly concerned with the translation and implementation of feminist concepts into political, policy and administrative settings. Central questions are how have, for example, the concepts of gender/gender mainstreaming/gender perspectives been used or put into practice in security, defense and military understandings and settings. One example here is the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. We want to look at how concepts from feminist research and activism travel from one setting to, for example different national settings of security policy and military strategy.

_____________________________

The title of this conference was inspired by the work of Christine Sylvester. Convenors are Erika Svedberg from the Institute of Thematic Gender Studies and Örebro University and Annica Kronsell from the Department of political science at Lund University. The convenors were part of a group organizing the international conference at Lund University: A World in Transition. Feminist Perspectives on International Relations, in May 1996. A selection of papers and summaries of workshop discussions were published as a special edition of Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 1997.This conference is a follow-up of that successful event.

The War Question for Feminism-conference is organized within the Institute of Thematic Gender Studies a new two-campus milieu for gender research at Linköping University and Örebro University in Sweden, led by Professors Nina Lykke and Anna Jónasdóttir. The conference is connected with GEXcel – Gendering Excellence (www.genderexcel.org), a fiveyears Visiting Fellows Programme which started in 2007 supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council. GEXcel gathers prominent senior as well as younger scholars from all over the world.

GEXcel Conference of Workshops May 2008 - Programme

By Gunnel Karlsson on 17 Dec | 0 comments

Conference Workshop Format

The conference will begin with three keynote addresses from leading scholars in the field. Friday and Saturday will be full days of workshop meetings. A final plenary will be held on Sunday morning where summaries of major research and discussion themes will be presented.

Workshops are designed to be a forum for discussion of research in progress precisely related to the conference sub-themes and to facilitate collaboration among junior and senior scholars. Each sub-theme will have 10 participants from several institutions, lasting 2 days.
Only those scholars currently working in the workshop's field will be accepted to participate.

The workshop format is intended to enhance participation in a collegial atmosphere. Each participant (10 per sub-theme) presents a paper or research document for discussion, and takes part in the discussion of the other sub-theme papers presented. In addition, each sub-theme participant will be assigned the role of formal discussant on one paper all sub-theme participants will participate in open discussion in their group. Each sub-theme will be assigned a coordinator, whose tasks will include maintaining the group’s schedule of presentation, summarizing research and discussion themes and presenting these summaries at the closing plenary.

The sub-themes are:
1. Sexuality, Love and Social Theory
2. Power and Politics: A Feminist View
3. Common and Conflicted: Rethinking Interest, Solidarity and Action

We expect these workshops to lead to publications, as well as to continued collaboration between members.

.......................................................................................

Thursday May 22
11.00-13.00 Registration

Plenary Session
Location: BIO, Forumhuset

13.00-13.10   Welcome to GEXcels first thematic conference, by Prof. Nina Lykke, director of GEXcel
13.10-13.20   Presentation of the conference theme “Gender, Sexuality and Global Change”
                    by Prof. Anna G. Jónasdóttir, theme leader
13.20-15.00   "Contract, Gender and Global Change"
                    Carole Pateman
                    Professor of Political Science, UCLA/ University of California, USA
                    Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of European Studies,
                    Cardiff University, UK
                    Charles W. Mills
                    Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA
15.00-15.30   Coffee
15.30-16.30   "The Politics of Prostitution Revisited"
                    Joyce Outshoorn
                    Professor of Women’s Studies, Leiden University, Netherlands
Evening         Dinner

Friday May 23
Workshops in three groups arranged by sub-theme
Location: Room F105, P105, P114 , Forumhuset

09.00-10.10   Workshops
10.10-10.30   Coffee
10.30-11.30   Workshops
11.30-13.00   Lunch
13.00-15.00   Workshops
15.00-15.30   Coffee
15.30-16.30   Workshops
Evening         Dinner free for everyone to arrange

Saturday May 24
Workshops in three groups arranged by sub-theme
Location: Room L146, L144, L142, Långhuset

09.00-10.10   Workshops
10.10-10.30   Coffee
10.30-11.30   Workshops
11.30-13.00   Lunch
13.00-15.00   Workshops
15.00-15.30   Coffee
15.30-16.30   Workshops
Evening         Dinner and entertainment

Sunday May 25
Plenary Session
Location: BIO, Forumhuset

10.00-11.00   Reports from workshops
11.00-12.00   Discussion
12.00            Lunch 

See abstracts