2024 Summer
WGS337H5S: Special Topics in Women and Gender Studies: Women in War and Peace (Instructor: P. Saeedi)
Renowned military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, describes war as “politics by other means”, and politics, as has been noted by Joane Nagel, can seem “almost quaint in its masculinist exclusiveness.” No wonder why any hint of bellicosity on the part of women has invoked fraught phrases such as fatale monstrum (Horace), “monstrous feminine” (Creed), and vagina dentata (Freud). Yet, as chronicled by Nobel laureate, Svetlana Alexievich, notwithstanding the title of her acclaimed book, The Unwomanly Face of War (2017), women, in addition to serving as nurses, and doctors, have, in fact, fought on the battlefronts. At a juncture when the world finds itself embroiled in warfare, it is important to not only highlight women’s recognized role as peacemakers, but also fill in what, political scientist, J. Ann Tickner, refers to as “awkward silences”, by delving into herstories and representations of women warriors and female victims of war in a variety of literary, filmic, and historical contexts, which is what this course is all about.