The VIII Nordic Women's And Gender History Conference is pleased to offer a forum for several Nordic networks introducing new research perspectives in the form of a round table meeting.
Round table meetings are open for the audience and consist of several short papers or presentations, comments and panel discussions. Many of the round tables presented below aim to introduce new topics of research or to make fresh research initiatives in the field of women's history and Nordic research co-operation. Some other sessions are connected to more established networks and projects presenting their research.
NB Please notice that (at) in the e-mail addresses
is to be replaced with @
Note also that further information will be available at the pages later on and
that changes in the program are possible.
At the Margins of Prostitution Control. The Nordic Countries 1880-1940
13th August, 16.30–18.00
The project "At the Margins of Prostitution Control. The Nordic Countries 1880-1940" was started by the Swedish researchers Yvonne Svanström and Anna Jansdotter. The result will be presented in an edited volume with contributions from researchers from Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In many countries, laws on prostitution are under revision and have been during the last decade. Different European countries have contrary approaches. In spite of these now very different approaches many countries have a mutual history in earlier attempts at regulating prostitution. During the nineteenth century most European countries had medically and spatially controlled prostitution. Our round-table discussions starts off from these similarities, and moving on, discusses the feminist fight against prostitution, and how issues of male and female were constructed in that discourse; how women were polarised against women. How could liberal ideas of citizenship be formulated at the same time as women were controlled, and how can a change from seeing venereal disease as a question of moral to a question of health – but still under the force of law – be understood?
Moderators/contacts: Dr. Anna Jansdotter, Lunds universitet / Historiska institutionen (anna.jansdotter(at)hist.lu.se) and Dr. Yvonne Svanström, Stockholms universitet / Ekonomisk historiska institutionen (yvonne.svanstrom(at)ekohist.su.se)
Discussants:
Prof. Pirjo Markkola, University of Tampere / Department of history
Dr. Merete Bøge Pedersen, Aarhus Universitet / Institut for Historie
og Områdestudier
M.A. Elisabeth Koren, Universitetet i Bergen / Rokkansenteret
Men, money and friendship - ways of analysing the organization of women's movement
13th August, 14.30–16.00 (abstracts)
During recent years, research on the women's movement has been extensive. Today
we have great knowledge regarding what the first women's movement was fighting
for and its course of action. Research has focused on the importance of discourses
and the legal and social conditions for women's organizing. The aim of this
session is to focus on methods to study different forms of women's organizing
and how to move further in analyzing women's movements.
Christina Florin discusses the use of correspondence in studying the Swedish
suffrage movement. Pernilla Jonsson and Silke Neunsinger discuss comparative
and transnational approaches to women's organizing, with examples from the first
wave of bourgeois and socialist women's organizations in Sweden and Canada.
Sigríður Matthíasdóttir focuses on relations to men
in power and their importance to the Icelandic women's movement. Brit Stuksrud
discusses a local approach and the importance of the press for women's organizing.
Jóhanna Jochumsdottir focuses on the relation between the national and
the transnational level of action of the Icelandic suffrage movement. Lovisa
af Petersén's paper gives examples on the importance of international
women's congresses, using the National Council of Women of Sweden as an example.
The discussion will be held in English.
Contacts: Dr. Silke Neunsinger, Uppsala University / Department of Economic History (Silke.Neunsinger(at)ekhist.uu.se)
Chair: Dr. Ulla Manns, Genusvetenskap, Södertörns Högskola
Commentator: Prof Hilda Roemer Christensen, University of Copenhagen / Department
of Sociology
Discussants:
Prof. Christina Florin, Stockholm University / Department of History
Dr. Pernilla Jonsson, Uppsala University / Department of Economic History
Dr. Sigríður Matthíasdóttir, University of Iceland / Department of History
Dr. Silke Neunsinger, Uppsala University / Department of Economic History
M.A. Lovisa af Petersens, Stockholm University / Departement of History
Brit Struksrud, Universitetet i Bergen
Jóhanna J. Jochumsdóttir, Univeristy of Rutgers, U.S.A
Gendered Memories and Images in the Post WWII Nordic Countries
12th August, 16.30–18.00 (abstracts)
The aim of the participants in the session is to explore the processes of memory concerning the WWII in three Nordic countries. Gender is a central analytical focus point in our discussions on the making of historical consciousness of the war. The papers deal with Danish stories about the occupation 1940-45 by families in three generations (Helle Bjerg & Karen Steller Bjerregaard, Denmark), The images of Norwegian women in the resistance movement (Claudia Lenz, Germany) and The Retelling of the History of Lotta Svärd (Tiina Kinnunen, Finland).
Contact: Tiina Kinnunen, Joensuu University, (tiina.kinnunen(at)joensuu.fi)
Chair: Dr. Anette Warring, University of Roskilde / Institut for historie og
samfundsforhold (anew(at)ruc.dk)
Commentator: Kjersti Ericsson, University of Oslo
Den kolde krig - en kønnet konflikt?
14th August, 9.30–11.00 (abstracts)
Storkonflikten mellem øst og vest under den kolde krig satte både rammerne for staternes handlemuligheder og formede menneskers livsvilkår. Krigen udspillede sig ikke kun militært og politisk men også kulturelt og prægede den hverdagslige forestillingsverden. I kampen mellem en østlig og vestlig moderniseringsmodel var ligestilling mellem kønnene på den ene side en central markør for en overlegen og efterstræbelsesværdig samfundsmodel. På den anden side var traditionelle forestillinger om kønnenes komplementaritet et vigtigt fundament i det totale forsvar mod atomtruslen. Sessionen vil med forskellige oplæg tematisere den kolde krig som et kønnet fænomen.
Moderator: Ph.d., lektor, Anette Warring, Roskilde Universitetscenter
/ Institut for historie og samfundsforhold (anew(at)ruc.dk)
Discussants include (to be confirmed later)
Iben Vyff (Danmark): Kønnets betydning i danskernes møde med Sovjet
og USA i 1950'erne - belyst gennem danske rejseskildringer
Marie Cronqvist (Sverige) Nuclear Family - Nuclear Age. Kvindernes rolle i atomalderens
civilforsvar.
Dr. Irene Andersson, Malmö University: "Fredsälskande kvinnor"
- ett hot under kalla kriget
Gymnastics and Dance in Forming Femininities in the Nordic Countries
13th August, 14.30–16.00, 16.30–18.00 (abstracts)
Gymnastics became the most important female arena in both the school systems' and volunteer organizations' curricula in the development of modern physical culture in the Nordic countries. At an early stage this involved a dispute about power and knowledge, concerning as well the definition of form, content and instruction of girls' physical education in schools as women's ability to determine for themselves the forms and goals for their physical cultural activities.
Focusing research on women's gymnastics and dance reveals this central area in many women's lives and questions the negative stereotyping to which it is often subjected.
In the developing modern physical culture the area of "physical education and sport", in its narrowest definition, was the accepted and male-dominated field of physical exercise. Simultaneously, other forms of physical activities were "declassified", such as folk games or dance in various forms. These undeniable and thus uncontrollable areas were neglected by the hegemonic male knowledge on the human body and its needs. Along with sports regulations in the terms of "pure competition" the field of sport became even more narrowly defined. Changing boundaries regarding competitive sport was an important process where knowledge of women's physiology and psychology was applied for excluding women.
Women's knowledge of the body and the cultural and social life developed in another direction, as women both as groups and individuals were directed into the margins. Their relation to the hegemonic knowledge and physical exercises became more open and flexible.
The Swedish Per Henrik Ling developed the first scientifically based physical education system in the Nordic countries in the early 19th century, based on the modern medicine and physiology. Soon it won international acceptance, and was spread in the other Nordic countries especially in elementary schools and girls' schools. But it also was opposed and neglected on several fronts for various political-national reasons.
Ling's system was developed for men, but with modifications the scientific system became of great significance for women, when, Ling's Institute in Stockholm opened its doors to women in the 1860's. Now women were given the opportunity to pursue a career as a physical education teacher, or as a physiotherapist. They were also given the basis and motives for developing independently their own knowledge about the female body and physical education system. The Finn Elli Björkstén could, for example, produce a female physical education system during the first decades of the 1900s.
Female physical education was not merely based on the latest knowledge of the body; it was also influenced by various societal interests held by women. The first generation of "gymnast women" was mostly politically active, emancipated and unmarried career women. They fought for the right to determine women's physical education forms, with no influence by men. Most clearly this was expressed in the creation of independent women's gymnastics clubs, in Finland even a women's gymnastics federation, but also in the founding of a Nordic Women's Gymnastics Association in the 1920s.
The content in the instruction in the women's gymnastics associations and in the female physical education in schools was, in addition to gymnastics, non-competitive sports, folk dancing, folk games and popular singing games. The women's gymnastics movement was here influenced by nationalism. Dance, however, was a problematic area. Its popular folk forms were alienated and their sexual erotic connotations neutralized. Additionally, certain pioneers of women's physical education saw it important to protect physical education's purity from the influence of dance in its higher cultural forms (ballet and modern dance).
With regard to the various forms of dance, women in physical education used power motivated by knowledge in order to define the correct area of physical education, one which promoted women's health, her social and moral virtues (a so-called physical education piety). As already mentioned, they were successful in "taming" folk dance to a for women and girls appropriate civil movement form. However, modern dance's invitation to creativity was enticing. The new physical cultural movements in central Europe and their most prominent schools became popular; their teachers and developers often visited the Nordic countries. The manner, in which the schism between gymnastics and dance was resolved during the interwar period, or later, when it affected free, or modern, dance, is interesting. The schism touched on a principal level knowledge about femininity; its given framework contained in the "pure", nationally different and differently developed women's gymnastics. In female physical education's relationship to dance, there are interesting and significant differences among the Nordic countries.
Within the framework for women's gymnastics, female physical
education, and later in dance, something completely new was created; women were
able both to gain expertise and be independent agents. Female physical education
offered outlets for professional agency for women.
Female physical education, and later dance, has created feminine identities,
which varies among different cultures, several generations and social groups.
These feminine identities may be read and interpreted in the practice of physical
exercises as well as in several other texts, which the movement has produced.
These texts do not relate solely the view of the body, but also how the movement
saw women's position in society, citizenship, nation, motherhood, career, etc.
Moderators/contacts:
Researcher, Phil. Lic. Leena Laine, Jyväskylä universitet, (leena.laine(at)kolumbus.fi)
&
Associate professor, PhD Kirsti Pedersen Gurholt, University of Sport and Physical
Education, Norway (Kirsti.Gurholt(at)nih.no)
Discussants:
FINLAND:
Leena Laine: University of Jyväskylä/ Dept. of Social Sciences of
Sport (University of Stockholm/Institute of History)
Aino Sarje: University of Jyväskylä/ Dept. of Social Sciences of Sport
DENMARK:
Else Trangbaek, University of Copenhagen, Institute of Exercise and Sport Sciences,
Dept. of History and Social Science
NORWAY:
Kirsti Pedersen Gurholt, Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education/Dept
of Social Science
Ragnhild Jensen, Oslo University College, Faculty of Education
SWEDEN:
Pia Lundquist Wanneberg, Stockholm University/ Institute of History -College
of PE and Sport Sciences/ Dept. of Sport and Social Sciences. Eva - Helen Ulvroos,
Dept. of History, Lund University
NB Please note that a continuation of the seminar is being planned after the meeting in Åbo (in Swedish)
Gender, Narrative and Analysis in the Making of Intellectual Biographies from the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries
14th August, 9.30–11.00
The aim the session is to discuss processes, methods and styles of historical and literary biographies on intellectual men and women that we are working. Lots of biogrphies are written, however, most biographies lack systematic reflections on methods and theories of the historical biographical genre need to be developed and explored. The papers of the roundtable will deal with Danish, Swedish, German, African and British stories about life and times of intellectuals during three centuries: Frida Stéenhoff (1865-1945) by professor, fil.dr. Christina Carlsson Wetterberg, Sweden, Henri Muoria (1914-1997), his wives and family by associate professor Bodil Folke Frederiksen, Denmark, Friederike Brun (1765-1835) by associate professor, ph.d. Karen Klitgaard Povlsen, Denmark, Bodil Koch (1903-1972) by senior research associate, dr.phil. Birgitte Possing, Denmark. The participants are part of an existing Scandinavian network of researchers from historical, literary and anthropological disciplines.
Chair: Associate professor, Dr. Susanne Malchau, Aarhus Universitet, DK
Contact persons: Prof. Christina Carlsson Wetterberg, Lunds Universitet (christina.carlsson-wetterberg(at)genus.lu.se)
and senior research associate, Dr. Birgitte Possing, (from 1. November 2004: Rigsarkivet, Danmark (bp(at)ra.sa.dk)
Discussants:
Prof. Christina Carlsson Wetterberg, Lunds Universitet, SE:
"Om skapandet av en kvinnlig intellektuel kring sekelskiftet 1900"
Dr. Birgitte Possing, København, DK:
"Om at fortolke en intellektuel kvindelig, kontroversiel politiker under
den Kolde Krig"
Lektor Bodil Folke Frederiksen, Roskilde Universitetscenter, DK:
"Om kollektive biografier blandt postkoloniale intellektuelle i 20. århundrede"
Lektor, Dr. Karen Klitgaard Povlsen, Aarhus Universitet, DK:
"Om at forstå en kvindelig intellektuel i 1700-1800-tallets Europa"
A matter of style: the surface performers of gender
14th August, 11.30–13.00 (abstracts)
A Matter of Style: The Surface Performance of Gender This round table will discuss the concept of "style" as a means of capturing how humans appear (and perform) in different types of publics. Style as a concept concerns our choice of clothes, how we display our bodies to world, our gestures and facial expressions; the feelings we show to different types of publics and how we interact with other people. Both fashion and style are produced, consumed, and communicated. Both engender strong reactions and debates - not least because both are clear-cut markers of social and gender identities. People, through their choice of style and of clothes, create distinctive communities - and the inclusions and exclusions that these entail.
Our discussion on public appearance and performance will touch on different historical environments, where we will examine a series of "meetings" between the individual and the group, the private and the public, the affective and the rational, the will to be seen and the desire to make oneself close to invisible, the emotional and the self-disciplined. The result will be a series of intersectional analyses of identity-creation.
The participants in this round-table discussion are members of two Södertörn College research projects; this discussion will, it is hoped, contribute to the creation of a Nordic network on the questions of identity, performance and style.
Chairperson / person to contact: Christine Bladh, e-mail: christine.bladh(at)sh.se
Participants:
Associate Professor Christine Bladh
Assistant Professor Madeleine Hurd
Professor Tom Olsson
Professor Kekke Stadin
Assistant Professor Martin Wottle