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PUBLIC LECTURE: The Female Body as Political Body: Rape, War and the Nation

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Today's date is Friday, March 29, 2024
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A public lecture by Ruth Seifert, Professor of Sociology, University of Applied Sciences, Regensburg, Germany.

Rape and sexual torture of women in times of war and crisis is not a new phenomenon. However it was only recently, following reports of mass rapes perpetrated during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, that the use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war has been widely discussed.

It has largely been assumed that there is a continuum between civilian and wartime rapes, but research has shown that war rapes can be considered to be part of a cultural script that comprises a variety of messages.

In the course of this debate, gender-specific violence has been primarily discussed as a human rights issue, culminating in UN resolution 1325 in 2000, the first formal and legal document from the Security Council dealing with violence against women in the context of armed conflict. This issue has been addressed many times since with the most recent UN resolution 1960 in 2010.

Despite the strong efforts to problematize, scandalize and persecute these atrocities, reports of the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war keep emerging. Most recently, scattered news has emerged from Libya indicating that sexual violence is being used as a tool of war, prompting International Court Special Prosecutor Ocampo to launch investigations into these accounts.

This lecture will examine why sexual violence appears to be such a pervasive and effective weapon of war, what cultural symbolisms are drawn on in its enactment, and what theoretical approaches may be useful in furthering understanding of this phenomenon.

Cost: Free, no RSVP required.
Location Webb Lecture Theatre (G21), Ground Floor, Geography Building, UWA
Contact Institute of Advanced Studies <[email protected]> : 6488 1340
URL http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/seifert
Start Mon, 07 May 2012 18:00
End Mon, 07 May 2012 19:00
Submitted by Audrey Barton <[email protected]>
Last Updated Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:59
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