On Thursday, October 13th, the Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD) presents “Is Gender Violence Governable?: A Panel on International Feminist Regulation” at 4:15 p.m. in 203 Butler Library. This is the first event in a two-year series called Reframing Gendered Violence, which is part of the Women Creating Change initiative supported by the Dean of the Humanities and the Columbia Global Centers. Reframing Gendered Violence is also linked to the project on Religion and the Global Reframing of Gender Violence, which is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.

The event features Dubravka Zarkov, Associate Professor of Gender, Conflict and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, presenting on “Feminist Politics, War Rapes, and Global Governance” and Rema Hammami, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at Birzeit University, Birzeit, OPT, presenting on “Follow the Numbers: Global Governmentality and the Domestic Violence Agenda.” Janet Halley, Royall Professor of Law at Harvard Law School will serve as discussant.

Reframing Gendered Violence is an international collaboration between scholars, artists and activists that aims to recast the way violence against women (VAW) and gender-based violence (GBV) are currently discussed in a wide range of fields, both academic and policy-oriented, including human rights, public health, journalism, law, feminist studies, literature, sociology, religious studies, anthropology, and history.

A Steering Committee of eight scholars includes Anupama Rao, Professor of History, Barnard; Jean Howard, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia; Jennifer Hirsch, Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia; Kaiama Glover, French and Africana Studies, Barnard; Kendall Thomas, Columbia Law School; Lila Abu-Lughod, Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Columbia; Marianne Hirsch, English and Comparative Literature and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Columbia; and Paige West, Anthropology, Barnard.

The goal is to move the conversation on this crucial topic in new directions, pointing to elisions and exclusions in many common-sense understandings of these terms; deepening the ways in which we engage with the manifestations and causes of such violence; unpacking the politics through which accusations of GBV can sometimes be used to pathologize entire communities, societies or religious traditions, or to divert attention from more systemic forms of abuse such as economic, discursive, and political violence.

CSSD requests that you share the event information and attached event flyer with your department’s faculty, students, and staff. Thank you.