International Conference: "Fundamentalism and Gender: Scripture - Body - Community", Berlin, 2010, Dec 02-04


The nexus of 'fundamentalism' and 'gender' has been an issue in western media for several years already. 'Islamism' and 'oppression of women' are perhaps the alliance that hereby most readily springs to mind yet, equally, the pre-marital sexual abstinence, homophobia and conservative family values propagated in Christian fundamentalism have become increasingly a focus of public interest in recent years. The conference organized by the PhD research group 'Gender as a Category of Knowledge' seeks to explore the issue 'Fundamentalism and Gender' minutely on several levels and to address it critically from inter- and trans-disciplinary perspectives. The focus thereby will be on the historical and current specifics of religious fundamentalisms. Consideration will be given throughout also to those western secular means and methods of self-affirmation that are structured with recourse to discursive knowledge production regarding the issue fundamentalism.

The conference is organized around three different thematic strands:
1. Literalism/ Academism
2. Nation/ State/ Community
3. Body/ Life/ Biopolitics

The overarching research interest lies in the analytical diversification of the term 'fundamentalism' and its intersection with the category gender. The focus will be on the following questions: for what reasons are all (religious) fundamentalisms constituted to a substantial degree by (normalizing) definitions of sexuality, gender roles and intergender relations? Why do sexual politics constitute a common denominator of religious fundamentalisms that otherwise radically differ? To what extent and why does the category 'gender' play a role (or not) in definitions of fundamentalism? What understanding of religion, politics, society and the individual subject are implied in discussions of fundamentalism? Who, what, when, where is declared feminist in this context, or rejected as such, and by whom?

Principal investigators
Bruns, Claudia Prof. Dr. phil. (Details) (Gender and History of Knowledge (J))

Financer
DFG: Sonstiges

Duration of project
Start date: 05/2010
End date: 12/2010

Last updated on 2022-08-09 at 05:09