HGS365

Description

Special topics vary by semester and instructor. May be repeated for credit Fall 2023- Gender, War, and Violence in 20th and 21st Ukraine Modern Ukraine has been a place of extreme violence and mass atrocities, during the First World War, the Civil War, the Holodomor and Stalin's Great Terror, the Second World War and the Holocaust, Soviet armed struggle with Ukrainian nationalists after 1945, and Russia's current War against Ukraine. This course examines how discourses and enactments of war, genocide, and mass violence have been influenced by social constructions of gender. It will explore the role of gender in militarization processes, recruitment into armed groups, military culture, experiences of service, war, and post-war adaptation. Feminist critiques of militarism as well as justifications of women's integration into the armies will be considered. The course creates a space for the voices of victims, survivors, and witnesses of sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflicts. It also analyses the experience of perpetrators, their motivations, the ways they reckoned with their actions or were prosecuted for war and other crimes.