Affects of War in Civil Society: A South Asian Feminist Movement

Women’s & Gender Studies Vilas Trust Lecture

Kavita Panjabi

Former Professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata

Decades of activism in the Southasian women’s movement and a lively interest in cross-border people’s perspectives inform Panjabi’s book Unclaimed Harvest”: An Oral History of the Tebhaga Women’s Movement and her Pakistan diary Old Maps and New: Legacies of the Partition. She is also joint editor of Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India.

Affects of War in Cili Society: A Southasian Feminist Movement
Friday, April 5
3:00-5:00pm
Lubar Entrepreneurship Center

War does not only affect civil society in lasting ways; it also relies on affect to destroy the subjective identity of a people. Affect in turn becomes a well-spring of resistance movements and can take on powerful valence. This talk focuses on a unique history of solidarity forged between Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Indian feminists in the aftermath of the mass rapes by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh in 1971. It involves reflection on the critical power of affect in feminist challenges to the sexually violative militarism of nation states; and on the significance of the journey of Bangladeshi feminists from trauma to transnational solidarity in relation to questions of irreconciliation, forgiveness, dignity and responsibility.

Sponsored by the William F. Vilas Trust Fund and Women’s & Gender Studies. Co-sponsored by the Departments of Global Studies, Urban Studies, and Anthropology, and the Master of Sustainable Peacebuilding.

This event is free and open to the public.