Rallying Europe: Intersectional Approaches to Youth and Gender in the Mid-Twentieth Century 10.06.2021 – 11.06.2021

The turmoil of the mid-twentieth century saw young people mobilized for action across Europe in an unprecedented manner. This workshop approaches interwar history by looking through the lens of age and gender as interdependent categories of historical analysis.

Rallying Europe: Intersectional Approaches to Youth and Gender in the mid-Twentieth Century

Katharina Seibert, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Universität Wien; Barnabás Bálint, Magdalen College, University of Oxford, 1090 Vienna (Austria)
10.06.2021 – 11.06.2021

The turmoil of the mid-twentieth century saw young people mobilized for action across Europe in an unprecedented manner. Concurrently, against the backdrop of the struggle between democratic and authoritarian projects, young people increasingly became a target of state legislation, (mass) organizations and other institutions. From the end of the First World War to the aftermath of the Second World War, Europe witnessed fundamental changes in the social regimes that determined societal power distribution.

This workshop approaches interwar history by looking through the lens of age and gender as interdependent categories of analysis. In doing so, we reveal how adult perceptions of youth and gender framed young men and women’s lives and their roles in society. Furthermore, we explore how these perceptions collided with youth agency, probing the specific age- and gender-related dynamics of empowerment and organization.

By zooming in on the concrete young actors and the institutional settings that limited their scope of action, processes of subjectivation will be contrasted with institutionalized attempts to control and lead the young. As such, we contribute to a global academic discussion on age, gender, the lifecycle, and intersectionality and add to more recent studies of youth that go beyond the analysis of youth organizations.

Thursday, June 10, 2021

3-5pm CET: Welcoming Remarks by the Organizers

Challenging Europe: Contradicting Ideal Images
Chair: Till Kössler (Halle)

Anca Diana Axinia (Florence): „In this Country also Women are Fighters“: Interrelations between Age and Gender in the Feminine Section of the Romanian Legionary Movement

Katharina Seibert (Vienna): Wayward Angels: War Nurses at the Francoist Frontlines of the Spanish Civil War

5-5:30 pm CET: Break

5:30-7:30 pm CET: Suppressed Europe: Youth Agency in Limited Spaces
Chair: Dietlind Hüchtker (Vienna)

Barnabás Bálint (Oxford): From Györ to Auschwitz: Young Provincial Hungarian Women’s Lives during the Holocaust

Jovana Papović (Paris): Unreachable Youth: Education, National Mobilization, and Iintergenerational Conflicts in Interwar Yugoslavia. The Case of the Yugoslav Sokol (1919-1941)

Florian Zabransky (Sussex): Youth and Gender in the Ghetto: Jewish Men Negotiating Contraception, Abortion and Childbirth during the Holocaust

Friday, June 11, 2021

2-4pm CET: Maturing Europe: Pathways into Adulthood
Chair: Dietlind Hüchtker

Lucian George (Oxford): „We prefer equal rights and courtesy“: Youth Movements and Gender in the Struggle for Rural Emancipation in Interwar Poland

Katharina Friege (Oxford): On the Look-Out for New Horizons: Aspiring Young Women Writers in Weimar Germany

Gero von Roedern (Graz): „Fragt denn da ein junger Mensch nach.“ – Does a Young Person Ask about that. Grappling with Life in the Reichsarbeitsdienst. A Diary from 1942

4-5pm CET: Coffee Break

5-6:30pm CET: Beyond Europe. Defining Future Women in Transnational Contexts

Lewis Driver (Florence): Una Coscienza Coloniale: Youth, Gender, and the Fascist Colonial Institute of Bologna

Sheragim Jenabzadeh (Toronto): Fashioning the Perfect Iranian Woman in Weimar and Nazi Germany

6:30-7:30pm CET:

Till Kössler (Halle): Closing Remarks

Round up Discussion

rallyingeurope.zeitgeschichte@univie.ac.at

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