“Gender – Nation – Emancipation. Women and Families in the ‘long’ Nineteenth Century in Italy and Germany”, International conference, Rome, 23-25 November 2016

Italy and Germany have been described as “late nations”. Since the end of the 19th century, traditional historiography emphasized the obvious similarities in the processes of nation building with regard to the political dimension as well as to the parallel historical roles of “great men” such as Bismarck and Cavour. Only more recent comparative studies, which highlighted the differences in national cultures, social and economic aspects, have revealed the image of a parallel history as one-sided and superficial. Based on the analytical category of gender, the international conference of the DFG-Network “Gender – Nation – Emancipation. Women and families in the ‘long’ Nineteenth Century in Italy and Germany” aims at a critical reassessment of the apparently parallel development from national-liberal ideologies towards an imperialistically charged nationalism and the eventual participation in the First World War from a new and transnational perspective. The common focus of the international and interdisciplinary group of scholars is on social, cultural, as well as political participation and exclusion in the processes of nation building, nationalism and war. The notion of nation will be discussed in terms of its inherent aggression as well as a synonym for bourgeois society. Within this approach, Jewish history is understood as an integral part of so-called “general” history. Chronologically and thematically, the conference concentrates on the years between 1848, as the “spring of nations” and as the beginning of the first women’s emancipation movements, as well as on the crucial period of the First World War. Special importance will be attached to the experience and memory of women and families in the war, starting from hitherto unknown or neglected ego-documents such as diaries, memoirs and war correspondence within families. In this way, the conference seeks to examine the discursive relationship between war and emancipation, as well as the ambiguous roles of historical protagonists
torn by national, political and Jewish loyalties, thus stimulating the current historiographical reassessment of the First World War in terms of gender as well as Jewish history.

program_gender_nation_emancipation

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Wednesday, 23 November, 14.30-19.00

14.30
Martin Baumeister – Roma
Welcome

14.45
Ruth Nattermann, Philipp Lenhard – München
Introduction

15.00
Amerigo Caruso – Saarbrücken
Comparative, Transnational and Still National: Reassessing
the Interpretative Traditions of Italian and German Nation Building

I – Constructing Family and Nation
Chair: Sylvia Schraut – München

15.45
Marcella Simoni – Venezia
The Morenos between Family and Nation. Notes for the History
of a Mediterranean Jewish Family (Livorno-Tunis, 1850-1912)

16.10
Giulia Frontoni – Hamburg
Portrait of a Political Lady. Family Ties and German National Activism
around 1848

16.35
Comment: Marion Kaplan – New York

Discussion

17.15
Break

18.00
Keynote Lecture
Ilaria Porciani – Bologna
Rethinking Family and Nation

Thursday, 24 November, 9.00-18.00

II – Emancipation Discourse and Religious Terminology
Chair: Marion Kaplan – New York

9.00
Philipp Lenhard – München
The Legacy of Adam and Eve. Gender Education in Jewish
“Catechisms” in 19th Century Germany

9.25
Silvia Guetta – Firenze
The Transformation of Jewish Education in 19th Century Italy.
The Meaning of “Catechisms”

9.50
Susannah Heschel – Hanover/New Hampshire
Do Religions Have a Gender? Orientalism in the Modern Jewish
Imagination

10.15
Comment: Gadi Luzzatto Voghera – Milano

Discussion

10.45
Break

III – Religion, Education and Culture of National Identity
Chair: Martin Baumeister – Roma

11.15
Liviana Gazzetta – Padova
Women for the Homeland. Comparing Catholic and
Protestant Female Education in Italy (1848-1908)

11.40
Sylvia Schraut – München
Religion and Homeland. Comparing Catholic and
Protestant Female Education and Cultural Models in Germany (1871-1914)

12.05
Comment: Till Kössler – Bochum

Discussion

12.45
Lunch

IV – Ideologies and Politics of Women’s Emancipation Movements
Chair: Stefanie Schüler-Springorum – Berlin

14.30
Anne-Laure Briatte-Peters – Paris
Denomination Matters. Strategies of Self-Designation of the
German Women’s Movement

14.55
Magdalena Gehring – Dresden
The International Congress for “Frauenwerke und Frauenbestrebungen”
in Berlin (1896). Positions of Italian and German Women in the
Discussions on Emancipation

15.20
Comment: Ute Planert – Köln

Discussion

15.50
Break

V – Concepts and Conflicts of Emancipation
Chair: Ute Planert – Köln

16.15
Angelika Schaser – Hamburg
Emancipation, Religious Affiliation, and Family Status around 1900

16.40
Anna Seitzer – Regensburg
The “New Ethic”. Helene Stöcker’s Conception and Understanding
of Emancipation

17.05
Perry Willson – Dundee/Scotland, UK
Remembering (and Forgetting) ’emancipazionismo’.
Historians, Collective Memory and the Italian Women’s Movement

17.30
Comment: Rosanna De Longis – Roma

Discussion

Friday, 25 November, 9.30-16.30

Women and Families in the Great War. Italian, German and Transnational
Perspectives

VI – Transnational Ego-Documents
Chair: Carolin Kosuch – Roma

9.30
Martin Baumeister – Roma
Between Cosmopolitanism and War Patriotism.
The War-Time Diaries by Robert Davidsohn

9.55
Marie-Christin Lux – Berlin
Between Motherhood and Patriotic Duty. Marital Correspondences
as a Key Source for the Understanding of French-Jewish Women’s
Perspectives on the First World War

10.20
Andrea Sinn – Elon/NC
Confronting War – Pursuing Peace? Tracing the Everyday Realities
of War in German Women’s Diaries and Memoirs (1914-1918)

10.45
Comment: Stefanie Schüler-Springorum – Berlin

Discussion

11.15
Break

VII – War and Violence
Chair: Lutz Klinkhammer – Roma

11.40
Nadia Maria Filippini – Roma
Hunger, Rape, Escape: Multiple Aspects of Violence against
Women and Children in the Italian Front Territory

12.05
Christa Hämmerle – Wien
“Ich begleite Dich durch Schutt und Trümmer …” Non/communication
of War Violence against Civilians in Ego-documents (Austria-Hungary)

12.30
Comment: Daniel Steinbach – Exeter/UK

Discussion

13.00
Lunch

VIII – War Experience and Memory
Chair: Gideon Reuveni – Sussex

14.00
Tullia Catalan – Trieste
The Building of the Enemy in two Jewish Writers:
Carolina Coen Luzzatto and Enrica Barzilai Gentilli

14.25
Ruth Nattermann – München
Heroic Fathers, Patriotic Mothers, Fallen Sons. National Belonging
and Political Positioning in Italian-Jewish Families’ Versions of the
Great War

14.50
Gerald Lamprecht – Graz
Commemorating the Fallen Jewish Soldiers.
Jewish War Memorials in Interwar Austria

15.15
Comment: Ulrich Wyrwa – Berlin

Discussion

15.45
Concluding remarks and final discussion:
Patrizia Dogliani – Bologna

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