June 3 - 4, 2016
1995 University Ave., 5th floor, in Berkeley.
http://orias.berkeley.edu/professional-development/orias-summer-institutes-t
eachers/women-world-history
How do questions about gender deepen our understanding of the Roman Empire?
Did the expansion of Christianity and Islam alter gender roles? What did it
mean to be a woman in late Imperial China? In what ways did gendered ideas
about femininity and masculinity affect political discource in revolutionary
Mexico? Why were women instrumental in the development and spread of
Modernism? How did women shape East African decolonization and
state-building? What can we learn about the 1979 Iranian Revolution by
analyzing the role of gender in that movement?
World History survey and AP courses often focus on a common set of global
developments, then encourage students to make comparisons and see
connections across regions. The 2016 Community College Summer Institute aims
to use this set of commonly-taught topics as a framework for exploring the
roles of women and gender in World History. Attendees will be presented with
a combination of case studies, historical context, and conceptual frameworks
for discussing gender in world history. They will leave with new content
(and new questions) to make their own courses more complex, engaging, and
inclusive.
This program is open to community college instructors and AP-level high
school teachers. There is no cost to attend.
Agenda
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Friday, June 3
_____
8:30 - 9:00 AM
Check in and breakfast
9:00 - 9:20 AM
Introductions
9:20 - 10:40 AM
Muslims and Matriarchs: Gender and Identity Politics in Indonesia
Jeff Hadler
<http://orias.berkeley.edu/2016-speaker-biographies-women-world-history>
This talk will introduce the history of gender in Southeast Asia,
considering local ideas of gender and their interaction with concepts
imposed by religion and state. There will be a special focus on the
Minangkabau of West Sumatra, the world's largest matriarchal Muslim society.
10:50 AM - 12:10 PM
Women in Late Imperial China
Beverly Bossler
<http://orias.berkeley.edu/2016-speaker-biographies-women-world-history>
What do we know about the lives of women in late imperial China, and how do
we know it? How did women live their lives? What aspirations and dreams did
they have? How were their lives constrained, and in what ways did they find
meaning within those constraints?
This talk will introduce recent findings on the lives of Chinese women
sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. It will cover such topics as education
and literacy; women's work; the multiple meanings of footbinding; and the
demands of the "fidelity cult." It will also explore the radical changes for
women that were introduced in the early twentieth century.
12:10 - 1:10 PM
Lunch and conversation
1:10 - 2:30 PM
The Currency of "Women's Rights": Decolonization, Democracy, and Development
in East Africa
Corrie Decker
<http://orias.berkeley.edu/2016-speaker-biographies-women-world-history>
When and why did women's rights become a priority in East Africa? The call
for "women's rights" has been central to political movements for
independence, democratization, and development in the region. This talk
examines the conditions under which "women's rights" gained currency in
public discourse by focusing on three case studies from East Africa: the era
of nationalism and socialism in Zanzibar; the shift to multi-party democracy
in Kenya, and recent development discourses in Tanzania.
2:40 - 4:00 PM
Catholic Ladies and Culture Wars: Gender, Church, and Politics in Mexico,
1750-1912
Margaret Chowning
<http://orias.berkeley.edu/2016-speaker-biographies-women-world-history>
How did women influence politics before they had the vote? How do gendered
ideas about femininity and masculinity pervade political discourse?
She will explore answers to these two questions, using the case of Catholic
women in nineteenth-century Mexico. But they are questions that can be
fruitfully asked for many different time periods and places. She will argue
that as historians, we should always consider whether a gendered perspective
changes our view of familiar events and phenomena such as the Age of
Revolution or the Age of Exploration, because we never know what we will
find until we ask.
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Saturday, June 4
_____
8:30 - 9:00 AM
Check in and breakfast
9:00 - 9:40 AM
Group discussion
9:40 - 11:00 AM
Deliberating Bodies: the Conventus Matronarum and the Senaculum in Severan
Rome
Beth Pollard
<http://orias.berkeley.edu/2016-speaker-biographies-women-world-history>
Mention of two women's councils --- the conventus matronarum and a women's
senaculum --- along with with the epigraphic evidence for active public
works programs funded by women in the later Roman Empire suggest that women
were claiming genuine agency in Roman politics, especially by the Severan
period (193-235 CE). This talk presents both the evidence from historical
narratives for these female deliberating bodies and a sampling of
inscriptions that underscore women's role in the public sphere. While the
references to the conventus matronarum and the senaculum are embedded in
invective-filled narrative, this talk will show that the topics upon which
these councils deliberated --- clothing, conveyance, and other "female
etiquette" --- were high-stakes issues not only for the women discussing
them but also for their community as a whole. Similarly, public dedications
of major public spaces by women like Claudia Antonia Sabina at Sardis,
Claudia Antonia Tatiana at Aphrodisias, and Plancia Magna at Perge (all in
Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey) demonstrate that women could exert
significant influence over their communities. A re-examination of evidence
for women's formalized political activity in the Empire offers one
opportunity to challenge male imperial power as the default lens through
which to examine the politics of imperial Rome ca. 200 CE and earlier.
Scholars revisit the topic of women's political agency in Rome whenever
women make strides in contemporary American politics, whether suffrage or
the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps it is fitting, then,
to reconsider the question in a year that is witnessing a viable White House
run by a woman.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Group discussion
12:00 - 1:00 PM
Lunch and continued discussion
1:00 - 2:20 PM
Women's Work: Bringing Modernism into the Everyday
JoAnn Conrad
<http://orias.berkeley.edu/2016-speaker-biographies-women-world-history>
Modernism is well recognized as a distinct and important period in the
realms of art and literature. However, not as well understood are the ways
in which these developments in the fine arts emerged and were constituted in
the nexus of technological, social, scientific, psychological, and economic
discourses of the first years of the 20th century. Rather than being held
separate from the ordinary world, modernists were very much part of it,
themselves experimenting with a variety of "industrial arts" -- cinema,
animation, theater design, textile design, fashion, illustration for popular
consumption, and perhaps most significantly, advertising. This relationship
has been written out of standard histories of modernism, but to revisit
these mutually informing spheres reveals the critical role of women artists
during this time. Rather than being assigned to the role of "muse" or
helper, women were active agents in not only experimenting with modernism in
all its potentiality, but in working (often without credit) in the public
and commercial arts, and it was they, much more than their more famous male
counterparts, who normalized a modernist aesthetic into popular culture.
JoAnn Conrad will use case studies of individual women Modernists to
describe the international community within which Modernism was born and
explain how Modernism made the transition from elite intellectual movement
to global phenomenon. In the process, she'll illustrate how asking critical
questions about gender helps us develop a more complete understanding of
history.
2:30 - 3:50 PM
Women and the Iranian Revolution of 1979
<http://orias.berkeley.edu/2016-speaker-biographies-women-world-history>
Minoo Moallem
This lecture will focus on the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the emergence
of an Islamic nationalist and transnationalist movement in Iran. Minoo
Moallem argues that in the context of the Iranian Revolution, technologies
of vision as well as gender performance proved central to the formation of a
modern gendered citizen-subject and its mobilization in pre- and
postrevolutionary Iran
4:00 - 4:30 PM
Closing discussion
ORIAS hosts two summer programs at UC Berkeley. Teachers of many
disciplines, from elementary through high school, are invited to attend the
k-12 Summer Institute. The Community College Summer Institute is designed
primarily for community college and AP-level history and social studies
teachers, particularly those who teach World History or regional histories.
Summer programs explore unique themes in World History and teachers leave
ready to incorporate new content into classroom lessons. Presenters explain
recent scholarship and address participants' questions. Throughout each day,
educators have opportunities share ideas about both content and pedagogy.
Summer Institutes are free and open to all educators. Participants in the
k-12 Summer Institute may also receive UC Extension professional development
credit.
best,
debbie
Debbie Abilock
<https://prezi.com/tftyaf7wjmds/debbie-abilock-adding-friction/> Adding
Friction, a column @SLC
