Gender, War and Politics: The Wars of Revolution and Liberation—Transatlantic Comparisons, 1775–1820

This bulletin summarizes a 2007 conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, jointly hosted by that university, the German Historical Institute, and Duke University. The meeting brought together 90 scholars of different generations from four countries. These scholars, who work on war, gender, race, and national liberation during the period between 1775 and 1820, met to address how these powerful forces intersected during the revolutionary era. The rise of modern military warfare emerged as the common touchstone among all scholars as they sought to explore how wars associated with independence or liberation emerged as key sites in the negotiation and construction of new gender norms and national identities. Participants probed the degree to which novel forms of mass mobilization for war contributed to increasingly rigid notions of masculinity and femininity, despite women's contribution to the war effort in military institutions and civilian society. A collected volume of selected and revised papers is in progress.