International workshop about “Reeducation and Gender“ held by FAU researchers at the University of California, Berkeley
In the scope of the DFG project “Reeducation Revisited: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives on the Post-World War II Period in the US, Japan, and Germany”, a workshop was held at the University of California, Berkeley, from February 20th to 21st. It was organized by FAU researchers Prof. Heike Paul and Jana Aresin in collaboration with the German Historical Institute (GHI). The interdisciplinary project is concerned with America’s post-war re-education politics in Germany and Japan, with which the Allies intended to separate the population from fascist thought and encourage democratic awareness, as well as with the developments in the three countries after the war.
The workshop “Recreating Separate Spheres Across Not-So-Separate Worlds: Gender and Reeducation in Japan, Germany, and the USA after World War II” dealt with the topic of Gender: which roles of men and women can be identified and analysed in the media and cultural practices of these three societies? And how can these relate to ideas of democracy and equality? The workshop succeeded in mapping the differing semantics – and the adjacent contradictions – of a gender-specific logic of democratization and re-education after 1945 in different areas and to discuss them in light of new research. The participants also questioned and differentiated terms and periodizations.
More information about this project available at: https://www.reeducation.phil.fau.de/