CFP: 41st GSA Conference – Gender, Nation and Race in the Rhetoric of the Far-Right in Germany and Austria

Type: 

Call for Papers

Date: 

February 3, 2017

Location: 

Georgia, United States

Subject Fields: 

German History / Studies, Intersectionality, Media Studies, Gender Studies, Philosophy

CFP: Panel for the 41st Conference of the GSA

October 5th – 8th, 2017 in Atlanta, GA

“Gender, Nation and Race in the Rhetoric of the Far-Right in Germany and Austria”

This is a call for papers for a panel session at the German Studies Association conference in Atlanta, GA on October 5-8, 2017.

Media attention afforded to citizen’s groups like PEGIDA, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) or the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been criticized for not only aiding the aims of groups openly hostile to liberal democracy, but also for exaggerating the amount of citizen support of far-right parties in Germany and Austria. Irrespective of the amount of voters the far-right can attract, however, is the fact that the far-right has been effective at mobilizing non-voters through social media, pushing political discourse rightward, and garnering mass media attention to the minority views of ethnonationalist groups.

The collection of papers for this panel will analyze the intersections of race, gender and nation with respect to media attention to the far-right. On a post-factual landscape, how do groups mobilize racist, misogynist and homophobic rhetoric within campaign platforms? To what degree does the media take up discourses of the far-right (un)critically? In what ways do categories like race and gender haunt portrayals of German/Austrian national identity, both in political rhetoric and media attention? Finally, how does the media portray high-ranking far-right elites, both in their professional capacity and in their personal relationships (which reflect membership in structures of kinship)?

Topics might include:

• Intersectional analyses of the events at the Cologne Bahnhof in 2015 and 2016 and their representation
• Feminist analysis of far-right critiques of “gender” and “gender mainstreaming”
• Demonization of Angela Merkel on the right in both Germany and Austria
• Analysis of the gender politics within PEGIDA, the AfD or the FPÖ (male participants vs. female leadership of figures like Frauke Petry, Katrin Oertel, Beatrix von Storch, Barbara Rosenkranz)
• Political decisions to outlaw “fake-news” and their implications for national identity
• Analysis of the political conflicts between Chancellor Angela Merkel and female far-right/far-left politicians in Germany (Frauke Petry, Sahra Wagenknecht)
• Mobilization of German national identity after refugee resettlement in the context of gendered violence/sexual assault
• Feminist anti-racist campaigns against far-right ideas (#schauhin, #nafri)
• Queer participation within the AfD (Alice Weidel)
• Queer critiques of the biopolitical goals of the AfD/FPÖ
• The role of kinship structures within elite ranks of far-right politicians (Norbert Steger/Petra Steger, Frauke Petry/Markus Pretzell)

Please submit abstracts of roughly 300 words to Johanna Schuster-Craig (schust66@msu.edu) by no later than February 3rd, 2017.