Abstract

Media coverage of the Libyan war has drawn attention, from the beginning of the conflict, to the occurrence of sexual violence by government forces in an attempt to suppress the rebellion. This lecture will question the silences, the invisibilities and possible political instrumentalisations created by these speeches.

Nota biográfica

Júlia Garraio is researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (Humanities, Migrations and Peace Studies). Most of her research, activities and publications are dedicated to the German literature and culture in the twentieth century. Violence, memory, identity, discourse and representation are key concepts in her research. In her PhD dissertation she examined the work of the German poet Günter Eich (1907-1972. Her post-doctoral research project focused the public memory of the rape of German women and girls in the context of WWII. She examined representations of sexual violence in German literature and cinema. Her interest in the processes of mediation and representation of sexual violence led her to broaden the scope of her research to other war scenarios (e.g. the war in Libya) and to other forms of sexual violence (e.g. the traffic of human beings for sexual exploitation). Currently, her research is guided by transdisciplinary epistemological objectives: she pursues a critical analysis of the discourses and patterns of mediating wartime rape and works towards a reconceptualization of the very topic of sexual violence.