1. Women at the front: remediating gendered notions of WWII heroism in historical re-enactment.
- Author
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Zurné, Lise
- Subjects
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HISTORICAL reenactments , *WOMEN in war , *WOMEN military personnel , *WORLD War II , *GENDER role , *NAZI Germany, 1933-1945 , *COURAGE - Abstract
Historical re-enactments have become an increasingly popular topic in academic debate, as some scholars argue that re-enactments allow participants to critically investigate history and its representations. As a pastime dominated by men, most literature on war re-enactment and gender, however, has emphasized the subordinate position of women and the reproduction of conventional gender roles. This paper focuses on two European women re-enactment groups that challenge this understanding: Die Flakhelferinnen in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany and the Army Nurse Corps of the United States. Based on a visual ethnography of their Instagram combined with fieldwork in the Czech Republic and Belgium, I analyse the strategies these reenactors use in the remediation of the 'invisible' histories of women in the armed forces during WWII. The analysis demonstrates a complex negotiation between historical notions of 'femininity', contemporary identities, and Instagram's affordances in the remediation of gendered pasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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