Abstract:

Religion lends to violence over women a very powerful symbolism – the terrible night of Köln, the girls of Boko Haram in chains; an equally terrifying use of religious symbolism was made also in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The paper aims at deconstructing the dominating narratives circulating in the European public space, which focus on juxtaposition between modernity and anti-modern forces. The revamping of “religion” is indicated as a marking feature of this war against modernity and against western values, a war of which women are the victims. The basic thesis is that violence against women is not – or at least, not exclusively – a residue of an incomplete modernization, or the expression of anti-modern fight. On the contrary, violence against women is rooted in the genealogy of modernity . Equally, religious radicalism must not be interpreted as a “pre-modern” or “anti-modern” phenomenon but as an integral component of the current crisis of modernity.

About the Speaker:

Debora Spini teaches political theory at Syracuse University in Florence and at New York University in Florence. She is the author of various essays and book chapters in English and Italian on topics such as the transformation of public spaces, crisis of the modern self, secularisation and post secularisation. Her research interest currently focuses on the topic of Religion and political conflict, with a special concentration on gender as well as on monotheism and violence. On these topics she has given lectures and participated in conferences and seminars in Europe, US, India and Brasil. She is the author of the monograph La società civile post nazionale (Rome 2006). With D. Armstrong, J. Gilson and V. Bello Spini co-edited the volume Civil society and international governance (Routledge 2010). In her capacity of vice President of the Forum for the Problems of Peace and War (www.onlineforum.it) she has promoted researches on Gender, Religion and Identity, now collected in the volume Giovani musulmane in Italia. Percorsi biografici e pratiche quotidiane, a c.d. I. Acocella e R. Pepicelli, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015. Spini is a member of various scholarly societies – such as the Società Italiana di Filosofia Politica and the Società Italiana di Teoria Critica.