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Caroline Light 鈥淎 Good Woman With a Gun: U.S. Mythologies of Race, Gender, and Self-Defense鈥�

, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer, Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality, Harvard University

Abstract: What accounts for the rhetorical power of the recurring trope of the self-possessed, heroic, and implicitly white 鈥済ood woman with a gun,鈥� and against whom is she presumed to defend herself? This talk will explore some of the early iconography by which the armed white woman became a symbol of virtuous and vulnerable nationhood while addressing the intersecting racial and gender logics that contributed to a national ideal of what historian Barbara Cutter calls 鈥渋nnocent violence鈥� in the name of collective self-defense.

Bio: Caroline Light is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Harvard. She has a doctorate in history, and her work explores the ways in which race, gender, and region shape collective (mis)memory and archival silence. Her first book, (NYU Press, 2014) discusses how gendered and racialized performances of elite, white cultural capital served as a critical mode of survival for a racially liminal community of southerners. Her recent book, (Beacon Press, 2017) tracks the history of lethal self-defense in the U.S., from the duty to retreat to the 鈥渟hoot first, ask questions later鈥� ethos that prevails in many jurisdictions today.

Public Lecture: Thursday, January 10th, 2019: 4:00pm, Arts W-215
Seminar (registration required): Friday, January 11th, 2019: 9:00 am to 11:00am, Arts W-220

Sponsors:
Prof. Jason Opal, Chair History and Classical Studies 91社区
Prof. Charmaine A. Nelson, Art History and Communication Studies, 91社区
Prof. Alanna Thain, Director, IGSF, 91社区

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