Blog

On Monday, November 26, Dr. Shirin Ebadi the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner was a honorary guest of SW faculty for launching her new book “ Until we are free”.  

Book Launch, UNTILE WE ARE FREE
Shirin Ebadi, Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
Monday 26 November

VU main building
Hall: AGORA1

17:00 START 
18:30 MEET & GREET
19:00 End

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 
De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV

The Women’s Museum Istanbul and Sabanci University Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence organized a conference in Istanbul from the 18th  to 23rd of October.

 Feminist Pedagogy: Museums, Memory Sites, Practices of Remembrance, has taken place with the aim of discussing feminist pedagogical approaches and emphasizing the role of the women’s museum in shaping and transforming collective memory planned several lectures, workshops, storytelling, exhibitions and walks over 5 days.

Museums and memory sites play a key role in shaping and transforming collective memory as well as in producing accessible knowledge on collective pasts and presents. Yet, despite the developments in producing critical knowledge on gender, sexuality and memory in the past decades and the development of feminist pedagogy, many museums and memory sites remain uncritical of conventional gender roles, contributing to the further reproduction of gender-based norms and inequalities.

The dry rasp of the empty mailbox being opened and closed evokes two memories in me. The sound of Kalashnikov bolts being pulled as soldiers opened fire on demonstrators. The sound of the small window in the steel door of Cell 25 in Cell Block 209, Evin Prison, when the guard would peek in to say that someone was using the toilet. Meaning that the prisoner had to go on writhing like a snake from the pressure of her bladder.

I received the cardboard tape recorder, handicraft by Nazanin Deyhami, inmate in Evin Prison’s women’s block, two weeks after her death. At the time of her passing, Nazanin was only twenty-nine years old. The cause of her death in November 2017 was an asthma attack brought on by heavy pollution in Tehran.

sitting in Evin Prison in Iran is this year’s Andrei Sakharov prize recipient – Narges Mohammadi. Mohammadi was awarded the prize “for her leadership in campaigning for peace, justice and the abolition of the death penalty, as well as her unwavering efforts to promote the human rights and freedoms of the Iranian people, despite persecution that has forced her to suspend her scientific pursuits and endure lengthy incarceration.”

Narges is currently serving a 16 year sentence. She is an Iranian physicist, engineer and human rights defender.