Joint Lecture

Svenja Goltermann

Perceptions of Interpersonal Violence

A History of the Present

10 March 2021

(0:48 h)

Joint Lecture

Svenja Goltermann

Perceptions of Interpersonal Violence
A History of the Present

GHIL Joint Lecture, in co-operation with the Faculty of History, University of Oxford

Our understanding of what violence actually is has changed considerably in the second half of the twentieth century. When violence against children and women first became a public and political issue in the 1960s, it was exclusively considered as physical violence. Today, however, violence is no longer regarded as a physical act alone; psychological, emotional, and linguistic violence is also problematized. Looking at three cases—gender-based violence, language as violence, and bullying—this lecture will examine the preconditions and effects of this development and argue that our ideas of vulnerability have changed fundamentally over the last fifty years.

Svenja Goltermann is Professor of Modern History at the University of Zurich. She has published widely on the history of violence, the history of psychiatric knowledge, and changing perceptions of victimhood. Her latest book, provisionally titled Victims: Perceptions of Suffering and Violence in Modern Europe, will be published by OUP.