CCWH Prelinger Award Winner
LISA DI CAPRIO (2002)
Lisa Di Caprio is presently teaching at the City College Center for Worker Education, City University of New York. Her research focuses on the roles that women have played at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague (ICTY), and the International Criminal Court (ICC). She explores the transformation of international justice resulting from increasing numbers of female attorneys devoting their professional talents to the search for truth and justice, women's leading roles in non-governmental organizations, and women's participation and leadership in various United Nations agencies and commissions. Women are now defining as well as prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity, and they are mobilizing to ensure that such gender-based crimes as rape, sexual slavery, sexual trafficking, and violence against women are prosecuted within the purview of international criminal law.
Di Caprio will use the Prelinger funds to travel abroad to study several key cases prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that illustrate various aspects of women's role in international justice. She plans to give special attention to the ICTY's prosecution of the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 that represented a turning point in the war in Bosnia (1992-1995) and is considered to be the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II. She will interview survivors of Srebrenica and women activists in various non-governmental organizations in Bosnia, Paris, and London. These activists, and their counterparts in other European countries and the U.S., are part of an international campaign for justice for Srebrenica.
Dr. Di Caprio completed her Ph.D. in European and Women's History at Rutgers University in 1996. Her book manuscript, Women and the First Welfare State, explores women's relationship to the origins of modern welfare in France. She has published research on this work in Social Politics, an international journal of social welfare, and the Journal of Modern History. She is the co-editor with Merry Weisner of Lives and Voices: Sources in European Women's History, (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), a sourcebook that includes a wide range of materials from ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary women's issues in the United Nations. Her work in Lives and Voices focuses on the French Revolution to the present on topics concerning women and work, politics, culture, colonialism, multi-culturalism in Europe, Post-communist Eastern Europe, and international affairs.
Di Caprio's interests in history have been shaped by her academic work at Rutgers, her teaching experiences at Smith College, Queens College and City College Center for Worker Education, City University of New York, and by her work as a labor organizer. Following graduation from high school Di Caprio advocated for women in the labor force. She organized women in offices, factories, and the construction trades. She was accepted into the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and co-founded Chicago Women in Trades. Her publication record began in this field.
Di Caprio is also deeply devoted to teaching and has taught a variety of European and world history courses, including courses on European women's history. In 1998, she developed the first in a series of courses on women and human rights that she taught at City College Center for Worker Education. These courses inspired the current research project that she plans to publish.
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The Coordinating Council for Women in History, an organization
for women in the historical profession, is committee to exploring the diverse
experiences and histories of all women. Its primary goals are to educate men
and women on the status of women in the historical profession and to promote
research and interpretation in the areas of women’s history.
Information about the Prelinger Prize and other CCWH awards is available here.