B6212 - Gender and Social Movements in Eurasia

Learning outcomes

This laboratory aims at acquainting students with the interdisciplinary field of Gender Studies and with the most important gender-related concepts, arguments, debates in the Eurasian context. Students are also expected to grasp the most commonly used methods for studying gender, thus developing independent critical skills and deepening their understanding of feminist political and cultural analysis.

Course contents

The Laboratory is designed to introduce the students to study and research on feminist and gender history of social movements in 20th century Eastern Europe, with special attention to South East Europe. The main topics will relate to a chronological reading of the 20th century of women’s and other social organizing in Eastern Europe. Particular interest is in South East Europe but comparative approach will extend to case-studies in other past communist and post-socialist contexts of Eurasia and East Central Europe. Theoretical framework is that of history of social movements and women’s history, as well as of feminist cultural and social analysis. Additional focus of this Lab is on learning to write well and use qualitative methodology in an informed way. The Lab work will be organized around the following principles: working with primary sources; relating theory, history and activism; group work in class, and finally, gaining experience with genres in history and other academic writing.

Topics:

• Gender as a category of analysis in studying history of social movements in Eastern Europe

• Introduction to feminist traditions

• Feminist Twenties and Thirties: Interwar women’s associations

• Post-WWII women’s organizing

• Writing history

• Feminist activists in Eastern Europe - biographical approach

• Cultural history of monuments of activists

• International digital women's archives on SEE social movements

• Non-heterosexual in post-communism

• Films and festivals of and on EE

• Women’s environmental activism in the Balkans

Readings/Bibliography

Bonfiglioli, Chiara. "The first UN world conference on women (1975) as a cold war encounter: Recovering anti-imperialist, non-aligned and socialist genealogies." Filozofija i društvo 27.3 (2016): 521-541.

Curthoys, Ann; McGrath, Ann. How to write history that people want to read. Springer, 2016.

De Haan, Francisca, Krassimira Daskalova, and Anna Loutfi. "A Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms." Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries, Budapest & New York (2006).

Farge, Arlette. The allure of the archives. Yale University Press, 2013.

Iukina, I. (2020). Russian Suffragists and International Suffragist Organisations: Solidarity, Discipleship, Victory. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 4(2), 25.

Scott, Joan Wallach. "Gender: still a useful category of analysis?." Diogenes 57.1 (2010): 7-14.

Vujnovic, Marina. Forging the Bubikopf nation: Journalism, gender, and modernity in interwar Yugoslavia. Vol. 5. Peter Lang, 2009.

 

Additional introductory readings

Bringa, Tone, and Hege Toje, eds. Eurasian borderlands: Spatializing borders in the aftermath of state collapse. Springer, 2016.

Tilly, Charles, and Sidney G. Tarrow. Contentious politics. Oxford University Press, 2015.

Teaching methods

Introduction to lessons, seminar and group discussions, work on writing and qualitative methodology in class, selected audio, archival and film footage.

Assessment methods

Organized as a Laboratory, the grade is Pass/Fail. The class work will be based on short group exercises, group work, during lessons, but also short individual or group writing, research and presentation tasks during the lessons. Besides class participation, there will be two additional written tasks, one based on analysis of primary sources, the second a reaction paper, that will allow the student to obtain a Pass grade.

Teaching tools

Individual laptop is necessary for in-class work.

Selected readings, class work, audio and video, archives.

Office hours

See the website of Sanja Kajinic