Categories
Presentations

Friday October 18

Hybrid session: In-person and on Zoom

Gendering the Saeima: The Politics of Women’s Substantive Representation in Latvia

Laura Dean (Millikin University)

Does higher representation mean more feminist policies?

The 2018 parliamentary elections were a watershed year for women in Latvian politics. In this election, women’s descriptive representation increased from 19% to 31%, the largest increase since the re-establishment of independence

in 1991 with no gender quotas or institutional mechanisms for gender equality. Paxton and Hughes (2017), categorize this 12% increase as a big jump in women’s representation. This presentation, part of a larger book project, questions if the sharp increase in women’s descriptive representation corresponds to better substantive representation for women in Latvia. Using data from in-depth political ethnographic research in the Saeima (Latvian parliament), including participant observation and 44 interviews with female members of parliament, I examine substantive representation in the Latvian case. I use interviews to explore if women MPs believe they take women’s interests
into account in their daily parliamentary work. Then I compare this to differences in parliamentary voting patterns, bill sponsorship, and speeches.

Workshop format: We ask that participants read the paper in advance. At the workshop, Prof. Dean will give a short summary, after which participants are invited to ask questions based on the paper and presentation.

Use this link to register for the Zoom and to receive the paper

Join us in-person! CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, room 5203, Ralph Bunche Institute. Light refreshments and conversation after the talk.

Categories
Presentations

Fall 2024 Schedule

We are excited to offer several hybrid sessions this semester. Please join us in person at the CUNY Graduate Center or on Zoom.

Friday September 13

2pm to 3pm (New York time) on Zoom

Vanja Petrović and Nađa Bobičić (University of Belgrade)

The Never-ending 90s in Serbia: What Came before the Phantasm of Gender

Register for Zoom link here

Friday October 18

2pm to 3pm (New York time) Hybrid in person and Zoom

Laura Dean (Millikin University)

Gendering the Saeima: The Politics of Women’s Substantive Representation in Latvia

Register for Zoom here

In-person address: CUNY Graduate Center, room 5203, Ralph Bunche Institute

Special zoom session and time: Tuesday November 19

11am to 12:15pm (New York Time)

Brooklyn College Endowed Chair in Women’s and Gender Studies Event

Elżbieta Korolczuk (Södertörn University & University of Warsaw)

Anti-Gender Politics in Contemporary Poland and Beyond

Register for Zoom link here.

Friday December 6

2pm to 3pm (New York time) Hybrid In-person and on Zoom

Sandra Russell (Mt. Holyoke College)

Traveling Dreamwork: Black Feminist Epistemologies and Anticolonial Resistance in the Post-Soviet “Periphery”

Register for Zoom here

In-person address: CUNY Graduate Center, room 5203, Ralph Bunche Institute

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Announcement Presentations

Sept 13: Petrović and Bobičić on Anti-Genderism in Serbia

Join us Friday, September 13, 2pm to 3pm (New York Time) for our first meeting of the Fall 2024 semester, on Zoom, when we welcome

Vanja Petrović and Nađa Bobičić (University of Belgrade) on

Abstract: Many of the same conservative politicians, intellectuals and clergy members of the Serbian Orthodox Church have been dominating Serbia’s political landscape for the better part of the past 35 years and have played a central role in the formation of the local anti-gender movement. Here, we seek to contribute to the ongoing efforts of making sense of how and why anti-gender mobilization is making such steady headway in our society. Using archival documents, we map actors and showcase the ideological imaginary held by the conservative elite during the 1990s. We argue that this ideological imaginary serves as the foundation of anti-gender mobilizations today. As right-wing actors did not act in a vacuum, we also highlight the unwavering feminist and pacifist left-wing opposition.

Nađa Bobičić (PhD) is a literary critic, socialist feminist and queer ally who lives and works in the region of the former Yugoslavia. She has been the co-editor of several collective volumes on the topic of gender-based violence, including Non/violence and responsibility: between structure and culture(Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southeast Europe, 2020). Recently, she was a member of several research projects concerning unpaid housework, the position of women cultural workers in Serbia, and countering gender backlash in Serbia and Montenegro.   

Vanja Petrovic is an organizer, activist, and PhD candidate in social policy and social work at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science. Her research is interdisciplenary, spanning across gender studies, social policy, and ethnography. They are a founder of the Novi Sad Summer School for Abolition Feminism.  

Workshop format: We ask that participants read the paper in advance. At the workshop, the presenters will share a brief overview, followed by an open discussion. We invite participants to ask questions based on the paper and the discussion.

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Announcement

Call for Papers 2024-2025

Founded in 1993, amidst the conflicts in Yugoslavia, this workshop is driven by the exploration of questions related to gender in postcommunist countries of East, South and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, including the Baltic countries and Central Asia. Centered on debates on communism’s impact on women and gender and on how to converse and theorize across the East-West divide, this workshop strives to include voices from not just the New York City area, but also from the region and around the world. We continue to be an informal and friendly gathering for feminist scholars, activists, and journalists to discuss recent theoretical and/or critical work, empirical research, and critical and scholarly reflections on activism. 

Theme: We invite papers on any topic related to the themes of communism and postcommunism and gender, but this year, we are particularly p thinking about the impact of Russia’s long war against Ukraine and of the threat of anti-gender populism and authoritarianism. We remain especially interested in proposals that consider the impact of Russia’s aggression on gender in the region, state gendered violence inside and outside the state borders, and the role of state propaganda in fostering ultranationalism and war. We are also especially interested in reflecting on our work as scholars of gender and this region, including  the continued influence of Russia-centrism and West-based scholarship.  We welcome conversations that put this region in the context of global events and processes, including the Israel-Gaza war.

Details:

  • Meet monthly, usually on Fridays, at the CUNY Grad Center in New York City (with Zoom participation available) or via Zoom only, 2-3 PM New York time (8-9PM Poland time)
  • Presenters share a 10-15 page paper in advance to those who have registered. We ask authors to limit their presentation to 20 minutes to allow maximum time for conversation.
  • We will moderate the sessions so that we check in with what we are all thinking about, hear and see the key ideas of the paper, and have lots of time to discuss collaboratively.

To participate, please fill out this google form with your name, email, location/affiliation, current related interests.  We have also created a space there for you to share your thoughts and suggestions about the workshop as well as to indicate interest in participating in a NYC-based networking session to foster collaboration and mentoring.

If you’d like to present your work/project  this next academic year, please also add the following: 

  • tentative title for your talk
  • abstract of less than 200 words describing your proposed talk
  • up to 5 recent publications or information about your activism
  • your schedule clarifying which Fridays you could present
  • Preferred format: Zoom or in-person

We regret that, despite our best efforts, we do not have funds for an honorarium. All are welcome to participate.  We will start reviewing proposals on Aug. 1, 2024.

Warmly,

Janet Elise Johnson, Brooklyn College and Grad Center, City University of New York johnson@brookyn.cuny.edu

Mara Lazda, Bronx Community College, City University of New York mara.lazda@bcc.cuny.edu

Categories
Announcement

A Feminist Response to the War in Ukraine: Vlada Nedak in conversation with Janet Elise Johnson

Friday May 3 2pm to 3pm

Vlada Nedak

CEO of Project Kesher Ukraine and the Women’s Opportunity Fund of Ukraine

In person at CUNY Graduate Center 
(room 5203, Ralph Bunche Institute)

and Zoom

Register here for the Zoom link

Vlada Nedak is the CEO of Project Kesher Ukraine and the Women’s Opportunity Fund of Ukraine, which she founded in 2022. During her 20 years of leadership, she has been active in building Jewish life in Ukraine, developing a network of women community leaders, and building partnerships with women’s NGOs and other national and religious organizations. Some of her accomplishments include: designing and implementing the first women’s health programming on Hromadske (Ukrainian public) radio; commissioning and overseeing the creation of a year of Jewish holiday celebrations in Ukrainian, including the first Ukrainian-language haggadah; and administering over a million dollars of humanitarian aid for women and children in the past year. Vlada is a graduate of Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, and earned her MBA from Lviv Business School of Ukraine Catholic University where her work was recognized with a 2023 Alumni of the Year award.

in conversation with Janet Elise Johnson, Endowed Chair in Women’s and Gender Studies, Brooklyn College, City University New York, and Professor, Political Science & Women’s/Gender Studies, Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center

Discussion format: For this session, there is no paper to read in advance. We ask that participants come with questions, including about what we as feminists can do to support feminist work in Ukraine. At the workshop, Dr. Johnson will pose a series of questions to Ms. Nedak, after which we invite discussion with the in-person and online audience.

Categories
Presentations

Seditious Bodies: The Subversive Aesthetics of Vulnerability in East European Feminist Performances

Aniko Szucs

(Queen’s College, CUNY)

Friday April 12 2024

2pm to 3pm (New York Time)

In person at CUNY Graduate Center CUNY Graduate Center (room 5203, Ralph Bunche Institute)

and Zoom

REGISTER HERE FOR ZOOM LINK AND DRAFT PAPER

Workshop format: We ask that participants read the paper in advance. At the workshop, Dr. Szucs will give a brief presentation, after which we invite discussion with the in-person and online audience.

Aniko Szucs is a theater and performance studies scholar, dramaturg, and curator. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Drama, Theater, and Dance at Queens College. Dr. Szucs completed her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at New York University and earned an M.F.A. in Dramaturgy from the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest. She has worked as a resident and a production dramaturg in theaters across the US and Hungary. Dr. Szucs’s research interests include Central and East European political theater, feminist protest movements and performances, politics of memory, and the genealogy and critique of state surveillance.

Abstract:

 Seditious Bodies: The Subversive Aesthetics of Vulnerability in East European Feminist Performances 

In the recent transnational crisis of neoliberal austerity and rising neo-authoritarianism, there has been increased scholarly attention placed on forms of cultural resistance and social protest that—through performative gestures—foreground bodily vulnerability, mobilizing it as a site of connection and potentiality. Vulnerability, in this context, is a socio-political predicament that is perceived as a condition of resistance. This talk, however, considers vulnerability as an affective-aesthetic quality that distinctively characterizes contemporary East European feminist performances. Building on the genealogy of feminist body art and theory of the region, performance artists Maria Kulikovska (Ukraine) and Mikolt Tózsa (Hungary) yet again turn the female body and feminine corporeality into a vehicle of feminist resistance. The vulnerable body at the center of these performances is not merely a product of the precarious social and material conditions but a matrix of affective forces, symbolic gestures, and performative routines, one that liberates the artists from the ontological precarity of their existence. 

 

 

Categories
Announcement

Jewish Women in Post-World War II Eastern and Central Europe

Friday, March 8 2pm to 3pm (New York time, on Zoom)

For the workshop link and articles: Register Here

Please join us for a special workshop session with Prof. Lappin-Engel and Prof. Pető to discuss the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of Nashim. This special issue of Nashim analyzes Jewish women’s history in post-World War II Eastern and Central Europe, a topic long overlooked by scholarly investigation, owing to overlapping circles of forgetting.  Addressing this gap in the scholarly literature is all the more timely in the context of the political turmoil occurring in many countries. History can be inspirational: It can show how destroyed and disappearing communities, nationalized educational and cultural infrastructure, collaboration with secret services, betrayal, and loss can be told in different ways. All these horrors, loss, destruction, misery and trauma contributed to the formation in East Central and Central Europe of a reactive and negative Jewish identity. However, the 1980’s brought an important change in Jewish life not only in the former Communist states but also in Western oriented countries. A new generation of women worked towards Jewish renewal and a new appraisal of the Jewish women of the generations preceding them. By offering a pivotal gesture of creative elaboration of new histories of Jewish women in this vast region, we hope to participate in reclaiming the future and creating models of a proactive, positive Jewish identity. All four papers by Andrea Peto, Eleonore Lappin-Eppel, Elisa Klapchek, and Galina Zelenina deal with different forms of Jewish women’s agency within the Jewish and non-Jewish environment.

For the issue see: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/50101

Workshop format: At the workshop, Prof. Lappin-Engel and Prof. Pető will have a short presentation, after which participants are invited to ask questions based on the presentation and the articles.

Andrea Pető is a historian and a Professor at the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University, Vienna, Austria, a Research Affiliate of the CEU Democracy Institute, Budapest, and a Doctor of Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her works on gender, politics, Holocaust, and war have been translated into 23 languages. In 2018 she was awarded the 2018 All European Academies (ALLEA) Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values and the 2022 University of Oslo Human Rights Award. She is Doctor Honoris Causa of Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. Recent publications include The Women of the Arrow Cross Party. Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War. Palgrave, Macmillan, 2020. And Forgotten Massacre: Budapest 1944. DeGruyter, 2021. Pető tweets about academic freedom and state of gender and Holocaust studies as @petoandrea

Eleonore Lappin-Eppel is an Austrian historian living in Vienna. After studying Comparative Literature and History of Ideas in the US and in Israel she worked at the Institute for Jewish History in Austria. In 2009 she became senior researcher at the Institute for Cultural Sciences and Theatre History of the Austrian Academy of Science and in 2010 staff member of the Centre for Jewish Studies at Karl-Franzens-University, Graz, where she habilitated in 2011. Areas of research are the Nazi persecution of Austrian and Hungarian Jews in Austria, transitional justice in Austria and memorial politics in Austria. Her major publications in these fields are: Ungarisch-jüdische Zwangsarbeiterinnenund Zwangsarbeiter in Österreich 1944/45. Arbeitseinsatz – Todesmärsche – Folgen, Vienna 2010; and Topographie der Shoah: Gedächtnisorte an das zerstörte jüdische Wien, zusammen mit Dieter Hecht und Michaela Raggam Blesch, Vienna 2015, 20172. She has also published on autobiographical writing of Jewish Austrians as well as edited a series of autobiographies of Jewish Austrians.

Categories
Presentations

Defending women’s and Ukrainians’ rights in Poland

Friday, February 23, 2pm to 3pm (New York Time)

on Zoom with

Olena Morozova (V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University/University of British Columbia)

Ania Switzer (University of British Columbia)

Please join us for our second session of Spring 2024, with Professors Morozova and Switzer on “Collective mobilisation in defence of women’s rights and Ukrainian displaced persons in Poland”

The presentation discusses the impact of sexual and reproductive health policies in Poland in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine. While Ukraine’s sexual and reproductive health policies align with dominant European standards of care, Poland, with one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, is an outlier. Women who fled the war in Ukraine to Poland entered the field of Poland’s contentious bio-politics. The paper examines two of their emergent positions: (1) as unexpected beneficiaries of social mobilisation set in motion during large-scale protests resulting from the 2020 tightening of Poland’s abortion laws, and (2) as agents of change, since their medical needs spurred re-formulation of strategies employed by women’s rights advocates and led both to the broadening of local third-sector coalitions and expanding of transnational ties of activism. The paper examines the intersectional effect of social mobilisation and the agency of women in this context.

Olena Morozova is linguist and a Full Professor at the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine. She is currently serving as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies at the University of British Columbia. Broadly interested in cognitive linguistics, discourse studies, media linguistics, political linguistics, Morozova’s current research projects include analysis of the mechanisms of deception and manipulation in public spheres in the time of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Ania Switzer is a sociologist and a historian, graduate of Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland) and University of London (UK). She is a past Chevening Scholar and a recipient of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Award. Her areas of specialisation include nationalism, production of knowledge and memory, and political change in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Holocaust studies. Currently, her research explores the intersections of women’s rights and social mobilisation in the context of war in Ukraine. Switzer has been teaching at the University of British Columbia since 2015.

Format: We ask that participants read the paper in advance. At the workshop, the speakers will give a brief introduction, after which participants are invited to ask questions and make suggestions based on the paper and presentation.

To receive the paper and Zoom link, Register here

This presentation is also part of the
Brooklyn College 
Women’s & Gender Studies Endowed Chair 
Miniseries on “Russia’s Continuing War against Ukraine”  

Categories
Schedule

SPRING 2024 SCHEDULE

Friday February 9 2pm to 3pm (New York time)

Unveiling the War and Constructing Identities: Exploring Memes in Ukrainian and Russian Social Media during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Alina Mozolevska, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University (Mykolaiv, Ukraine)

On Zoom, 2pm to 3pm 

REGISTER FOR FEB 9 HERE

Friday February 23 2pm to 3pm (New York time)

Collective Mobilisation in Defence of Women’s Rights and Ukrainian Displaced Persons in Poland

and 

Ania Switzer (University of British Columbia)

Jewish Women in Post-World War II Eastern and Central Europe: Special Issue of Nashim

Eleonore Lappin-Engel (Vienna) and Andrea Pető (Central European University)

Seditious Bodies: The Subversive Aesthetics of Vulnerability in Hungarian Feminist Performances

Aniko Szucs (Queens College, CUNY)

Friday May 3 2pm to 3pm (In-person, CUNY Graduate Center and on-line)

A Feminist Response to the War in Ukraine: Vlada Nedak in conversation with Janet Elise Johnson

Vlada Nedak, CEO of Project Kesher Ukraine and the Women’s Opportunity Fund of Ukraine

REGISTER FOR MAY 3 HERE

Categories
Presentations

Memes in Ukrainian and Russian Social Media

Friday, February 9, 2pm to 3pm (New York Time)

on Zoom with

Alina Mozolevska

Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University (Mykolaiv, Ukraine)

Please join us for our first session of Spring 2024, with Prof. Mozolevska on “Unveiling the War and Constructing Identities: Exploring Memes in Ukrainian and Russian Social Media during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.”

The paper examines the generation and deployment of visual narratives in Ukrainian and Russian digital participatory cultures, with a specific focus on internet memes in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It analyzes the form, content, and functions of these memes and highlights their similarity in mobilizing and conveying political messages despite variations in their visual components. The study indicates that Ukrainian memes are used not only to promote political agendas but also serve as trauma coping and collective identity construction mechanisms in times of crisis, helping to promote new war narratives that are engaged in the construction of the self and the other.

Alina Mozolevska is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philology, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University (Mykolaiv, Ukraine). She holds a PhD in Linguistics with a major in Romance Languages from Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, Ukraine (2015). Her research interests include media studies, discourse analysis, and border studies, and she has published on borders and identity in literary and political discourses.  Alina Mozolevska was a visiting professor at the UniGR-Center for Border Studies, Saarland University (Volkswagen Foundation project “Borders in Crisis”, Saarbrücken, Germany). Currently she is a ZOiS UNET Ukraine-based Fellow 2023-2024.

Format: We ask that participants read the paper in advance. At the workshop, Prof. Mozolevska will give a brief introduction, after which participants are invited to ask questions and make suggestions based on the paper and presentation.

To receive the paper and Zoom link REGISTER HERE

This presentation is also part of the
Brooklyn College 
Women’s & Gender Studies Endowed Chair 
Miniseries on “Russia’s Continuing War against Ukraine”