New Knowledge Seminar
Gender and Citizenship in the post-Cold War World
Description | Participants | Guests |Bibliography | Related Events
The first session of the seminar met on Friday, September 19.
Sitting left to right: Sara Friedman, Colin Johnson, Susan Williams
Standing left to right: Purnima Bose, Brenda Weber, Maria Bucur, Sarah Phillips, Beate Sissenich
The New Knowledge Seminar Gender and Citizenship in the post-Cold War World explores the institutional and cultural shifts that have shaped citizenship regimes from a gender perspective in different world regions since the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War. The seminar brings together selected faculty at IUB and international scholars who are interested in exploring gender and citizenship in new kinds of transnational and comparative ways. Although the study of citizenship is well established in a variety of academic disciplines, rarely have scholars of citizenship engaged with questions of gender in a systematic and meaningful manner. The time is ripe to develop such a conversation, especially in the wake of collapse of the East European and Soviet communist regimes and their citizen-making projects. It is important to extend our analytical frameworks for understanding the creation of gendered subjects beyond the bounds of particular states or world regions and into a broader, more global post-Cold War perspective.
The "Gender and Citizenship" seminars will generate interdisciplinary perspectives for understanding the political, cultural, social, and economic contexts and structures that govern citizenship in an increasingly globalized world. By involving scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds--anthropology, history, political science, philosophy, literary criticism, law, and gender studies--we seek to foster a broad and deep engagement with these issues. We believe it is important to bring together scholars who look critically at the historical contexts and cultural manifestations of questions of gender and citizenship, for example, with those who are more interested in policy making and the legal and institutional structures that drive citizenship projects within and across states. Such an approach will encourage all seminar participants to test our own disciplinary assumptions and to think critically about what we assume to be important for interrogating gender and citizenship in particular historical, political, and cultural contexts.
A key issue for us is to generate new and collaborative ways that will enable the participants to identify what broad shifts we have seen vis-Ã -vis gender and citizenship since the end of the Cold War, and how such shifts are manifested in specific national and local contexts. In particular, how can we speak about the legacies of the post-World War II state policies in different parts of the world in terms of gender equity? How do these legacies help us better understand the meaning of the liberal welfare state before 1991 and since then? How can these legacies and developments since 1991 help us better understand the limits of women's and LGBT individuals' advancement towards full citizenship in political, cultural, and economic terms? And how can different disciplinary approaches as well as case studies enable us to better address these complex issues as pertaining not simply to individual cases, but to the world we live in at large? Our invited participants from outside IUB have been selected with these questions in mind. These scholars--a multidisciplinary group representing sociology, anthropology, history, and history of philosophy--are conducting cutting-edge research in Europe and especially the post-communist countries of the former Soviet bloc. Their perspectives will help bring into relief what aspects of citizenship and gender regimes are comparable across geographical and political boundaries.
The "Gender and Citizenship" seminars will allow participants to refine their own theoretical and methodological approaches to specific research inquiries while benefiting from rich interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations. We expect broad areas of inquiry to include the ways in which citizenship is mediated discursively, spatially, and legally/institutionally in particular historical, cultural, and political contexts, and how these mediations variously involve questions of gender. Participants are likely to consider the relative importance of key sites of citizenship making in their own research periods or locales, including education, work, and reproductive policy and the family (including questions of sexuality and marriage), among others.
Purnima Bose,
Areas of Interest: English, South Asia, gender and post-colonialism, globalization
Gardner Bovingdon, Central Eurasian Studies, East Asia (Xing-Xjang), nationalism, citizenship, and religion.
Brenda Weber,
Areas of Interest: Gender Studies, U.S. and Great Britain, gender and mass media.
Sara Friedman,
Areas of Interest: Anthropology and Gender Studies, China, gender and citizenship.
Colin Johnson,
Areas of Interest: Gender Studies, U.S., gay identities in rural America.
Beate Sissenich,
Areas of Interest: Gender Studies, U.S., gay identities in rural AmericaPolitical Science, E.U. and Eastern Europe, welfare state issues
Susan Williams,
Areas of Interest: Law, Southeast Asia, constitutional studies
Maria Bucur,
Areas of Interest: History, Eastern Europe, historical memory, gender, eugenics
Sarah Phillips,
Areas of Interest: Anthropology, Eastern Europe, gender and civil society, disability and citizenship
Agnieszka Graff,
Professor of American Studies
Warsaw University,
Poland
Areas of Interest: Poland, nationalism and women's rights, constraints on public roles of women, religion, feminism, media.
Mihaela Miroiu,
Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies
National School for Public Administration,
Bucharest, Romania
Areas of Interest: Romania, feminist political theory, ethics, bio-ethics, liberalism, patriarchy and rightwing communism
Francisca de Haan,
Professor of History and Gender Studies
Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary
Areas of Interest: international women's movement, women's biographies, women's work, and feminism and religion.
Lynne Haney,
Professor of Sociology,
New York University
Areas of Interest: U.S. institutional regimes of mass imprisonment = implications for gendered citizenship; welfare reform and gender in Hungary.
Michele Rivkin-Fish,
Professor of Anthropology,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Areas of Interest: nationalism and demographic policy, childbirth incentive programs, Russia.
September 19, 2008
Facilitators: Maria Bucur and Sarah Phillips
Ruth A. Miller, The Limits of Bodily Integrity: Abortion, Adultery, and Rape Legislation in Comparative Perspective (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate 2007), chapters 1 and 5.
Peggy Watson, "Re-thinking Transition. Globalism, Gender and Class," International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 2, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 185-213.
November 14, 2008
Guest: Agnieszka Graff
Facilitators: Colin Johnson and Brenda Weber
Readings: TBA
November 24, 2008
Guest: Mihaela Miroiu
Facilitator: Gardner Bovingdon
Readings: TBA
Our Innocence, Foreign Perversions:
Gender and Sexuality in Polish Nationalist Discourse
Public Lecture by Agnieszka Graff
November 13, 2008
IMU Persimmon Room
4 p.m.
Co-sponsors: Polish Studies, Russian and East European Institute, Gender Studies, Horizons of Knowledge
Gender Studies
Indiana University
Memorial Hall E., 130
Bloomington, IN * 47403
(812) 855-0101
(812) 855-4869 (fax)
gender@indiana.edu
Important Links
New Knowledge Seminar
Gender and Citizenship in the post-Cold War World
Description | Participants | Guests |Bibliography | Related Events
The first session of the seminar met on Friday, September 19.
Sitting left to right: Sara Friedman, Colin Johnson, Susan Williams
Standing left to right: Purnima Bose, Brenda Weber, Maria Bucur, Sarah Phillips, Beate Sissenich
The New Knowledge Seminar Gender and Citizenship in the post-Cold War World explores the institutional and cultural shifts that have shaped citizenship regimes from a gender perspective in different world regions since the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War. The seminar brings together selected faculty at IUB and international scholars who are interested in exploring gender and citizenship in new kinds of transnational and comparative ways. Although the study of citizenship is well established in a variety of academic disciplines, rarely have scholars of citizenship engaged with questions of gender in a systematic and meaningful manner. The time is ripe to develop such a conversation, especially in the wake of collapse of the East European and Soviet communist regimes and their citizen-making projects. It is important to extend our analytical frameworks for understanding the creation of gendered subjects beyond the bounds of particular states or world regions and into a broader, more global post-Cold War perspective.
The "Gender and Citizenship" seminars will generate interdisciplinary perspectives for understanding the political, cultural, social, and economic contexts and structures that govern citizenship in an increasingly globalized world. By involving scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds--anthropology, history, political science, philosophy, literary criticism, law, and gender studies--we seek to foster a broad and deep engagement with these issues. We believe it is important to bring together scholars who look critically at the historical contexts and cultural manifestations of questions of gender and citizenship, for example, with those who are more interested in policy making and the legal and institutional structures that drive citizenship projects within and across states. Such an approach will encourage all seminar participants to test our own disciplinary assumptions and to think critically about what we assume to be important for interrogating gender and citizenship in particular historical, political, and cultural contexts.
A key issue for us is to generate new and collaborative ways that will enable the participants to identify what broad shifts we have seen vis-Ã -vis gender and citizenship since the end of the Cold War, and how such shifts are manifested in specific national and local contexts. In particular, how can we speak about the legacies of the post-World War II state policies in different parts of the world in terms of gender equity? How do these legacies help us better understand the meaning of the liberal welfare state before 1991 and since then? How can these legacies and developments since 1991 help us better understand the limits of women's and LGBT individuals' advancement towards full citizenship in political, cultural, and economic terms? And how can different disciplinary approaches as well as case studies enable us to better address these complex issues as pertaining not simply to individual cases, but to the world we live in at large? Our invited participants from outside IUB have been selected with these questions in mind. These scholars--a multidisciplinary group representing sociology, anthropology, history, and history of philosophy--are conducting cutting-edge research in Europe and especially the post-communist countries of the former Soviet bloc. Their perspectives will help bring into relief what aspects of citizenship and gender regimes are comparable across geographical and political boundaries.
The "Gender and Citizenship" seminars will allow participants to refine their own theoretical and methodological approaches to specific research inquiries while benefiting from rich interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations. We expect broad areas of inquiry to include the ways in which citizenship is mediated discursively, spatially, and legally/institutionally in particular historical, cultural, and political contexts, and how these mediations variously involve questions of gender. Participants are likely to consider the relative importance of key sites of citizenship making in their own research periods or locales, including education, work, and reproductive policy and the family (including questions of sexuality and marriage), among others.
Purnima Bose,
Areas of Interest: English, South Asia, gender and post-colonialism, globalization
Gardner Bovingdon, Central Eurasian Studies, East Asia (Xing-Xjang), nationalism, citizenship, and religion.
Brenda Weber,
Areas of Interest: Gender Studies, U.S. and Great Britain, gender and mass media.
Sara Friedman,
Areas of Interest: Anthropology and Gender Studies, China, gender and citizenship.
Colin Johnson,
Areas of Interest: Gender Studies, U.S., gay identities in rural America.
Beate Sissenich,
Areas of Interest: Gender Studies, U.S., gay identities in rural AmericaPolitical Science, E.U. and Eastern Europe, welfare state issues
Susan Williams,
Areas of Interest: Law, Southeast Asia, constitutional studies
Maria Bucur,
Areas of Interest: History, Eastern Europe, historical memory, gender, eugenics
Sarah Phillips,
Areas of Interest: Anthropology, Eastern Europe, gender and civil society, disability and citizenship
Agnieszka Graff,
Professor of American Studies
Warsaw University,
Poland
Areas of Interest: Poland, nationalism and women's rights, constraints on public roles of women, religion, feminism, media.
Mihaela Miroiu,
Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies
National School for Public Administration,
Bucharest, Romania
Areas of Interest: Romania, feminist political theory, ethics, bio-ethics, liberalism, patriarchy and rightwing communism
Francisca de Haan,
Professor of History and Gender Studies
Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary
Areas of Interest: international women's movement, women's biographies, women's work, and feminism and religion.
Lynne Haney,
Professor of Sociology,
New York University
Areas of Interest: U.S. institutional regimes of mass imprisonment = implications for gendered citizenship; welfare reform and gender in Hungary.
Michele Rivkin-Fish,
Professor of Anthropology,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Areas of Interest: nationalism and demographic policy, childbirth incentive programs, Russia.
September 19, 2008
Facilitators: Maria Bucur and Sarah Phillips
Ruth A. Miller, The Limits of Bodily Integrity: Abortion, Adultery, and Rape Legislation in Comparative Perspective (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate 2007), chapters 1 and 5.
Peggy Watson, "Re-thinking Transition. Globalism, Gender and Class," International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 2, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 185-213.
November 14, 2008
Guest: Agnieszka Graff
Facilitators: Colin Johnson and Brenda Weber
Readings: TBA
November 24, 2008
Guest: Mihaela Miroiu
Facilitator: Gardner Bovingdon
Readings: TBA
Our Innocence, Foreign Perversions:
Gender and Sexuality in Polish Nationalist Discourse
Public Lecture by Agnieszka Graff
November 13, 2008
IMU Persimmon Room
4 p.m.
Co-sponsors: Polish Studies, Russian and East European Institute, Gender Studies, Horizons of Knowledge
Gender Studies
Indiana University
Memorial Hall E., 130
Bloomington, IN * 47403
(812) 855-0101
(812) 855-4869 (fax)
gender@indiana.edu
Important Links
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