Conference on Gender in Post-Communism

 distribution of: CentralAsia-L - Announcement List for Central Asian
Studies


CONF./CFP- Placing Gender in Postcommunism, Oxford, Ohio, Oct. 18-19, 2002

Havighurst Center for Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Annual Grad
Student Conference
PLACING GENDER IN POSTCOMMUNISM
Invited speaker: Helena Goscilo, University of Pittsburgh
Miami University, Oxford, OH
October 18-19, 2002

The Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami
University invites graduate student papers reflecting on the many ways
gender is implicated in postcommunist social, cultural, and political
formations.  By calling for papers that "place" gender in post-communism, we
hope to promote two lines of inquiry:

1. What are the sites and spaces in which and through which gender is
(re-)constituted in postcommunism?  We point to a range of kinds and levels
of place or space, from the most specific and local to the largest and/or
most diffuse, from communal apartments, kiosks, and farmers' markets to
medical, educational, legal, and political institutions, to nation states
(and the borders between them), to the internet.  Papers might consider
transactions made on street corners or comparatively analyze regional
differences in gender-related policies or gendered participation in
parliaments or bureaucracies.  They might highlight the gendered
implications of postcommunist architecture or the gendered aspects in the
travels of migrant laborers.  Papers might also consider gender and gender
studies in postcommunist academic institutions or the role of gender in
civil society.

2. How can we most fruitfully place gender in terms of our own intellectual
discourses?  And what are the imagined geographies which undergird our
thinking about gender in postcommunism?  Much current work draws either
implicitly or explicitly on a dichotomy between feminisms east and west or
denies that such differences exist.  We seek work that might point the way
to new and variegated feminist topographies.  For instance, how might the
work on gender and postcolonial studies be brought to bear in thinking about
postcommunism?  What would comparisons of Polish and Pakistani feminisms
look like?  How might theories of intersectionality be brought to studies of
Roma women?  How might feminist studies of Islam make sense of Islamic
postcommunist regions?

Papers may hail from any discipline (anthropology, sociology, political
science, literary criticism, folklore, religious studies, history, etc.) and
may focus on any aspect of social and political life in which gender is at
stake in any of the postcommunist countries in Central and Eastern Europe or
Central Eurasia.  We strongly encourage proposals from grad students who
have already completed their dissertation research.  The Havighurst Center
will provide accommodation in Oxford, ground transportation from the
airport, and partial travel funding (up to $250 for domestic travel and up
to $500 for international travel).

To be considered for the conference, submit an abstract of approximately 250
words and a CV to [email protected] by August 1, 2002.  Please
type "grad student conference" as the subject of the email.  We plan to get
back to you by September 1, 2002.  Final papers, of approximately 15-25
pages, must be submitted by October 1, 2002, when they will be posted on the
Havighurst website.