Transformative Salon (Web)

Time: Thu, 05.12.2024, 19:00-21:00 CEST
Venue: Café Merkur, Florianig. 18, 1080 Vienna

The Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) (Web) at the Univ. of Vienna and the Research Platform „Transformations and Eastern Europe“ (Web) invite to their regular Transformative Salon, this time with Zsófia Lóránd (RECET/Univ. of Vienna), Claudia Kraft (RECET/Univ. of Vienna), and Celia Donert (Cambridge Univ.).

The Transformative Salon will entail the book launch of „Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights, East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century“ (Zsófia Lóránd, Adela Hîncu, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc, Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz; CEU Press 2024), (Web) accompanied by a discussion between Zsófia Lóránd, Claudia Kraft, and Celia Donert. A compendium of one hundred sources, preceded by a short author’s bio and an introduction, this volume offers an English language selection of the most representative texts on feminism and women’s rights from East Central Europe between the end of World War Two and the early 1990s. While communist era is the primary focus, the interwar years and the post-1989 transition period also receive attention. All texts are new translations from the original.
The book is organised around themes instead of countries; the similarities and differences between nations are nevertheless pointed out. The editors consider women not only in their local context, but also in conjunction with other systems of thought—including shared agendas with socialism, liberalism, nationalism, and even eugenics. The choice of texts seeks to demonstrate how feminism as political thought was shaped and organised in the region. They vary in type and format from political treatises, philosophy to literary works, even films and the visual arts, with the necessary inclusion of the personal and the private. Women’s political rights, right to education, their role in nation-building, women, and war (and especially women and peace) are part of the anthology, alongside the gendered division of labour, violence against women, the body, and reproduction. Read more … (Web)