Gender History of Eastern Europe: A Transnational Perspective
Weekly outline
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Class time: Mondays 17:30 – 19:05
Office hours: Tuesdays 17:00-18:00Dr Ivan Simic
Description:Throughout the course, students will critically examine sources and literature for some of the crucial issues that marked the gender history of Eastern Europe in the 20th century. We will observe gender history from a transnational perspective, bringing together different regions and exploring the topics such as the interwar feminist movements, the Second World War and its impacts, the communist revolutions and gender policies, queer cultures, the collapse of socialism and post-socialist gender policies. The focus will be on the movement of ideas and people, asking questions about how gender informed broader policies and social interventions, but also how understandings about gender and sexuality were changing during the 20th century. By investigating these far-reaching questions, we will aim to uncover the lives of ordinary people discussing their agency and the shared gendered experiences across the region.
Course Material
Readings and films are available through moodle. Podcasts are linked to their original page.
Requirements and Grading
Undergraduate Students
- Class Participation and discussion questions: 20%
- Presentation: 10%
- Book Review: 20% (due 1 December)
- Final Paper (2000 words +-10%, due 20 January): 50%
Graduate Students
- Class Participation and discussion questions: 20%
- Presentation: 10%
- Book Review: 20% (due 1 December)
- Final Paper (3000 words +-10%, due 20 January): 50%
Participation is evaluated on the following criteria:
- providing meaningful discussion questions;
- contribution to the weekly seminar discussions.
All students have to send 3-5 discussion questions based on the readings 2 hours before every class. These questions are also considered as part of participation.
Presentation: each student is required to have a class presentation for one of the weekly seminars of their choice. The presentation is maximum 10 minutes long.
Book Review: each student will write one book review.
The selected book must be approved by the instructor. The length of the review is 650-750 words.
Final paper: The final paper discusses one question, provided by the instructor or chosen by a student in consultation with the instructor. It is based on primary sources (most likely in translation) or secondary sources (in this case, you are expected to engage the historiography of the issue).
The length of the paper is 2000 words for undergraduate and 3000 words for graduate students.
The final paper should be seen as a research project, discussing a question/problem in an original way.
The question and the primary and secondary sources must be analysed critically, focusing on your arguments. Please feel free to consult the instructor during the entire process.
Experiential Learning:
During the discussions, we will aim to combine direct experience with focused reflection on the course readings. We will build on past knowledge and experiences, always striving to foster critical thinking. Besides the required readings from this outline, we will listen to oral history accounts, read (translated) primary sources, watch films (with subtitles), and analyse other sources such as images and posters.
Aiming to maximise the student’s learning outcomes, graduate students can also suggest alternative tasks that could contribute to their final dissertation.
Presentation list:
11 October - Anabel Molina Quesada
18 October - Juliette Goudeau (Death Battalion); 3 places available
25 October - Carla Schmidt (Czech Feminism); Diana Planida (Feminism and Marxism); Antonia Kern (Interwar Feminisms); 1 places available
1 November - Pellier Orlane and Léonore Louis (Prostitution and Stalinism); 2 places available
8 November - Martina Castiglione (Gender and Wartime Poland); 3 places available
15 November - Maelle Francoise (New Family Policies after WW2); 3 places available
22 November - Auriane Chabaud, Laurène Tranchant and Clara Letellier (Double Burden); Ruby Mancini (Women and Welfare)
29 November - Nadine Rushe (Gender and Religion); Camelia Aidaoui; Sinead Lambe; Rokas Ramanauskas
6 December - Anaëlle Jeannin (Sex cultures); Nolan Godelaine and Léa Lespagnol (LGBTQ+ in Socialist Poland); 1 place available
13 December - Hannah Smets (Women Writers and Dissent); Filip Wijnings (Gender and Films); 2 places available
20 December - Anna Fiserova (Cont. Czech Feminism); Elsa Yegavian (Postsocialism); Agata Dybek and Laury Jaspard (Postsocialism and Disability in Poland) -
- Scott, Joan W. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” The American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (December 1986): 1053–75.
- Bucur, Maria. “An Archipelago of Stories: Gender History in Eastern Europe.” The American Historical Review 113, no. 5 (December 2008): 1375–89.
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- Hämmerle, Christa. “‘Mentally Broken, Physically a Wreck…’: Violence in War Accounts of Nurses in Austro-Hungarian Service.” In Gender and the First World War, edited by Christa Hämmerle, Oswald Überegger, and Birgitta Bader-Zaar, 89–107, 2014.
- Phillips, L. L. “Gendered Dis/Ability: Perspectives from the Treatment of Psychiatric Casualties in Russia’s Early Twentieth-Century Wars.” Social History of Medicine 20, no. 2 (August 1, 2007): 333–50.
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- Goldman, Wendy Z. Women, the State, and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 1-13; 29-58.
- Gorsuch, Anne E. “‘A Woman Is Not a Man’: The Culture of Gender and Generation in Soviet Russia, 1921-1928.” Slavic Review 55, no. 3 (October 1, 1996): 636–60.
Mandatory film:
- Prostituka (A Prostitute), 1927
Mandatory podcast:
- Witness History - The Original Revolutionary Feminist (first 9 mins)
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- Fábián, Katalin. “Making an Appearance: The Formation of Women’s Groups in Hungary.” Aspasia 1, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 103-127
- Miroiu, Mihaela. “Communism Was a State Patriarchy, Not State Feminism.” Aspasia 1, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 197-201.
- Studer, Brigitte. “Communism and Feminism.” Clio. Women, Gender, History 41, no. 1 (2015): 139–52.
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- Goldman, Wendy Z. Women, the State, and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 296-336
- Hoffmann, David L. “Mothers in the Motherland: Stalinist Pronatalism in Its Pan-European Context.” Journal of Social History 34, no. 1 (October 1, 2000): 35–54
- Healey, Dan. Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2001. 126-151, 181-204
Podcast:
- Witness History - The Poster Boy for the Communist System
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- Simic, Ivan. Soviet Influences on Postwar Yugoslav Gender Policies. New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018. 21-47
- Jolluck, Katherine R. “Life and Fate: Race, Nationality, Class and Gender in Wartime Poland.” In Gender in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe and the USSR, edited by Catherine Baker, 96–112. Gender and History. London New York: Macmillan Education Palgrave, 2017.
- Daskalova, Krassimira. “A Woman Politician in the Cold War Balkans: From Biography to History.” Aspasia 10, no. 1 (January 1, 2016): 63-88.
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- Brunnbauer, Ulf, and Karin Taylor. “Creating a ‘Socialist Way of Life’: Family and Reproduction Policies in Bulgaria, 1944–1989.” Continuity and Change 19, no. 2 (August 2004): 283–312.
- Jill Massino. “Something Old, Something New: Marital Roles and Relations in State Socialist Romania.” Journal of Women’s History 22, no. 1 (2010): 34–60.
Mandatory Podcast:
- Witness History - Khrushchev's Soviet Housing Programme
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- Fidelis, Malgorzata. Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 1-19
- Nowak, Basia. “‘Where Do You Think I Learned How to Style My Own Hair?’ Gender and Everyday Lives of Women Activists in Poland’s League of Women.” In Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe, edited by Shana Penn and Jill Massino, 45–58. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- Perkowski, Piotr. “Wedded to Welfare? Working Mothers and the Welfare State in Communist Poland.” Slavic Review 76, no. 02 (2017): 455–80.
- Film: Przygoda na Mariensztacie 1953 (Adventure in Marienstadt)
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- Simic, Ivan. Soviet Influences on Postwar Yugoslav Gender Policies. New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018. 155-182
- Bucur, Maria. “Gender and Religiosity among the Orthodox Christians in Romania: Continuity and Change, 1945-1989.” Aspasia 5, no. 1 (January 1, 2011): 28-4
Mandatory podcast:
- Witness History - Bulgaria's "Revival Process"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0509h7n
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- Roth-Ey, Kristin. “‘Loose Girls’ on the Loose?: Sex, Propaganda and the 1957 Youth Festival.” In Women in the Khrushchev Era, edited by Melanie Ilič, Susan Emily Reid, and Lynne Attwood, 75–95. Studies in Russian and East European History and Society. Houndmills; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004
- Alexander, Rustam. “Sex Education and the Depiction of Homosexuality Under Khrushchev.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union, edited by Melanie Ilič, 349–64. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Mandatory film:
- Film/documentary: Do Communists Have Better Sex (2006)
Podcast: Witness History - The USSR Opens Up to the West
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- Penn, Shana. “Writing Themselves into History: Two Feminists Recall Their Political Development in the People’s Republic of Poland.” In Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe, edited by Shana Penn and Jill Massino, 201–19. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- Lóránd, Zsófia. “Feminism in the Popular Mass Media.” In The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia, 153–78. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
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- Stulhofer, Aleksandar, and Theo Sandfort, eds. Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia. New York, NY: Haworth Press, 2005. 1-16
- Porteous, Holly. “‘A Woman Isn’t a Woman When She’s Not Concerned About the Way She Looks’: Beauty Labour and Femininity in Post- Soviet Russia.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union, edited by Melanie Ilič, 413–29. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.