“Gender Politics and the Art of European Socialist States” – research seminar – 2019/2020
This research seminar will concentrate on the intersection between gender politics and art in the socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, covering the period between 1945 and 1989.
The seminar will focus on the way in which artists have addressed, examined, and questioned the sociopolitical construction of gender (masculinity and femininity) and heteronormativity; the way in which the private sphere and intimacy were regulated by the communist governments; and the ideas of home and family propagated by the communist governments but supported as well by national and religious traditions. The seminar will also offer a study of the way in which feminist art (history) discourse functioned in the communist countries and how it manifested itself in individual works and women’s collective actions.
The seminar aims at creating a comparative perspective that takes into consideration similarities and dissimilarities between the European socialist states, for example, as to law and traditions, and that gender politics in the socialist states have changed over time along with political, societal, and economic conditions.
The seminar will gather a group of graduate students and senior researchers from various Eastern European countries.
The seminar will consist of three one-week meetings, organized in Poznań (Adam Mickiewicz University), Zagreb (Institute of Art History), and Timișoara (West University of Timișoara).
It is expected that the research seminar will help prospective academics and professionals to establish research relationships with their colleagues from the region, which may lead to academic cooperation in the future. The intention of the seminar is also to strengthen graduate training at East-Central European universities.
Founded by the Getty Foundation as part of the Connecting Art Histories initiative.