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CALL FOR PAPERS

        CAPITALISM  AND/OR  PATRIARCHY?

 Conference in Gender Studies
Organized by the Centre for Gender Studies, European Humanities University International

 June 22-24, 2006. Vilnius, Lithuania

 Centre for Gender Studies, European Humanities University-International is pleased to announce call for papers for the “Capitalism and/or Patriarchy?” gender studies conference. The Centre has concentrated on research into post-Soviet gender issues since 1997 and has offered a master’s degree in gender studies since 2000. After EHU in Minsk had been forced to terminate its operation in in the summer of 2004, it resumed its programs in as a university-in-exile with the support of American and European foundations and governments and the European Commission for Democracy and Human Rights. Currently the MA program in Gender Studies remains the only one in NIS offering a graduate degree in Gender.

For more information about the Centre for Gender Studies, please, go to: < www.gender-ehu.org  For information on EHU-International programs and activities, see:  http://ehu-international.org

 CAPITALISM  AND/OR  PATRIARCHY?      

The demise of state socialism, some scholars maintain, resulted in the reconfiguration of gender relations and the rise of a systemic privilege of men over women in countries in transition. Other theorists argue that the most important event of the late 20th century was the disintegration of the Soviet Union and intensive nation building in new independent states. Still others are focused on economic inequality and class stratification as the formative processes of post-communism.

Some theories interpret the emergence of post-Soviet “masculine privilege” as patriarchal renaissance. According to another point of view, men and women are equally marginalized by capitalism: it is class, not gender, that matters. There is also a tradition of rethinking capitalism as just a form (or a reincarnation) of patriarchy.

 Conference organizers are hoping for an interdisciplinary academic debate of the interception of (post-Soviet) capitalism and patriarchy within the following topical areas.

 1.      Gender and post-Soviet social stratification
Class and gender stratification in post-Soviet societies. The new rich and the new poor. Unpaid women’s work and global capitalism. Men at the margins of «new economy”. Market and the welfare state.

2. Gender and post-Soviet nations
The ultimate connection between constructions of and ideas about gender relations and post-Soviet nation-building. The fraternity of the nation and construction of patriotic manhood. Gender and citizenship. Nationalism and motherhood. Women, the invention of tradition, and cultural reproduction of the nation. Sexuality, demography, and nationalism. Global religions, gender and nation-building.

 3.     Gender  and social movements/collective actions
Gender and the problem of a political subject. Whom do women in political parties and decision- making bodies represent? “Women’s issues” as a political issue.
Women’s movement and the reasons for its weakness: structural or cultural? Is a common ideology for postcommunist women’s groups possible? 
Rethinking gender in postcommunism by post-Soviet and Western scholars.

4.  Capitalism, lifestyles and cultural practices
Anthropological dimension of transition. Transformation of daily life: class and gender differences in lifestyles. Post-Soviet consumption practices. Sexuality as a commodity. Gender, mass media and popular culture.

Conference languages are the regional lingua franca of Russian and English.

Proposals for individual papers or complete panels can be sent to gender@ehu-international.org  Please include your contact information, brief CV and paper description of up to 250 words. The deadline is March 1, 2006; acceptance notification by April 10, 2006.

For further inquiries please e-mail to: Elena Gapova <e.gapova@worldnet.att.net>

 

 





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