[ Call for Papers | Applications ]

The Centre for Gender Studies at European Humanities University (EHU) International (Vilnius, Lithuania) invites panel and paper proposals for the Capitalism and/or Patriarchy? conference that is aimed at exploring issues of Gender in the Post-Soviet Region by a Call.
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: post-Soviet and Western scholarship.
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.

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For further inquiries please e-mail to: Elena Gapova