Many efforts have been made over the past several years to diversify Eastern European and Eurasian studies. This new spotlight surfaces research that has been conducted by many scholars for much longer, highlighting their commitment to telling stories and honoring perspectives of diverse and minority communities. Their work reveals that while there is no unified queer experience in the region, there is often a one-size-fits all state response to the reality of queer lives in many nations within the region. How can a queer-studies focus advance conversations about decolonization in East European and Eurasian Studies? To address this question, Queer Focus will have six virtual panels featuring speakers from various disciplines and institutions. Panelists and participants will explore how gendered regimes were constitutive of Russo-centric relationships of power, defining the region and how we study it, as we collectively grapple with what it means to re-examine our current research, teaching, and institutional practices.
Panel 3 of the series will take a cultural view of queer studies within the region, with a focus on cultural production and representation.
Speakers
Philip Gleissner, Moderator, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, The Ohio State University
Philip Gleissner specializes in the cultures and literatures of socialist Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on print media in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and the GDR. He is particularly interested in media as agents of mobility: mechanisms that facilitate the transnational circulation of cultural forms within and beyond Eastern Europe. Dr. Gleissner is currently finishing his first monograph titled Soviet Circulations: A History of the Socialist Literary Journal. It shows how under the umbrella of state socialism a fragmented cultural field was organized by literary magazines. Other current research projects include the edited volumes Red Migrations: Marxism and Mobility after 1917 (with Bradley Gorski, Georgetown; forthcoming with Toronto UP) and Lockdown in the Kitchen: American Immigrant Foodways in Times of Crisis (with Harry Kashdan, Penn; forthcoming with Rutgers UP). Professor Gleissner’s research relies on digital humanities methodology as a tool for the critical exploration of culture for the project Soviet Journals Reconnected. His current project Kvir_Izdat is an attempt to rethink digital humanities from a queer perspective.
Luc Beaudoin, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Denver
Luc Beaudoin is Professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Denver. He earned a Ph.D. in Russian Literature from the University of Toronto in 1993, after which he joined DU as part of the Russian Language and Literature Program, moving to GWST full-time in 2020. His current research examines the experiences of recreating and rebuilding queer identities in exile; how those identities are challenged, buffeted and translated by the linguistic, cultural, and physical expectations of both the host country/countries and the diasporas. He is also working on a book that explores the role Rio de Janeiro plays in shaping the queer sensibilities of Valerii Pereleshin, António Botto, Conrad Deprez, and Hubert Fichte. His latest book is Lost and Found Voices: Four Gay Male Writers in Exile (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2022), which looks at the queer expressions of Witold Gombrowicz, Valerii Pereleshin, Abdellah Taïa, and Slava Mogutin.
Ramona Dima, Associate Professor, Center for Gender Studies, University of Stavanger
Ramona Dima is a researcher in queer and gender studies with focus on Southeastern Europe. Her publications and topics of interest include queer culture, sexuality and migration, LGBT+ activism, and anti-gender politics. She is the recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship hosted by the Centre for Gender Studies, University of Stavanger (2021-2023). Dr. Dima holds a PhD from the University of Bucharest and is the initiator and co-organizer of Queer and Feminist Studies in Southeastern Europe International Conference
Maria Engström, Professor of Russian and Director of Master's Programme in the Russian Language, Uppsala University
Maria Engström is Professor of Russian and Director of Master's Programme in the Russian Language in International Relations at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses on Russian intellectual history, late Soviet underground culture, Russian queer visual culture, and contemporary Russian conservatism. She co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture (2023) and Digital Orthodoxy: Mediating Post-Secularity in Russia (2015). Engström’s publications include articles “Queering Socialist Realism: The Case of Georgy Guryanov” (2023), “Russia as the West’s queer other: Gosha Rubchinskiy’s politics of fashion”, “Transgressing the Mainstream: Camp, Queer and Populism in Russian Visual Culture (2021), “Re-imagining antiquity: The conservative discourse of ‘Russia as the true Europe’ and Kremlin’s new cultural policy” (2020). Her research projects Visuality without Visibility: Queer Visual Culture in Post-Soviet Russia (2017-2019) and No(w)stalgia of Modernity: Neo-Soviet Myth in Contemporary Russian Culture (2021-2024) are supported by the Swedish Research Council.
Aleksandra Gajowy, Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin
Aleksandra Gajowy's research focuses on art history and queer and postcolonial studies, particularly in Polish and Eastern European contexts, as well as transnational histories of activism and protest in Europe and the US. She is currently working on a book project on modern and contemporary lesbian art from Poland, investigating lesbian art practices at intersections with spirituality and folklore, nationhood and citizenship, as well as intergenerational and transhistorical lesbian affinities. She is also editing a special issue of The Journal of Lesbian Studies, "Towards Central and Eastern European Lesbian Studies." Originally from Warsaw, Aleksandra completed her PhD at Newcastle University and later taught at the University of Edinburgh. Previous museum work includes curatorial, collections, and research roles at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, York Art Gallery, Fibak Art Gallery (Warsaw) and the Museum of Modern Art (Łódź).
Sponsorship
Additional financial support has been provided by:
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Kansas
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Michigan
Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill
Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, Indiana University, Bloomington
Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington University
Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies, Arizona State University
Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington
Accessibility
The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact us at 617-495-4037 or daviscenter@fas.harvard.edu in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance if possible. Please note that the Davis Center will make every effort to secure services but that services are subject to availability.
