An Archipelago of Stories

Gender History in Eastern Europe

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8023596
AutoresM Bucur (0000-0001-5143-953X, autor de correspondencia)
Año2008
Volumen113
Número5
Páginas1375-1389
Fecha de publicación2008-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-8762 • E-ISSN: 1937-5239
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/ahr.113.5.1375
OpenAlexW2130433599
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas13

WHEN I THINK ABOUT THE YOUNG FIELD of gender history in Eastern Europe, the following metaphor comes to mind: gender historiography as an archipelago of individual efforts, often disconnected and emergent, erupting periodically like so many volcanic islands, connected with the institutional seats of power of academia by rafts rather than ocean liners or solid bridges. While in 1986 it was possible for Joan Scott to write about the need to reject the essentialization of women's experiences, to deconstruct representations of the past as mediated forms of articulating specific social and cultural realities, and to call for gender to become an all-prevailing vantage point from which to rearticulate historical analysis, there is still not much to essentialize, deconstruct, and reframe in the East European field. The focus on women and gender is still emerging. This picture should not be viewed as dismal, however, but rather as a modestly optimistic outlook with regard to a still-new field of historical inquiry. Three connected issues have framed the development of gender history in Eastern Europe over the past two decades: (1) the place of feminism in Eastern Europe before, during, and after communism, which can be used to delineate the important contextual differences between the United States and this area in how Scott's article

Archipelago · Cognitive reframing · Feminism · Gender history · Historiography · Metaphor · Power (physics · Sociology · European history and politics · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Psychology