CUNY Academic Commons | Janet Elise Johnson | Activity https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/members/jejohnson/activity/ Activity feed for Janet Elise Johnson. Sat, 01 Jan 2050 18:00:18 -0500 https://buddypress.org/?v= en 30 hourly 2 9e6dd579708fd304a8b959f4afec814b Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) wrote a new post on the site Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia Workshop https://ceeegender.commons.gc.cuny.edu/?p=2699 Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:06:19 -0400  Call for Papers 2025-2026Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia Workshop European Union Studies Center/CUNY Graduate Center   Call for Papers 2025-2026 online and in-person in NYC/hybrid Founded in 1993, amidst the conflicts in Yugoslavia, this workshop is driven by the exploration of questions related to gender in the postcommunist countries of East, South and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, including the Baltic countries and Central Asia, what some scholars are now calling “the Eurasian borderlands.” The workshop has centered debates on communism’s impact on women and on how to converse and theorize across the East-West divide, with more recent discussions of decolonial and intersectional perspectives. This workshop strives to include voices from not just the New York City area, but also from the region and around the world. We continue to be an informal and friendly gathering for feminist scholars, activists, and journalists to discuss in-progress theoretical and/or critical work, empirical research, and critical and scholarly reflections on activism.  Theme: We invite papers on any topic related to gender in these Eurasian borderlands, but this year, we are particularly  thinking about the impacts of Russia’s long war against Ukraine,  anti-gender populism,  authoritarianism,  and the role of local and transnational feminisms in their solidarities and resistance.  We welcome conversations that put this region in the context of global events and processes, including the Israel-Gaza war and the changing international role of the US. Details: Meet monthly, usually on Fridays, at the CUNY Grad Center in New York City (with Zoom participation available) or via Zoom only, 2-3 PM New York time (8-9PM Poland time) Presenters share a 10-15 page paper in advance to those who have registered. We ask authors to limit their presentation to 20 minutes to allow maximum time for conversation. We will moderate the sessions so that we check in with what we are all thinking about, hear and see the key ideas of the paper, and have lots of time to discuss collaboratively. To participate, please fill out this google form with your name, email, location/affiliation, current related interests.  We have also created a space there for you to share your thoughts and suggestions about the workshop. If you’d like to present your work/project this next academic year, please also add the following:  tentative title for your talk abstract of less than 200 words describing your proposed talk up to 5 recent publications or brief information about your activism your schedule clarifying which Fridays you could present Preferred format: Zoom or in-person We regret that, despite our best efforts, we do not have funds for an honorarium. All are welcome to participate.  We will start reviewing proposals on Aug. 1, 2025. For more information on the workshop’s history, see our blog: Warmly, Janet Elise Johnson, Brooklyn College and Grad Center, City University of New York johnson@brookyn.cuny.eduMara Lazda, Bronx Community College, City University of New York mara.lazda@bcc.cu […] ” Call for Papers 2025-2026″

]]> cf51eb4241ea9b7d7c8c30ac796d1fbb Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) commented on the post, Anosova on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Ukraine, on the site Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia Workshop https://ceeegender.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2025/04/17/anosova-on-conflict-related-sexual-violence-in-ukraine/#comment-15625 Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:04:02 -0400 Oops. Just saw this. I recommend contacting the author.

]]> 2c1cd6830317a6c0089cfb0a35506050 Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) wrote a new post on the site Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia Workshop https://ceeegender.commons.gc.cuny.edu/?p=2693 Sun, 11 May 2025 15:01:56 -0400 May 16 Jokic on working class migrants in former YugoslaviaFriday, May 16, 2025 2pm to 3pm (New York time) In-person and on Zoom Olivera Jokić Associate Professor, English and Gender Studies, John Jay College,  CUNY From Unlettered Women: Documenting Socialism’s Working Class Women Migrants This workshop considers how we could account for the presence of working-class women in historical tableaux of Eastern Europe of the late twentieth century if those women have been difficult to heroize in dominant versions of feminist historiography and left behind scant documentation. The workshop starts from material for biographical sketches of three women born to peasant families in the 1910s, across regions that were to become socialist Yugoslavia. These women were adults in the aftermath of World War II, when socialist Yugoslavia introduced its radical social policies that promised equal rights to women, from the vote to open access to education and property ownership. As a result of these policies, they spent much of their adult lives in the same small town in present-day Serbia. Far removed from the central theaters of social change and modernization, and too old to become “new women,” they made use of the new possibilities available to women in ways that existing historiographies of gender in the region and in so-called “communist Eastern Europe” have hardly mentioned. Newly entitled to dispose of their property and to use their children’s education for social and geographic mobility, these women contributed to the network of intense migration in the mid-twentieth century Yugoslavia that shapes the politics of gender and urbanization in the region to this day, down to the neo-traditionalist demands for a “return to normal” and repolarization of gender categories that benefits a free-market society. The workshop will consider how historical change can register in the life narratives of these women, and how we can trace the changing conceptions of gender from the scarce materials at hand. Learning how to read the materials at hand, we learn how to do without the abstractions of feminist politics, state-mandated modernization, and apparent disappearance of a whole world committed to “socialism” or “emancipation.” Olivera Jokić is a scholar of writing about gender and imagination, contacts between writers of fiction and documentation, constitution of archival collections and genres of experience. Most recently, she translated Past: An Introduction to the Problem (kuda.org + Iskra Books 2024), a collaborative book project about the work of filmmaker Želimir Žilnik as a body of knowledge about the real existing fantasy space that was socialist Yugoslavia. 2pm to 3pm  Register here for Zoom Or join us in person at the CUNY Graduate Center 365 5th Ave, N […] “May 16 Jokic on working class migrants in former Yugoslavia”

]]> 18bac81784517e50535d570d6cf6efc0 Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) wrote a new post on the site Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia Workshop https://ceeegender.commons.gc.cuny.edu/?p=2667 Wed, 19 Mar 2025 18:42:25 -0400 Mar. 28: Soloviova on women in Soviet Ukraine Aliesia Soloviova Visiting scholar at the Columbia University/PhD candidate at the European University Institute(Florence) Soviet emancipation in Ukraine: the right to work a “double shift” This presentation, drawn from a chapter of my doctoral dissertation, delves into the dual expectations of motherhood and labor imposed by Soviet policy in Ukraine, particularly from the 1950s until the collapse of the Soviet Union. I will explore the lived experiences of women who bore five or more children while working in difficult and hazardous jobs, as well as the challenges faced by single mothers during this era. Additionally, I will discuss the long-term effects of these dual responsibilities on post-Soviet Ukrainian society. By focusing on Soviet Ukraine, this research aims to contribute to the gradual development of the perception of the republics of the USSR as separate states with their own history and national identity, who once had been in an “arranged marriage”, but then lived “separately ever after”. Aliesia Soloviova is a PhD student in history at the European University Institute, specializing in the study of marriage dynamics in Soviet Ukraine through archival research and qualitative analysis. Her work examines how state policies, social expectations, and individual experiences shaped marriage across different regions, drawing on personal testimonies, legal documents, and demographic records. Using data science methodologies, she integrates historical sources with computational tools to reveal patterns in Soviet marriage practices. In addition to her historical research, she holds a PhD in International Relations and a Master’s Degree in Data Science.  Friday, Mar 28, 2-3PM via Zoom  Register H […] “Mar. 28: Soloviova on women in Soviet Ukraine”

]]> 804b2a6a7d0088d41c6dc40d5905d247 Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) wrote a new post on the site Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia Workshop https://ceeegender.commons.gc.cuny.edu/?p=2663 Fri, 07 Mar 2025 21:28:22 -0500 Video recording of Feb. 25 talk: Ukraine and gender studiesJanet Elise Johnson’s talk from Feb. 25, 2025, Three Years of Full-Scale War: How Studying Ukraine can Change Gender Studies, is now available online at: https://youtu.be/xhTmopT18aM?si=PyeuBx9pECBseC0e

]]> 914f3413e18862ee207829d6edeaa3ac Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) wrote a new post on the site Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia Workshop https://ceeegender.commons.gc.cuny.edu/?p=2639 Fri, 31 Jan 2025 22:55:51 -0500 Feb. 25: Johnson on three years of full-scale war in Ukraine and gender studies Special Event: Brooklyn College Endowed Chair in Women’s and Gender Studies talk Three Years of Full-Scale War: How Studying Ukraine can Change Gender Studies moderated by Mara Lazda, Bronx Community College Tuesday, Feb. 25 11AM-12:15PMBrooklyn College Library, Woody Tanger Auditorium, and zoom  This lecture is a moment to reflect on the third-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and to consider how studying Eastern Europe can change gender studies, including giving us insight into today’s other turmoils. Over the last four decades, gender studies has been transformed, moving from mostly the study of the West to taking the rest of the world seriously. Yet, still often invisible is this part of the world, the site of much mass violence, decades of state socialism, and one of the first places to be subsumed by right-wing anti-genderism. This lecture will reflect on key feminist issues today, such as reflexivity, intersectionality, decolonialism, and solidarity.  Janet Elise Johnson is the Endowed Chair in Women’s and Gender Studies, Brooklyn College, 2023-2025, and Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY.  Her research focuses on gender, feminist activism, corruption, authoritarianism, and gendered violence in Russia and Ukraine. Her most recent book is The Routledge Handbook of Gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia (co-edited with Katalin Fábián and Mara Lazda, 2022), which won the 2022 Heldt prize for the best book from the Association for Women in Slavic Studies. Since 2008, she has been one of the coordinators of a monthly workshop on Gender and Transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia no […] “Feb. 25: Johnson on three years of full-scale war in Ukraine and gender studies”

]]> bcb1220cb66d4eec488cf91a62eb1ead Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) created the event Oct. 10: Kristen Ghodsee on Everyday Utopia and Kollontai https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/activity/p/943862/ Thu, 21 Sep 2023 19:42:44 -0400 Title: Oct. 10: Kristen Ghodsee on Everyday Utopia and Kollontai

Description: Book launch and Conversation: Kristen Ghodsee’s  Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life (Simon & Schuster 2023)

Moderator: Liza Featherstone, columnist at Jacobin and The New Republic, as well as a contributing wr…[Read more]

]]> 5fa56e2778fdac435e1f5d81ac1236dc Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) created the event Mar 17 (online) on "maternity" and "traditional values" in Russia's militarizing state with Yulia Gradskova https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/activity/p/908937/ Tue, 14 Mar 2023 13:40:07 -0400 Title: Mar 17 (online) on “maternity” and “traditional values” in a militarizing state with Yulia Gradskova

Description: Mar 17 (online): 2-3PM EDT
Note that that US moved one hour ahead to Daylight Savings Time this last weekend whereas Europe and other places change time later.
“Strong family makes strong Russia:” Maternity and “tr…[Read more]

]]> 38794336b32e9840e8e7ee292a941daf Janet Elise Johnson (she/her)'s profile was updated https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/activity/p/836623/ Fri, 08 Apr 2022 19:11:24 -0400 05e658521ff8fb78b9ca1b3bfe955dc1 Janet Elise Johnson (she/her) became a registered member https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/activity/p/813586/ Tue, 11 Jan 2022 12:48:33 -0500