Cultural history of gender in Slovenian terittory

Objectives and competences

The goal of the course is for students to acquire the following competencies:
• knowledge of the basic concepts of gender studies and understanding of how the category of gender is established in the field of cultural history,
• the ability to gather material that allows for a multi-layered analysis of a given phenomenon,
• the ability to analyse gender relations in different social, historical and cultural contexts,
• presentation of one's research findings in a manner that demonstrates the ability to think independently and conceptually and to make critical judgments,
• the ability to recognise the impact of gender discrimination and to identify and evaluate it in the cultural patterns of the past and in contemporary realities.

Prerequisites

The successful integration in the study course is connected with the knowledge of other cultural historical formations in the field of culture and history and with other courses in the programme.

Content

LECTURES

Part I
- Gender as an analytical category in cultural history,
- Social and biological gender,
- identity, sexuality, femininity, masculinity,
- Gender as an object and methodology of research.

Part II: Representations of gender in mythology 5-10)

Part III: A brief overview of the (everyday) history of women and men in Europe: 11-30

  • Gender roles and representations of femininity and masculinity in everyday life from antiquity to the 19th century, including the history of
    childhood.

Part IV: Gender and the history of everyday practices 31-40
- Gender and the history of sports,
- Gender and the history of reading,
- Gender and the history of travel,
- history of fashion

Part V: Cultural history of gender in Slovenia 41- 60

  • National awakening and gender roles,
  • The emergence and development of the women's movement,
  • Women's and men's clubs as a reflection of class, social status and gender identity
  • Identity crisis - misogyny in public discourse, the image of the new woman
  • Gender and health: hysteria, syphilis.
  • Economic migration and gender: Alexandrianism
  • Gender roles and the First World War
  • Women's occupations, women's work in relation to men's work.
  • The discourse on gender roles in the interwar period
  • Socialism and social gender

SEMINAR

Seminar sessions will include guided discussions related to individual topics covered in the
lectures. The seminar will cover short texts and excerpts from historical sources and first-person documents using discourse analytic approaches, which will be presented at the beginning of the seminar.
Students will prepare short papers on the topics assigned to them at the beginning of the course.

Intended learning outcomes

The student understands the concepts related to cultural mediation, understands how gender has influenced the functioning of women in the cultural space. He is able to collect material for the cultural mediator, study it and write down his findings in the form of an encyclopedic motto.

Readings

  • Gisela Bock: Ženske v evropski zgodovini: od srednjega veka do danes. Ljubljana: Založba /*cf., 2004.
  • Amy Milne-Smith: London Clubland: A Cultural History of Gender and Class in Late Victorian Britain. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Catalogue
  • Eric Hobsbawm: Čas imperija. Ljubljana: Sophia, 2012. Catalogue
  • Vesna Leskošek: Zavrnjena tradicija: ženske in ženskost v slovenski zgodovini od 1890 do 1940. Ljubljana: Založba /cf., 2002,
  • Katja Mihurko Poniž: Evine hčere: konstruiranje ženskosti v slovenskem javnem diskurzu 1848-1902, (Humanistika). Nova Gorica: Univerza, 2009. Catalogue UNG Publisher
  • Janez Polajner: "Pfuj! To je gerdo!": k zgodovini morale na Slovenskem v dobi meščanstva. Celje : Zgodovinsko društvo, 2008. E-version
  • Marta Verginella: Ženska obrobja: vpis žensk v zgodovino Slovencev. Ljubljana: Delta, 2006.

Assessment

Written exam (50%)
Presentation of the seminar (50%)

Lecturer's references

Prof. dr. Katja Mihurko Poniž, is the author of five scientific monographs (Boldly Different: Zofka Kveder and Images of Femininity; Labyrinths of Love in Slovene Literature from Romance to World War II; Eve's Daughters: Constructing Femininity in Slovene Public Discourse 1848-1902; Written with her pen: Breaks of Early Slovene Writers with the Paradigm of National Literature; Literary Creator in the Eyes of the Other: Studies on Reception, Literary Contacts and Biographical Discourse) and Zofka Kveder, editor of the Collected Works (five volumes have been published so far). She is active in international research projects, the head of the CEEPUS network of Women Writers in History. Her research areas are: feminist literary studies, gender studies, digital humanities, Slovene drama, Slovene-German literary contacts and the history of the Slovene women's movement.

MIHURKO PONIŽ, Katja, PARENTE-ČAPKOVÁ, Viola. The new women from the margins. Interlitteraria, ISSN 1406-0701, 2015, vol. 20, no. 2, str. 184–198, doi: 10.12697/IL.2015.20.2.15. [

MIHURKO PONIŽ, Katja. Gendering the capital: Zofka Kveder's rhetorical construction of women's position in the urban topography. Neohelicon : acta Comparationis litterarum universarum, ISSN 0324-4652, 2014, vol. 41, no. 1, str. 63–76, doi: 10.1007/s11059-013-0221-x.

MIHURKO PONIŽ, Katja. Ambiguous views on femininity in the writings of two "New Women" in the fin de siècle: Zofka Kveder's inspirational encounters with Laura Marholm's modern women. V: MIHURKO PONIŽ, Katja (ur.). Reception of foreign women writers in the Slovenian literary system of the long 19th century. Nova Gorica: University of Nova Gorica Press. 2017, str. 37–71. http://www.ung.si/media/storage/cms/attachments/2017/04/03/14/57/48/HERA.pdf.

MIHURKO PONIŽ, Katja. Od Lastnega Glasu Do Lastne Sobe: Literarne Ustvarjalke Od Začetkov Do
Modernizma. Ljubljana: Beletrina, 2021.