FEMINISMS IN TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Voicing Feminist Concerns

Postgraduate course
Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik, Croatia
May 26–30, 2008

Centre for Women’s Studies – Zagreb,
The Zagreb Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research,
Dept. of Women’s Studies at the University of Tampere
and Dept. of Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Tampere are pleased to announce the postgraduate course

FEMINISMS IN TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Voicing Feminist Concerns

Course co-directors:
Rada Borić (contact person) / Centre for Women’s Studies, Zagreb, Croatia ([email protected])
Renata Jambrešić Kirin / Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia ([email protected])
Ulla M. Vuorela / University of Helsinki & University of Tampere, Finland ([email protected])

Topic: Voicing Feminist Concerns

The aim of the course is to explore and discuss various ways of articulating and affirming the voice as a powerful agency of social change. We theorize voice as women’s existence, women’s theory and women’s art are interwoven and constituted by voice.

Voice can be silenced and silence itself; it can be absent and multiple, a feminist scream and artistic expression, noise and excitement, oppressed and revolutionary, a voice of the Other and a voice in favour of Otherness, a voice of women’s subversion and transformation. All of them express feminist concerns and are also an expression of feminist concerns.

Among the issues we would like to address are those of the female authorial voice and those that witness the paradoxical relation between voice and the body in the constitution of female subjectivity. Beyond Derrida’s idea of phonocentrism, we are interested in “politics of the voice” in its fulfilment. Feminist voice challenges the responsibility of the diversity of voices in their multiplicities.

We are interested in who is naming and expressing feminist concerns with consequences for ethics and politics as much as for literature and music, media and virtual spaces.

Eligibility:
IUC courses are conducted at the postgraduate level. All postgraduate students interested in the topic may apply to participate, although the course targets young scholars and postgraduate students with special interests in women’s and gender studies, transnational studies, postcolonialism and anthropology. The course will be limited to 25 participants (15 students) in order to provide a creative space for discussion, seminar work and student presentations during the course.

Participants should seek funds from their own institutions to cover travel and accommodation costs. Limited financial support is available for participants from Central and Eastern Europe.

Application Procedure:
A short narrative explaining your interest in the topic along with your CV (please be sure to include all your current contact information at the top of your CV) should be submitted by e-mail to [email][email protected] subject: IUC Dubrovnik 2008.

The registration deadline is December 15, 2007. All applicants shall receive notice of admission results by February 10, 2008.