Prerequisits:

There are no specific prerequisites.

However, prior knowledge of basic theories of history, cultural studies and memory studies is recommended and the ability to read scientific literature in English.

Content (Syllabus outline):

1. Intellectual history of women: concepts and approaches

• intellectual history as an analytical framework;
• the relationship between intellectual and social history of women and material sources;
• questions of canon formation, visibility, and historiographical exclusion.

2. Feminist epistemology and the history of ideas

• feminist critiques of the classical history of ideas;
• the production of knowledge and gender;
• hierarchies of global knowledge production, the semi-periphery, and “waves” of feminist ideas.

3. The Yugoslav historical-linguistic space as an intellectual context

• specificities of socialist modernization;
• the relationship between Marxism, socialism, and feminism;
• women’s press as a discursive field.

4. Women’s emancipation in Yugoslavia and feminist critique

• concepts of the “woman question” and ideologies of emancipation;
• women’s political participation;
• socialisation of social reproduction and feminist critique.

5. Discourses of the body, sexuality, and reproductive rights

• the politics of sexuality;
• reproductive autonomy and biopolitics;
• public and intellectual discourses on the body and gender.

6. Selected primary texts, concepts, and arguments

• concepts: social development; time budgets; gender-based violence; gender;
• situating local intellectual productions within broader paradigms.

Readings:

• Bonfiglioli, Chiara. “Feminist Translations in a Socialist Context: The Case of Yugoslavia.” Gender & History 30, no. 1 (2018): 240–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12343.
• Haan, Francisca de, Kristen Ghodsee, Krassimira Daskalova, et al. “Ten Years After: Communism and Feminism Revisited.” Aspasia 10, no. 1 (2016): 102–68. https://doi.org/10.3167/asp.2016.100107.
• Jelušić, Iva. Gender and World War II in the Yugoslav Media. Routledge, 2025.
• Lerner, Gerda. “The Majority Finds Its Past.” Current History 70, no. 416 (1976): 193–231. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45313843.
• Lóránd, Zsófia. The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia. Springer International Publishing, 2018.
• Lóránd, Zsófia, Adela Hîncu, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc, and Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz, eds. Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights: East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century. CEU Press, 2024. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/98220.
• Perrot, Michelle. Ženske ali molčanje zgodovine [Les Femmes Ou Les Silences de l’histoire]. Translated by Taja Kramberger. Kulturno-umetniško društvo Police Dubove, 2016 [1998].
• Verginella, Marta, and Urska Strle, eds. Women and Work in the North-Eastern Adriatic: Postwar Transitions Century. Central European University Press, 2025. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/100347

Objectives and competences:

The aim of the course is to develop an in-depth understanding of the intellectual history of women and to enable students to independently research intellectual traditions outside the established canons. The course trains students to use interdisciplinary methods in researching intellectual history and to place local intellectual productions in transnational and comparative contexts.
Students acquire the skills to use critical and discursive analysis of texts, historical contextualisation of ideas, analysis of the etiology of concepts, and reflection on the relationships between knowledge, power, and gender.

Intended learning outcomes:

Upon completion of the course, students will:

• understand the fundamental approaches to intellectual history,
• be familiar with key actors, texts, and intellectual currents in the Yugoslav feminist and intellectual sphere,
• be able to independently analyze primary sources and interpret them critically,
• know how to use bibliographic databases, digital archives, and basic analytical tools of digital humanities,
• know how to connect intellectual history with social, political, and cultural contexts.

Learning and teaching methods:

Types of learning/teaching:

• Frontal teaching
• Independent students work
• e-learning

Teaching methods:

• Explanation
• Conversation/discussion/debate
• Work with texts
• Case studies

Assessment:

• Short written assignments 20 %
• Long written assignments 60%
• Other (Active participation in the seminar) 20 %

Lecturer’s references:

• Jelušić, Iva, Mihajlović Trbovc, Jovana. »Vera Veskoviḱ-Vangeli: women in history«. V: Lóránd, Zsófia, Adela Hîncu, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc and Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz (ur.). Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights: East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2024. Str. 571–581.
• Mihajlović Trbovc, Jovana (ur.). Naše znanstvenice: kako so ženske soustvarjale znanost v Jugoslaviji [Our Women Scientists: How women co-created science in Yugoslavia]. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2023.
• Mihajlović Trbovc, Jovana. »Suzana Tratnik in Nataša Sukič: the Slovenian lesbian movement«. V: Lóránd, Zsófia, Adela Hîncu, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc and Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz (ur.). Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights: East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2024. Str. 782–792.
• Mihajlović Trbovc, Jovana. »Vlasta Jalušič: Abortion, Women, and Politics«. V: Lóránd, Zsófia, Adela Hîncu, Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc and Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz (ur.). Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights: East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2024. Str. 651–663.
• Mihajlović Trbovc, Jovana, and Ana Hofman. Toolkit for Integrating Gender-sensitive Approach into Research and Teaching. Trento: University, 2015. GARCIA working papers, 6. https://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/garcia_toolkit_gender_research_teaching.pdf.
• Petrović, Tanja, and Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc. »(Un)Making Women’s Biographies in the Wake of the Loss of the Socialist Project in Yugoslavia«. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s & Gender Studies 21 (2020): 1-30.