This paper examines how Soviet and post‑Soviet history is presented and reflected upon in select works of contemporary artists from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As the contemporary art scenes of these newly independent states developed and joined the global contemporary art circuit, a number of Baltic artists have participated in the recent “historiographic turn” in art. Through the analysis of examples, we look at four approaches employed by these artists when tackling the subject of history seen through (...) personal narratives; history told from the point of view of ethnic/linguistic minorities; a focus on women’s experiences; and a debate on the preservation, removal, and building of commemorative monuments. This paper aims to show how these artists integrate reflections of the Soviet and post‑Soviet experience into the building of complex, inclusive, positive post‑Soviet identities. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the position of ethnic minority women in relation to their career-building in the Serbian higher education system and reaching decision-making positions. The author defines two hypotheses: that there are invisible biases in the sciences that put ethnic minority women in a challenging position when attempting to build a career in academia, and that these women encounter a glass ceiling when trying to reach more senior positions. The analysis (...) is based on 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian female teaching staff employed at two Serbian universities. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework and method was used in the analysis of interviews, along with narrative analysis. Analysis of the interviews showed that ethnic minority women adopt specific strategies when discussing and explaining their difficulties and opportunities in the higher education system of Serbia. The intersectional analysis indicates that ethnic minority women struggle with invisible biases at the individual level, and, due to the horizontal segregation in sciences, have to overcome a situation of double jeopardy in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics studies. The findings suggest that women from ethnic minorities face a glass ceiling in relation to obtaining decision-making positions. Namely, such positions are usually only guaranteed to them within their own ethnic enclaves at departments with majority female staff. However, positions higher than these are rarely attainable. (shrink)

Ethnic minority status and female gender convey a risk for suicidal behavior, yet research of suicidality of ethnic minority female immigrants is scarce. The authors of this article conducted qualitative interviews with 15 young women in the Netherlands, who either had attempted suicide or contemplated suicide, and analyzed these in a narrative psychology tradition. Suicidality was associated with despair and frustration over the violation of the women’s personal autonomy and self-integrity regarding strategic life choices. Autonomy restrictions (...) and violations followed two patterns, which are interconnected with four criteria regarding the capacity for autonomy. Findings are discussed with referral to Durkheim and feminist theories of autonomy. (shrink)

: Mariology—the veneration of the Virgin Mary—exerts a profound influence on women artists from Catholic backgrounds. Internalizing the mixed signals Mary transmits about purity, female strength, and compassion, they reinterpret the stories and mythologies surrounding her in ways that allow them to explore the ambiguities of the female role in contemporary society while also examining their conflicts about their own sexuality.

Mariology—the veneration of the Virgin Mary—exerts a profound influence on women artists from Catholic backgrounds. Internalizing the mixed signals Mary transmits about purity, female strength, and compassion, they reinterpret the stories and mythologies surrounding her in ways that allow them to explore the ambiguities of the female role in contemporary society while also examining their conflicts about their own sexuality.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art as a Political Act:Expression of Cultural Identity, Self-Identity, and Gender by Suk Nam Yun and Yong Soon MinHwa Young Choi Caruso (bio)IntroductionA number of artists of color, including Asian American women, are creating art from the basis of their lived experiences. Within minority groups searching for their cultural identity, establishing self-identity is an important process. For various psychological and sociological reasons, artists seem inspired (...) to seek deeper meaning and a broader participation in cultural work.1 Asian American women artists, in particular, are currently making art as a means of exploring self-identity, cultural identity, and gender issues. Korean/Korean American minority women artists are creating art as a reaction to their cultural upbringing, which questions issues of identity, gender, ethnicity, politics, cultural, and socioeconomic status. These contemporary artists are breaking away from traditional cultural expectations and overcoming social barriers as artists, women, and Koreans/Korean Americans. With the growing public awareness of women's consciousness and sense of self as women in Korea and as an ethnic minority in America, these artists are redefining their identity. Despite the traditional patriarchal Confucian hierarchy; lack of social, institutional, and political support; and stereotypic gender, cultural, and socioeconomic status expectations for women, a few have stepped out of their traditional roles as women and have become successful artists in Korea and America.The artworks of these artists are worthy of investigation because they appear to be a culturally, socially, and politically motivated artistic expression of the complex multifaceted Korean/Korean American life experiences as women and as Korean immigrant members of a cultural (ethnic) minority in American society. Therefore, two main research questions can be posed: [End Page 71]• Given that art can be constructed out of layers of different experiences and influences, to what extent do the dimensions of cultural identity, self-identity, and gender interweave and contribute to the function of art as a political act for Korean/Korean American women artists?• How do Korean/Korean American cultural, social, and female experiences influence the artistic expression of Korean/Korean American women artists?In order to answer these questions, I selected case study methodology2 and adapted elements of interpretive biography,3 and narrative approaches as developed by Wallace and Gruber.4 According to Denzin,5 interpretive biography involves the collection and analysis of personal experiences, life documents, stories, accounts, and narratives that describe turning-point moments in individuals' lives. Denzin argues that personal experiences and personal stories are derived from a larger cultural, ideological, and historical context. The intent of the biographical project is to problematize the social, economic, cultural, structural, and historical forces that shape, distort, and otherwise alter lived experiences.By using narrative case study methods, I explore elements of self-identity formation, cultural identity, gender issues, personal thoughts, artistic expression, meaning of artworks, professional achievement, and life circumstances. I examine each participant's life in the Korean and American historical, cultural, social, and political environments. I interpret participants' outer lives (what they do) and inner lives (feelings, thoughts, inner self) to capture their deep, profound life experiences. I examine salient themes of their art expression and how the role of art and artistic activity is a part of political, cultural, social, and feminist activism. I further investigate their professional activities in order to identify the multiple roles that contribute to personal and professional identity formation.For the purpose of this study, I selected the contemporary Korean woman artist Suk Nam Yun and the contemporary Korean American woman artist Yong Soon Min as primary participants. These two women artists, despite many social and cultural barriers, chose to become artists; feminists; and social, cultural, and political activists; in addition to fulfilling traditional Korean family and domestic roles. Yun and Min are regarded as the leading contemporary Korean/Korean American women artists whose artworks deal with issues of cultural, social, feminist, political, and hybrid identity and art as political activism.Lippard acknowledges that visual images play an increasingly important role in society.6 Art that connects everyday experience with social critique and creative expression becomes a vital means of reflecting upon the nature of society and social existence.7 Artworks can function as... (shrink)

In the field of art history, the white Western male viewpoint, unconsciously accepted as the viewpoint of the art historian, may—and does—prove to be inadequate not merely on moral and ethical grounds, or because it is elitist, but on purely intellectual ones. In revealing the failure of much academic art history, and a great deal of history in general, to take account of the unacknowledged value system, the very presence of an intruding subject in historical investigation, the feminist critique at (...) the same time lays bare its conceptual smugness, its meta-historical naïveté. At a moment when all disciplines are becoming more self-conscious, more aware of the nature of their presuppositions as exhibited in the very languages and structures of the various fields of scholarship, such uncritical acceptance of “what is” as “natural” may be intellectually fatal. Just as Mill saw male domination as one of a long series of social injustices that had to be overcome if a truly just social order were to be created, so we may see the unstated domination of white male subjectivity as one in a series of intellectual distortions which must be corrected in order to achieve a more adequate and accurate view of historical situations. (shrink)

Biographical novels about historical women artists have been experiencing a veritable boom in recent years. Written mostly by women, they can be understood as women authors’ attempts to reach out across time to other “artistic” women whose lives “speak to us” today. It has long been a key insight of historical fiction research that a historical novel reveals more about the time in which it was written than the time in which it is set. As (...) such, it can be assumed that contemporary novels about historical women speak as much to twenty-first-century conceptions of femininity as to particular historical moments of female subjectivity. This paper will compare two novels about historical women artists: Janice Galloway’s Clara about nineteenth-century German pianist Clara Wieck-Schumann and Priya Parmar’s Exit the Actress about Restoration actress Nell Gwyn. While based on historical facts, both these novels use the greater freedom of fiction to depart from biographical conventions. It will be demonstrated that although they resemble each other on the discourse level, employing shifts in the narrative perspective, conspicuous typography, and graphic elements, they differ markedly in the biographical and fictional subgenres in which they participate and, hence, in their gender politics. (shrink)

There have been only sporadic attempts to understand Chinese women’s role and influence in the field of visual arts, even though their contribution has been major. This article highlights the significance of women’s participation in modern Chinese culture through the works of several contemporary Chinese women artists who have been professionally active in visual arts in the last two decades. Using an interdisciplinary framework, drawing on concepts from theories of feminism, modernism and postcolonialism, this article seeks (...) to understand a culturally specific field in the history of art, and the relationship of various factors that have contributed to it. (shrink)

This article addresses the extent and ways in which gender inequality in the newspaper coverage of arts and culture has changed in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, 1955-2005. Through a quantitative content analysis, we mapped all articles that appeared in two elite newspapers in each country in four sample years 1955, 1975, 1995, and 2005. First, despite increasing women’s employment in arts and culture and a quantitative feminization of journalism, elite newspaper coverage of women in (...) arts and culture has hardly changed, making up about 20-25 percent consistently over the last 50 years. Second, our results show surprisingly few cross-national differences in the amount of the newspaper coverage devoted to women in arts and culture. Third, although women are underrepresented in the coverage of all artistic genres, there is some evidence of horizontal sex segregation—particularly in architecture and modern dance and fashion —as well as vertical sex segregation—in that attention to women has increased in “highbrow” genres that have declined in status. Finally, as the status of an actor type increases from laymen to artistic directors, the proportion of women decreases in newspaper attention to arts and culture. (shrink)

In the realm of pixels and virtual spaces, the art of placemaking transcends physical confines, weaving a digital mosaic of voices and visions. Feminist digital placemaking emerges as a vibrant brushstroke on this canvas, painting online environments with the hues of inclusion, safety, and empowerment. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, mirrored in the "Year of Hope" digital exhibition, showcases the transformative power of feminist digital placemaking in amplifying voices, knitting solidarity, and challenging oppressive narratives. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" (...) movement, sparked by the tragic demise of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, unfolds like a poignant narrative, with women scripting the chapters of resistance. This movement, a collage of courage and defiance, has found a digital stage in the "Year of Hope" exhibition, where each artwork tells a story, each pixel a testament to the unyielding spirit of Iranian women. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing barriers to healthcare in England for ethnic minority and migrant women. These barriers include those embedded within the i...

In "Peripheralities: 'Minor' Literatures, Women's Literature, and Adrienne Orosz de Csicser's Novels" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses events surrounding Adrienne Orosz de Csicser's work. For the contextualization of the events Tötösy de Zepetnek employs his own framework of "comparative cultural studies" here applied to "minor literatures" and women's literature and Shunqing Cao's "variation theory." While Orosz's novels are not considered exceptional, the author achieved notoriety after locked up in a mental institution. In addition to three published novels, in (...) an unpublished novel Orosz narrates her love affair with a Roman Catholic bishop. Knowledge about her novel's contents resulted in the bishop orchestrating Orosz's commitment to a mental hospital. The context in which Orosz's texts are located in is the socio-political situation in Hungarian society prior to and shortly after the First World War. (shrink)

Alexander Woloch, in a pioneering 2003 study on literary characters and characterization, observed that narrative meaning emerges in the dynamic attention to and neglect of the characters, major and minor, who inhabit the same story but occupy different positions therein. This essay draws on Woloch’s theory and methods to analyze the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, taking the women of the narrative as its case study. Aruru, Ninsun, Shamhat, Aya, Ishtar, the scorpion-man’s woman, Shiduri, and Uta-napishti’s wife are here (...) examined not as flat or stock characters but rather as individual personalities who often transcend both their constrained narrative spaces and the gendered characterizations applied to them in the scholarship of recent decades. In paying the women of the SB Epic of Gilgamesh the attention they deserve, this study sheds new light not only on the composition’s minor characters but also on its narrative structure and meaning. (shrink)

The issue of underrepresentation of women in information technology (IT) is of national interest due to the rapid growth of IT in recent years, the impact of IT on growth and productivity, the shortage of IT workers, and the gender equity in IT. Scholarly research has pointed its finger at bias in early socialization, math anxiety, masculinity of computers, the scarcity of role models, and women’s preference for relational work. A study of students majoring in computer science and (...) computer engineering in a minority-serving university found some additional factors such as tension between demands imposed by IT curricula and students’family and work responsibilities. (shrink)

This article examines the historically embedded relations of three 19th-century phenomena in which the non-consuming body is constituted as a spectacle of admiration. These three phenomena, known as Fasting Women, Living Skeletons and Hunger Artists, all emerged and disappeared in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Viewing the emergence and disappearance of the three phenomena as embedded in the historical crossroads of pre-modern and modern ethics, the article argues that each of these phenomena corresponds differently to the (...) clash between modern `rationality' and the pre-modern celebration of `miracles'. The article maintains that while Fasting Women epitomized that clash by becoming (a highly contested) spectacle of `the miraculous', the Living Skeletons transcended the clash by portraying a spectacle of liminal corporeality (the `living dead') and the Hunger Artists announced the dissolution of that very clash by performing a spectacle of `the controlled self'. Through a focus on the spectacle of fasting (i.e. the appeared, performed, `gazed at' act of fasting), a phenomenological typology of the three phenomena is outlined. I suggest that while Fasting Women and Living Skeletons embodied a spectacle of a lean body, which does not require suffering, the Hunger Artists embodied a spectacle of hunger centred on suffering and pain. The phenomenological `mapping' of these phenomena is then considered in the context of `performativity theory' and proposed as a frame of reference for a sociological study of anorexia nervosa. (shrink)

Les études récentes ont montré que les femmes ont participé, tout au long du Moyen Age, à l’activité économique. Pourtant, leur place dans la production artistique médiévale est généralement ignorée des historiens de l’art, alors même que l’étude de la production d’un artiste ou d’un milieu montre clairement, par les sources et les œuvres, qu’elles ont été présentes à chaque étape du processus de création. La confrontation de la norme à la pratique, par l’analyse de la réglementation de la gilde (...) de Saint-Luc de quatorze villes (Nord, Flandre, Hainaut et Brabant) et des registres d’inscription à la gilde des métiers du livre brugeois, a permis de mettre en perspective les activités des femmes dans les métiers d’art. Elles apparaissent comme maîtresses, ayant passé la maîtrise du métier – et pas seulement de métiers dits féminins –, dirigeant l’atelier, aux côtés du mari ou seules (célibataires ou veuves) apprenties, formant parfois des garçons ou des filles au métier. Elles sont aussi les premières victimes des crises économiques. (shrink)

Museums influence society’s ideas about canons in relation to art and the aesthetic. Such canons, as represented in museum exhibitions and collections, have sometimes been criticized for exclusion of artists from some groups. These artists include members of racial minorities, women, and others. It may be objected that there is a danger in some such criticism. Group membership might, it may be said, come to matter too much in choices by museums, rather than what should matter, producing (...) and appreciating work of the highest artistic or aesthetic value. (shrink)

This article addresses cultural memory’s ability to address past and present injustices by focusing on the artistic-political practices displayed by the professional actresses of Roma descent from the independent theater the Giuvlipen in Bucharest. The founders of this Romani women-centered theater also have ‘invented’ the word ‘Giuvlipen’ – ‘feminism’ in the Romani language – because there had previously been no word to connote both the forms of oppression and the consciousness raising politics performed by Romani women. By applying (...) the lens of intersectional feminism, the argument this article aims to put forth is that Giuvlipen’s artistic performances can foster the awareness raising of the Romani women’s ‘double jeopardy’. At the same time, the artistic performances displayed by the Giuvlipen Theater challenge the habits of historical remembering and its politics of oblivion, which can in turn promote experiential forms of knowledge and new structures and archives of feelings. (shrink)

En tant que mineures juridiques, les femmes romaines sont normalement exclues des privilèges politiques tel que le droit de vote, tout comme elles sont exemptes des devoirs des citoyens (armée ou charges fiscales). Les femmes bénéficiaient cependant pleinement des privilèges garantis par le droit civil. Et bien que leur prise de parole dans des contextes politiques relève de l’exceptionnel, les lieux d’exercice de la citoyenneté leur étaient accessibles. C’est dans la religion publique que le terme civis Romana apparaît finalement. De (...) cette étude, il résulte que la citoyenne romaine existait bel et bien, et que cette citoyenneté se rapprochait de la civitas sine suffragio. La société romaine reposait avant tout sur des inégalités et une hiérarchie omniprésentes : entre les hommes citoyens de plein droit, entre eux et les citoyens sans suffrage, et entre citoyens et femmes citoyennes. Cependant, tous pouvaient expérimenter une forme de citoyenneté à travers des actes civiques. (shrink)

This book brings together the stories of biographers, novelists, scholars, and artists as they have written about the journeys (some literal, some figurative) they have made to their subjects. Contributors include Elizabeth Wood, J.J. Wilson, Leah Glasser, Jane Lazarre, and Alice Walker.

In this article, I argue that Sartre's biography of Jean Genet, Saint Genet Actor and Martyr, can serve as an instrument of liberation for pariahs living today. Like Sartre, I define the word "pariah" to mean people who have suffered trauma in their lives and who are internally and socially oppressed as a consequence. Saint Genet's power to free us arises paradoxically out of the conservative aspects for which it has been criticized in the last few years. I am referring (...) especially to reproaches that Sartre makes things up about Genet's childhood just to suit his theories. In this paper, I also broaden the use of the term "pariah" to include some people who have only recently begun receiving respectful recognition such as survivors of domestic violence and child abuse, as well as female sufferers of depression. My views are inspired by research done in Sartre and Genet studies and also, by information provided so generously by fellow-pariahs and supporters in the medical field. (shrink)

Les années 1968 sont riches en ruptures et créations pour les plasticiennes vivant en France, sous la double influence des remises en cause des avant-gardes artistiques et du mouvement féministe. Parallèlement aux ruptures effectives dès le milieu des années 1960 dans les parcours individuels, des collectifs de femmes artistes se forment entre 1972 et 1978. Cet article analyse les théories, pratiques et activités des principaux groupes, en soulignant leurs points communs et leurs divergences.

This paper investigates the characteristics of firms which have underrepresented groups in top management positions and those which do not. It is argued that profiles of these characteristics will be different for firms with minorities vs. women and that these profiles will be different depending on whether representation is by board membership or through officerships. A discriminant analysis found both similarities and differences in variables that were associated with these different forms of representation. It was found, for example, that (...) size is associated with representation for both minorities and women, whereas high advertising intensity is associated with firms with women on board, but not as officers. Other findings and the implications of the study are discussed. (shrink)

In this article, I examine how contemporary Finnish Jewish women understand their roles and identities as women in a small Orthodox Jewish community, on the one hand, and as members of a tiny minority in largely secular and predominantly Lutheran/Christian Finland, on the other. How do Finnish Jewish women negotiate their identities in relation to their community, strongly organised along gender lines, and in relation to Finnish society and especially its equality ideals and norms? I divide (...) my article into four sections. First, I give a short overview of the theory of intersectionality, concentrating on its possibilities and limitations for the study of religion and gender in general, and for the study of Judaism, specifically. Second, I focus on my informants’ views of the gendered practices of their Orthodox Jewish community, which, by many standards, is a very specific form of Orthodoxy, which could be called ‘Finnish Orthodoxy’. Third, I analyse my informants’ views on how they perceive being Jewish women in contemporary Finland. The intersection of the last two broad themes will highlight the realities of Finnish Jewish women in contemporary Finland. Fourth, I discuss possibilities and limitations of intersectional theorising in the light of my data. (shrink)

“It is important to stress that a variety of positions with respect to feminism, nation, religion and identity are to be found in Anglophone Arab women’s writings. This being the case, it is doubtful whether, in discussing this literary production, much mileage is to be extracted from over emphasis of the notion of its being a conduit of ‘Third World subaltern women.’” Building on Geoffrey Nash’s statement and reflecting on Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualization of minor literature and Gloria (...) Anzaldua’s Borderland, we will discuss in this paper how the writings of Arab Anglophone women are specific minor and borderland narratives within minor literature through a tentative localization of Arab women’s English literature into distinct and various categories. By referring to various bestselling English works produced by Arab British and Arab American women authors, our aim is to establish a new taxonomy that may fit the specificity of these works. (shrink)

As a conceptual approach in art practice, the female body has represented both a cultural barrier and a source of inspiration throughout art history. The adoption of the female body as an art theme is prevalent across many different artistic movements, using varying conceptual approaches. Women struggle against paradigms of inferiority to this day, though their individual cultural identity varies according to their society’s beliefs and customs – for example, many contemporary Middle Eastern cultures and customs are based on (...) a patriarchal past, when men wielded power over women. Women all over the world experience subjugation to varying degrees in the fields of employment, education, sexuality and reproductive choice. The female body in Middle Eastern societies is a red line that artists are not allowed to cross. Though many Middle Eastern civilizations have dealt freely with the female body, as can be seen in the paintings and sculptures of ancient Egypt, many social and religious factors made the female body taboo in most Middle Eastern cultures. However, on close scrutiny of modern art history in Middle Eastern and Islamic countries, we can identify outstandingly courageous female artists who succeeded in breaking the rules. They chose to express themselves through their own own form of art as an expression of freedom. They chose to use their own bodies as an art medium, which made them pioneers in their countries, and many female artists followed their example. Media art has flourished in Arab countries since the 1990s, especially in Egypt. Many of these female artists distinguished themselves as pioneers, aligning themselves with new art forms and challenging the prevailing stereotypical notion of the female artist at that time. This new mode of female self-expression and identity has developed over time and remains an ongoing process in the twenty-first century. This article considers how Middle Eastern female media artists have struggled to transform stereotypes of women by using their own bodies as an artistic element, and how they have expressed the concept of freedom through their self-body image. (shrink)