Deadline for submission of paper proposals: May 6th, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coordination: Na\u00efma Berkane and Lola Sinoimeri<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Women\u2019s movements and the history of feminist engagement in the Balkans are a well-established academic field in social sciences. Many researchers contributed to shed light on the specificity of the South-East European context at large in the 20th<\/sup> century using a comparative approach while distinguishing the different movements\u2019 chronologies according to the situation of the different countries. Whether it was in the so-called \u201cnational revival\u201d movements in the 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> centuries, or during the interwar period, after World War Two, or in the 1970s, or after the fall of the various communist regimes and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, women committed themselves and\/or organized themselves around feminist issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scholars in the region in literature and gender studies have already focused their research on the literary and artistic history of the Balkans. The so-called post-Yugoslav literature, for example, has been extensively studied from a feminist and\/or transnational perspective (Luki\u0107 2017; Matijevi\u0107 2020). Others have worked on historicizing these artistic and literary phenomena while offering feminist theory and critique (Zelenovi\u0107 2020; Blagojevi\u0107, Kolozova, Slap\u0161ak 2006; Petrovi\u0107 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This issue of the review Balkanologie<\/em> aims to interrogate the specificity of feminist engagement in Balkan arts and literatures. What about the literary and artistic engagement of women for their rights and\/or in the scope of feminist movements? What are the specificities of these forms of artistic engagement in the different Balkan countries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n These interrogations invite us to lie at the intersections of two historical topics. First, we will observe the different contexts in which women\u2019s living conditions changed and political movements appeared: from the 19th<\/sup> century, when the women question emerged, through the socialist and Kemalist projects where the theme of women\u2019s emancipation became a tool for \u201cfundamental legitimization\u201d (Giomi, Zerman 2018), to the liberal transitions that redefined their place in society. All these transformations have had an impact on the different strategies of women\u2019s appearance in literary and artistic fields. Second, these commitments will be studied through the lens of the history of relations between arts, literature and politics in these countries. Literary and artistic history of the South-East European countries, often referred to as literary and artistic \u201cperipheries\u201d (Casanova 2008), is marked by its relationship to politics: thus, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, arts and literature were actively involved in the so-called \u201cnational revival\u201d or \u201cnational reconstruction\u201d movements. Then, under socialism, the regimes called writers and artists to define their work according to their commitment and social critique, and even, for some of them, to subordinate their art to politics. In these contexts, we cannot only think of the engaged intellectual as an \u201coutsider\u201d (Sa\u00efd, 1996) or as a dissident. Spaces of friction between collaboration and subversion or dissent seem therefore particularly relevant for this study. Engagement can even, in highly politicized contexts, take on anti-political (Kemp-Welch, 2017) or \u201cescapist\u201d forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While scholarship has already been produced on issues of women\u2019s representation, here we wish to focus on the agency of women artists and writers, both in their artistic productions or in their feminist modes of organisation in the literary and artistic fields. This issue invites researchers to think about political engagement in artworks, its aesthetic implications, but also as action and mode of organisation for women in the literary and artistic fields: women can get involved as creators or writers, but also by occupying other functions in these fields – we think specifically of art critics, technical professions, translators, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We invite contributors to understand the label \u201cfeminist\u201d in a broad sense: some women artists or writers may not have used it for themselves, or may even have rejected it (L\u00f3r\u00e1nd, 2018). However, the analysis can address their engagement, trajectory and artistic productions as feminist. This open definition of the term \u201cfeminist\u201d refers to any political, artistic, literary engagement that highlights the specificity of women\u2019s living conditions and the oppressions women face as a social group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This issue is open to contributions from different fields in human and social sciences (literature, art history, aesthetics, philosophy, history, sociology, geography, anthropology, political science). Wishing to contribute to the writing of a \u201cintertwined, transnational and comparative\u201d feminist intellectual history of the Balkans (Daskalova, 2018), we strongly encourage works that propose a comparative and transdisciplinary perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proposal submission<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Proposals for articles, in either French or English, will be sent by e-mail to the editors of the issue, Lola Sinoimeri (lola-sinoimeri@riseup.net<\/a>) and Na\u00efma Berkane (naimaberkane@outlook.fr<\/a>) on 6th<\/sup> May 2022 at the latest. They will include the title, an abstract (up to 500 words), five key-words, a bio-bibliographic note and the authors\u2019 contact information. The authors will be informed by the editors about the selection of proposals by e-mail in June 2022. Authors will then be required to submit a first version of their papers before 18th<\/sup> December 2022 at the latest. The articles will be submitted to dual-anonymous peer reviewing, after which authors will have a month to modify their papers according to the remarks, critics and suggestions received. The issue should finally be published in autumn 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Blagojevi\u0107 Jelisaveta, Kolozova Katerina et Slap\u0161ak Svetlana (dir.), Gender and Identity: Theories from and\/or on Southeastern Europe<\/em>, Belgrade, Centar za \u017eenske studije & Centar za studije roda i politike, Fakultet politi\u010dkih nauka, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Casanova Pascale, La R\u00e9publique mondiale des Lettres <\/em>[The World Republic of Letters], Paris, \u00c9ditions du Seuil, 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daskalova Krassimira, \u00ab Women\u2019s and Gender History in the Balkans: Looking Back Over 50 years of Teaching and Research \u00bb, Clio.<\/em> Women, Gender, History<\/em>, vol. 2, no<\/sup> 48, 2018, p. 181-191.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Giomi Fabio, Zerman Ece, \u00ab The (Post-)Ottoman World Through the Prism of Gender \u00bb, Clio.<\/em> Women, Gender, History<\/em>, vol. 2, no<\/sup>48, 2018, p. 7-16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kemp-Welch Lucy, Antipolitics in Central European Art<\/em>, Londres, I.B. Tauris, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n