Mapping Women’s and Gender Studies in the Academic Field in Slovenia

Milica Antić Gaber

doi:10.26529/cepsj.167

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to map the development of women’s and gender studies (WGS) in the academic field in Slovenia. Slovenia is the first of the former Yugoslav state republics in which WGS have succeeded in entering the academic field and becoming part of institutionalised university study. In this paper we will ask the following questions: How, when and why did this happen? How was this connected to women’s and feminist movements and politics regarding women’s issues and demands? What were the obstacles in this process? Who were the agents and what were the factors that supported demands for the incorporation of WGS in academia? How has the field evolved in the last few decades? What were the phases of this development? Which fields were the forerunners, which were the late-comers and which are still left aside? What are the thematic scopes taught in WGS courses? In which degrees are thecourses offered and what are their modules? Who teaches them? The mapping in this paper is mainly based on primary sources of university programmes and their curricula at faculties of the University of Ljubljana, as well as on interviews with important agents in the field.

Highlights

Maca Jogan, one of the professors in Slovenia who, in the field of sociology, undertook pioneering work in women’s and gender studies (WGS), recollects how male professors in the 1970s reacted to her as she started to work on women’s issues in academia:“A science existed or it did not exist, asserted my colleagues
The mapping of the development of WGS in the present paper is primarily based on an examination of the university programmes of faculties of the University of Ljubljana and their curricula, as well as on interviews with or reports of the important agents in the field: the informants
The knowledge and courses that have been developed in other institutions in Slovenia – Institutum Stidiorum Humanitatis or the Peace Institute, as well as certain feminist NGOs such as Lezbično feministična akademija (LesbianFeminist Academy) or, in the last few years, Rdeče zore (Red Downs) and Zavod Transfeministična iniciativa – TransAkcija (Transfeminist Initiative Institute – TransAction), to name just a few – will be left aside in the present paper

Summary

Introduction

Maca Jogan, one of the professors in Slovenia who, in the field of sociology, undertook pioneering work in WGS, recollects how male professors in the 1970s reacted to her as she started to work on women’s issues in academia:“A science existed or it did not exist, asserted my colleagues. Maca Jogan, one of the professors in Slovenia who, in the field of sociology, undertook pioneering work in WGS, recollects how male professors in the 1970s reacted to her as she started to work on women’s issues in academia:. Jogan refers to events at a time when, in the USA as well as in some Nordic countries, women’s studies had already started entering university programmes. Both authors agree that women’s studies courses emerged from the women’s movement. They refer to the critique of the male dominance and gender blindness of the university as it privileged the study of white middleclass heterosexual men, and they ask how this can be changed

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