Workshop | Queering Modernization in Eastern Europe: Deviant Sexualities, Gender Regimes, and the Limits of State Control

This two-day workshop invites doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers to reflect on the impact that the modernization of states and societies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) had on the construction of sexual and gender identities and experiences, as well as the notion of sexual deviance.

While the 20^th century was marked by increasingly modern (secular, science-based, medicalized, etc.) conception of sexuality across Europe, this new understanding interacted in complex ways with traditional and religious notions of morality and sin.

Furthermore, the twentieth century in CEE was marked by multiple regime and ideological changes, which also impacted the ways people lived and understood their personal lives, gender identities, and sexual experiences. Considering the limitations of the Foucauldian narrative of the history of sexuality in the West, the workshop invites participants to reflect on the methodological and theoretical tools that are needed to interrogate the continuity and change of sexual discourses and practices in CEE.