Dr. Justyna Stypinska, an excellent scholar  and a very good friend of mine, together with her colleagues from the Institute for East European Studies, would like to invite you to take part in the International Conference entitled “Gender, Power, Eastern Europe – Changing Concepts of Femininities and Masculinities and Power Relations” to be held at Free University in Berlin, Germany, 20-23 June 2017. The main aim of the conference is to open up a space for discussions not  only  about  recent  developments,  but  also  to  investigate  the  cultural,  sociological  and  historical patterns of changes in the role of gender within power relations of new political and social constellations in Eastern Europe (and beyond), the participation of women in politics, economics and warfare, as well as spaces of violence. According to the organisers, during the conference “we focus on the agency of women and thus  we  move  away  from  describing  the  status  of  women  solely  as  an  objects  of  discrimination  in economic and societal structures. Similarly important are the new roles and models of masculinities exercised by men in Central and Eastern Europe, which are being shaped within and outside of family. Finally, we intend to explore how power  relations are negotiated in diverse societies and what role  gender plays therein.”

The deadline for submitting  abstract of around 500 words and a CV is October, 20. The documents should be sent to  a.wierzcholska@fu-berlin.de.