Phenomenon of the women’s (post)totalitarian experience in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is to be examined across disciplines as the past continues to shape the present in manifold ways. The course examines legacies of women under Nazism and Communism. The totalitarian experience is examined through women’s memory, as women were Holocaust victims, inmates, gulag workers, exiles, Nazi perpetrators, resistance fighters, camp guards, snipers, pilots, prisoners, persecuted politicians, Nazi breeders, leaders, dissidents, activists and heroes as well as mistresses, brides, mothers, sisters, daughters of many voluntarily or unvoluntarily involved with totalitarianism. What is the complexity of women’s experience with dehumanizing political practices? How powerful is the totalitarian spell over diverse classes, nations and ethnicities of women? How women deal with the memory, pain, hatred, guilt and even empowerment?
In the course various case studies, narratives and testimonies are to be examined; illustrations and comparisons are to be drawn; cultural, historical, and theoretical contexts discussed; films are to be watched to discuss the memory of women in the contemporary imagination. The course also concerns roles of women in the European integration, and the position of CEE women in the world feminism.