Gender, rovné příležitosti, výzkum. Vol. 13, issue 2, pp. 40-49. Praha Sociologický ústav Akademie věd ČR, ISSN 1213-0028., 2012
The period of Normalization in Czechoslovakia is often perceived as a grey “Eastern iceberg” wher... more The period of Normalization in Czechoslovakia is often perceived as a grey “Eastern iceberg” where life stood still and uniformity governed. My analysis of sexological discourse, particularly of texts focused on perversity, juxtaposes the normalized ethos of the period with deviant sexual subjectivities. I analyze papers and debates presented at annual sexological conferences in the 1970s and 1980s. Sexuality, especially in its non-normal/deviant forms, was revealed as unstable, a quality sought to be “rectified” through gender which was perceived as binary. The family was interrogated as a source of deviance and also as a place of redress. While sexological writings in general tend to biologize sexuality, my analysis shows that sexologists attributed social genealogy to deviance, a finding that attests to rigid social conditions during Normalization.
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A contribution to the Biennale Reader Matter of Art 2020
The text is both in Czech and English.
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Challenges of Modernity offers a broad account of the social and economic history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and asks critical questions about the structure and experience of modernity in different contexts and periods.
This volume focuses on central questions such as: How did the various aspects of modernity manifest themselves in the region, and what were their limits? How was the multifaceted transition from a mainly agrarian to an industrial and post-industrial society experienced and perceived by historical subjects? Did Central and Eastern Europe in fact approximate its dream of modernity in the twentieth century despite all the reversals, detours and third-way visions? Structured chronologically and taking a comparative approach, a range of international contributors combine a focus on the overarching problems of the region with a discussion of individual countries and societies, offering the reader a comprehensive, nuanced survey of the social and economic history of this complex region in the recent past.
The first in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in the ‘challenges of modernity‘ faced by this dynamic region.
rates, which made it imperative for the government to focus on cementing the family. After the failed attempts of Prague Spring in 1968, the new pro-Soviet government of communist Czechoslovakia did just that. During the time dubbed as “normalization” by the new elites, anyone who strayed from the family norm was suspected of deviance.
reversed order of liberalization vs. conservatism as compared to the West. While writing on sex in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s stressed gender equality and emancipation of women, the
texts published in the 1970s insisted on the necessity of gender hierarchy for a successful marriage and defended privatized families isolated from larger society. I link these shifts to
the changing character of the regime which moved from accentuating public, work and equality in the 1950s to emphasizing private, family and authority in the 1970s. For my
analysis, I use the concepts of psy-ences (Rose, 1992, 1996) and intimacy at the intersection of the public/private divide (Berlant and Warner, 1998), while also accounting for their blind spots. Where Rose insists that psy-ences have operated exclusively in modern liberal capitalist societies, I argue that a psy-ence of sexology also co-constituted social life under state socialism. My paper analyzes Czechoslovak sexual and gender trajectories and accounts for differences from and convergences with 20th century Western histories of sexuality. I critically examine Czechoslovak sexological discourses in their changing historical settings to
show that there was not one ‘communist period’, even in one country. Rather there existed varying modes of framing sexuality at different times.
A contribution to the Biennale Reader Matter of Art 2020
The text is both in Czech and English.
Challenges of Modernity offers a broad account of the social and economic history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and asks critical questions about the structure and experience of modernity in different contexts and periods.
This volume focuses on central questions such as: How did the various aspects of modernity manifest themselves in the region, and what were their limits? How was the multifaceted transition from a mainly agrarian to an industrial and post-industrial society experienced and perceived by historical subjects? Did Central and Eastern Europe in fact approximate its dream of modernity in the twentieth century despite all the reversals, detours and third-way visions? Structured chronologically and taking a comparative approach, a range of international contributors combine a focus on the overarching problems of the region with a discussion of individual countries and societies, offering the reader a comprehensive, nuanced survey of the social and economic history of this complex region in the recent past.
The first in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in the ‘challenges of modernity‘ faced by this dynamic region.
rates, which made it imperative for the government to focus on cementing the family. After the failed attempts of Prague Spring in 1968, the new pro-Soviet government of communist Czechoslovakia did just that. During the time dubbed as “normalization” by the new elites, anyone who strayed from the family norm was suspected of deviance.
reversed order of liberalization vs. conservatism as compared to the West. While writing on sex in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s stressed gender equality and emancipation of women, the
texts published in the 1970s insisted on the necessity of gender hierarchy for a successful marriage and defended privatized families isolated from larger society. I link these shifts to
the changing character of the regime which moved from accentuating public, work and equality in the 1950s to emphasizing private, family and authority in the 1970s. For my
analysis, I use the concepts of psy-ences (Rose, 1992, 1996) and intimacy at the intersection of the public/private divide (Berlant and Warner, 1998), while also accounting for their blind spots. Where Rose insists that psy-ences have operated exclusively in modern liberal capitalist societies, I argue that a psy-ence of sexology also co-constituted social life under state socialism. My paper analyzes Czechoslovak sexual and gender trajectories and accounts for differences from and convergences with 20th century Western histories of sexuality. I critically examine Czechoslovak sexological discourses in their changing historical settings to
show that there was not one ‘communist period’, even in one country. Rather there existed varying modes of framing sexuality at different times.
diversity. This article is grounded in the historical context of migration to and from the Czech Republic and based on ethnographic research in several ethnically-mixed classrooms. We analyze the ways in which teachers talk about their pupils. We show that in the case of migrant children, teachers tend not to see their differences and hence, their potentially structural disadvantages. On the other hand, the Roma ethnicity is perceived as insurmountable. Teachers mobilize lists of cultural
and even genetic differences to legitimize their different treatment of Roma pupils. Furthermore, we analyze policy documents regarding the education of non-Czech pupils and their reception by teachers. All these strategies result in the continuing perception of Czech classrooms as ethnically homogeneous while disregarding any social inequalities.