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On Thursday, June 13, our author Dr. Annette Henninger (University of Marburg) will give the Doing Gender Lecture entitled Anti/Feminism: From blurring boundaries to strategies against the anti-gender ‘Zeitgeist’.
Since the turn of the century, attacks against ‘gender’ are globally on the rise. Many authors point out that mobilizations against issues such as gender studies, same-sex marriage, trans* rights or divorce regulations are part of a broader struggle for political hegemony driven by actors from the political and religious right who strive for an illiberal, regressive vision of (gender) politics. But in these mobilizations, we can also observe alliances with conservative or liberal segments of society and overlaps between the feminist and anti-feminist camp, as in discourses on femo- or homo-nationalism or concerning transphobia. My talk will explore the broader political conjunctures in which this blurring of boundaries takes place. I critically assess three explanations for this phenomenon by asking how social problems are framed in these concepts and which political strategies result from these frames: 1. The rise of populism, 2. the rise of neoliberal (post-)feminism, and 3. the de-thematization of social conflict and power structures for the sake of identity politics and ‘culture wars’. Reformulating a famous quote by Spivak, I propose a new ‘strategic universalism’ that envisions an inclusive version of democracy and social justice as a future-oriented counter-strategy against the current anti-gender ‘Zeitgeist’ and the illiberal tendencies that come with it.
Book presentation
The Doing Gender Lecture will be followed by a short presentation of the book Blurring Boundaries – ‘Anti-Gender’ Ideology Meets Feminist and LGBTIQ+ Discourses, co-edited by Dorothee Beck, Adriano José Habed, and Annette Henninger (Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2023).
Chair: Dr. Adriano Habed
About the DOING GENDER Lecture Series
The Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies organises the DOING GENDER Lecture Series in cooperation with their partners. These lectures stress the importance of doing gender work combined with an active involvement in the practice of gender theory and research. The concept of DOING GENDER supports a hands-on approach to gender issues in the sense of social and political engagement with the new forms of gender inequalities that are taking shape in the world today. The lecture series wants to give space to the new generations of gender theorists and practitioners and to perspectives that innovate the field and do gender in new ways. Key is the notion of doing gender: what is the state of the art definition of gender? How do contemporary scholars and activists utilise this definition?
Book discount
We are offering a 30 % discount on the book Blurring Boundaries – ‘Anti-Gender’ Ideology Meets Feminist and LGBTIQ+ Discourses (print and eBook) from 10 to 24 June! Don’t miss!
One of the two anniversary conferences of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) will take place in Lisbon from 11-13 September 2024.
We are excited to announce that our publisher Barbara Budrich will be attending the conference. If you are interested in discussing potential collaborations or have any questions, please feel free to reach out to her in advance.
You will soon find out more about our conference offers and how you can meet us here and via our newsletter and blog.
Header image: pexels.com / Fox
“The Making of the World: How International Organizations Shape Our Future” Book Launch
with Yves Schemeil. Emeritus Professor, University of Grenoble and Institut Universitaire de France
About the book
International Organizations (IOs) were designed to provide global public goods, among which security for all, trade for the richest, and development for the poorest. Their very existence is now a promise of success for the cooperative turn in international relations. Although the IO network was once created by established powers, rising states can hardly resist the massive production of norms that their governments can be reluctant to respect without being able to discard them. IOs are omnipresent, and exert great influence on the world as we know it. However, rulers and ruled are hardly aware of such compelling and snowballing processes. Yves Schemeil uses his in-depth knowledge of IOs to analyze their current impact on international relations, on world politics, and their potential of shaping the global future.
Speaker
Yves Schemeil, Emeritus Professor of Global and Comparative Politics (University of Grenoble and Institut Universitaire de France) has taught in several BA, MA, and PhD programs in France, Switzerland, Japan, the US, and Lebanon. His current research addresses the management of international organizations, between performance and resilience, as well as world reordering, between anarchy and governance. To assess the causes of IOs expansion and networking he lists the drivers of adaptive and collaborative behavior. To identify the explanatory variables shaping the world he compares the various organizational and constitutional designs that may lead to a more institutionalized planet in the long run. His counterintuitive, comparative, and experimental work draws on philosophy, sociology, psychology, and economics.
Discussant
Thomas Gidney, Research Associate, Geneva Graduate Institute
Moderator
Lucile Maertens, Associate Professor in International Relations/Political Science and Co-Director of the Global Governance Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute
The event is free. Please address all questions to events@graduateinstitute.ch.
Learn more about the book here. An interview with Yves Schemeil can be found here.
Seoul, South Korea, will host the 2025 IPSA World Congress of Political Science! The Congress will be organized in collaboration with the Korean Political Science Association (KPSA) and held at the Coex Convention & Exhibition Center. The theme of the congress is “Resisting Autocratization in Polarized Societies”. Verlag Barbara Budrich is part of the event and offers various promotions and discounts around the congress.
The congress starts on 12 July and runs until 16 July 2025.
If you want to know more, subscribe to our international newsletter – or read our updates on our blog.
About the congress theme “Resisting Autocratization in Polarized Societies”
For the IPSA 2025 World Congress, the IPSA aims to draw the attention of the global political science community to issues related to the resistance against autocratizing politics in the context of polarized societies. The organizers actively encourage engaging proposals and discussions on the intricate connections between these phenomena and critical issues such as human rights, civil liberties, inequality, political institutions, public policies, social actors, migrants, digitalization, climate politics, international agreements, and organizations.
Photo: pexels.com / Ethan Brooke
The ECPR General Conference 2025 will be held at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) from 26 to 28 August 2025. The General Conference is a prestigious global stage that nurtures the development of research across all sub-disciplines of political science.
We are excited to announce that a member from our editorial team will be attending the conference. If you are interested in discussing potential collaborations or have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our editorial team in advance.
Find out more about our activities related to the conference through our various channels, soon. Subscibre to our newsletter budrich international or have a look at our blog.
Image: unsplash.com / George Zografidis
From 9 to 12 September 2025, the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) will take place at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. This year’s conference theme is “Charting the Way Forward: Education, Research, Potentials and Perspectives”.
We are excited to announce that we will also be attending the conference. If you are interested in discussing potential collaborations or have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our editorial team in advance.
Keep your eyes open, we will inform you what we are planning for the conference via our various channels, e.g. through our international newsletter and on our blog in the upcoming months.
About the EERA and the ECER 2025 conference
The aim of the ‘European Educational Research Association’ (EERA) is to further high quality educational research for the benefit of education and society. The association’s activities, such as the annual conference, season schools for emerging researchers and publishing, build on and promote free and open dialogue and critical discussion and take a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to theory, methods and research ethics.
EERA membership is made up of more than 40 national and regional Educational Research Associations from all parts of Europe. It is governed by the Council and the Executive Committee. The academic work is organised in thematic networks.
Image: unsplash.com / Lazar Krstić