What are the key feminist issues debated currently in Austria? How are academics using their knowledge to meaningfully engage with these debates and work with movements striving for radical change? How can we bridge critical academic knowledge production with support for social change?
This roundtable brings together a renowned group of feminist academic-activists working in several leading Austrian academic institutions and thoroughly engaged in feminist and queer issues in the country and wider region. The speakers will reflect on the relationship between academia and activism, providing the audience with an introduction to today’s most urgent academic questions and social issues in Austria, and how to intervene in them.
Monika Mokre holds a PhD in Political Science and Communication Research from the University of Vienna and obtained her habilitation in political science from the University of Innsbruck. She has been a Research Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1991, and has been based at the Institute of Culture Studies and Theatre History since 2009. She lectures across several institutes and universities in Vienna, and is Chairwoman of the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies (eipcp). Her activism and community engagement spans several roles: she is a founding member of the refugee hotline Push-Back Alarm Austria, and member of the executive committee of Refugee Outreach & Research Network (RoRN). She also co-founded the Solidarity Group for a Prisoners Union Austria and supports the Union for the Rights of Prisoners. She is Chairwoman of the Works Council of the OeAW.
Jelena Petrović is an art researcher, theorist and curator. She is a (co)author of texts, exhibitions, programs and projects dealing with the (geo)politics of art and knowledge production in the post-Yugoslav space and beyond. She is currently working at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna on the project The Politics of Belonging: Art Geographies (FWF Elise Richter 2019-2023). From 2008 to 2014 she was an active member of the art-theory group Grupa Spomenik (The Monument Group). In 2011, she became a co-founder and member of the feminist curatorial collective Red Min(e)d. As the initiator of the course Living Archive: Feminist Curatorship and Contemporary Artistic Practices she taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana as a guest lecturer (2014-2017). From 2015 to 2017, she was appointed as an Endowed Professor for Central and South Eastern European Art Histories at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Katharina Wiedlack holds a PhD in English and American Studies from the University of Vienna. She is currently Assistant Professor for Anglophone Cultural Studies at the same department. Previously she held positions at Humboldt University in Berlin, the Europa-Universität Flensburg, and Johns Hopkins University. Her research fields include queer and feminist theory, popular culture, postsocialist, decolonial and disability studies. She is currently working on a book project focused on the construction of Russia's most vulnerable citizens on the intersection of western and Russian imperialism. Additionally, together with Anna T. and the Close[t] Demonstration Team, she is organizing an international exhibition and event program on the multitudes of queer in_visiblity (https://closetdemonstrations-gain.univie.ac.at/).
Presenter: Nadia Jones-Gailani
Moderator: Adriana Qubaiova
*The event will be followed by a reception
Zoom link
Meeting ID: 962 9968 9265
Passcode: 444582