The 13th Postgraduate Course “Feminisms in a transnational perspective”: Shifting Realities – Media, Communication, Sociability
The 2019 IUC course “Shifting Realities – Media, Communication, Sociability” invited paper proposals that interrogated historical and contemporary moments of change that have been in the past, and continue to be, notably marked by novel and/or changing forms of mediated communication and social networkings.
In particular, they seek to shed light on how patriarchal, authoritarian, and resurgent rightwing movements impact the norms and principles of women’s rights and feminist intellectual, activist, and artistic practices.
The 13th Postgraduate Course “Feminisms in a transnational perspective”: Shifting Realities – Media, Communication, Sociability event is hosted by Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik, an independent international center for advanced studies. The event will start on Monday, 20th May and end on Friday, 24th May.
Our principal investigator, prof. dr. Marta Verginella participated with her paper titled Women from National Margins in the Shadow of the Feminist Studies.
ABSTRACT:
Women from National Margins in the Shadow of the Feminist Studies
Slovene women’s organizations within the boundaries of the newly founded Julian March (Kingdom of Italy) flourished after the end of World War I. Women were active in national defense organizations, charities, cultural and professional societies, some also in the ranks of the social democrats. Particularly the latter were active in Slovene women’s and feminist’s networks. At the end of the war, the disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy, the introduction of the new Italian authorities prompted them to be more active, which is attested, inter alia, by the abundance of Slovene-language periodicals published in Trieste and Gorizia after 1918. Ženski svet, whose editorial office had to be transferred to Ljubljana (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) in 1929 on account of the pressure exerted by the Italian fascist authorities, deserves particular mention. The periodical was published in Ljubljana up to 1941. Women’s activities in organizations after the war are yet to be properly examined. The same holds true also for anti-fascist activities of individual women, particularly educated ones, also when subjected to the repressive fascist policy.
The article will focus on Slovene women antifascists in the Julian March whom the fascist authorities identified as dangerous enemies of Mussolini’s Italy. They were arrested, sent to the Special Tribunal for the Defence of the State, confined or interned and paid with their lives for their political and national activities, just as did their peers, brothers and husbands. However, despite their efforts, they remained in the shadow of history, not due to lacking court records and other official documents, but rather on account of the androcentrically oriented memoirs, which were occasionally shaped also by women themselves.