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For the Center of Advanced Gender Studies, the concept
of "Ruptures" for some time now has demarkated a central
theoretical and methodological research approach in academically
dealing with East- West- relations. In situations and contexts of
ruptures and of transformations, what previously was invisible often
becomes conspicuous: this is the rationale that informs a transversal
axis of research, by which a perspective on "ruptures"
opens up a number of topical fields for approaching "Gender"
as an anthropological and epistemological category. These topical
fields are:
1. Contested Gender Identities
2. Implicit and Explicit Knowledge
3. Socio- Cultural Forms of Constituting
Reality
These three topical fields are defined as interrelated
spheres of research, while the transversal axis of "Ruptures"
represents an integrative higher perspective which crosses right
through these three fields.
The topical field of "Contested Gender Identities"
highlights the social, cultural, and anthropological conditions
of gender identities out of the perspective of "ruptures".
The contested and fractured identities of gender are examined in
their individual and collective forms as much as in their embeddedness
with other forms of identity.
The topical field of "Implicit and Explicit
Knowledge" deals with the heterogeneous and multi- layered
interactions of various forms of knowledge with regard to gender
relations, such as explicit knowledge in its more formal and mostly
written versions, and implicit forms in their varieties that often
are tied to specific experiences and oral traditions.
The topical field of "Socio- Cultural Forms
of Constituting Reality" is being explored through the
perspective of ruptures in socio- political conflicts, in media
communication, and in the institutionalised and non- institutionalised
realms of civil society.
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In 2000, the Center for Advanced Gender
Studies launched one of its central program courses, i.e. the research
seminar on empirical methods and methodology. This seminar has drawn
together good PhD projects with a focus on key topics in feminist
and gender studies of the social sciences. The standard format included
one or several faculty members and the visiting professor being
present at each session (transdisziplinäry co-training), where
one PhD project was presented and discussed at a time in full detail
(presentation: 40 min., debate: 90 min). While the presenter and
seminar participants exchanged experiences, criticism, and opinions,
the whole debate was fully monitored by a specialized teaching assistant
(TA). The main results of each session then were circulated by the
TA as electronic minutes to all participants, who thus were able
to continue the debate as an e-conversation if necessary. Apart
from the benefit which this procedure represented for all PhD participants
and for all other faculty members not present at the session, this
type of meticulous feedback provided substantial support and academic
orientation for each young researcher presenting her project in
an exemplary manner. The topics covered by these intensive training
procedures included all major fields of social sciences methods
and methodology, such as conceptualization and terminology, procuring
qualitative and quantitative data, interviewing techniques, grounded
theory, visual documentation, comparative analysis and hermeneutic
interpretation, or ethnographic field work.
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The profound transdisciplinary orientation
of this Center for Advanced Gender Studies is ensured by the diversity
of social science fields, as represented among both faculty and
PhD participants. These fields include Sociology, Social Anthropology,
Linguistics, Social History, Philosophy, Science Studies, and Political
Sciences. Faculty members:
- Ulrike Felt
(Department for Philosophy of Science & Social Studies of
Science)
- Andre Gingrich
(Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Austrian Academy
of Sciences; "Wittgenstein Prize" 2000)
- Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gariella Hauch
(Department of Gender Studies at the Keppler University Linz)
- Eva Kreisky
(Department of Political Sciences and Director of PhD Studies
at the Faculty for Human and Social Sciences; Gabriele Possanner-
State Prize" for Gender and Democracy 1999)
- Dr. Elke Mader
(Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Institute
for Latin American Studies)
- Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alice Pechriggl
(Department of Philosophy and groupe dynamics, University Klagenfurt)
- Dr. Birgit Sauer
(Department of Political Sciences)
- Mona Singer
(Department for Philosophy of Science & Social Studies of
Science)
- Dr. Ruth Wodak
(Department of Applied Linguistics and Austrian Academy of Sciences;
"Wittgenstein Prize" (1996)
Students of the Center for Advanced Gender Studies
at the University of Vienna are offered an inter- and transdisciplinary
curriculum. A central part of it is the Research Seminar
on methods and methodologies, as described already earlier
on, with its joint teaching and feed-back procedures. In addition,
fellows are integrated into the conceptualization, planning,
and implementation of an international Lecture Series to benefit
not only from its contents, but also from the practical experience
involved in setting up such a series.
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Its congresses and symposia represent one of the
center' s concentrated efforts to pool together its international
contacts for the benefit of its PhD students. Key examples were
the symposium "Gender
Studies and EU enlargement towards the East" with contributors
from Vienna, Budapest, and Prague in June 2003, the conference
"Co- operation and Networking among European Postgraduate
Programs in Gender Studies" with contributors from Austria,
France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, and Hungary in April 2002,
and the workshop "Gender Studies between East and West"
in January 2001, with contributors from western European and
post- communist countries.
The Center for Advanced Gender Studies operates
locally and through its international networks, by using its
adavantageous geographical location for interacting with researchers
from the post- communist countries of East Central Europe. A
book publication documents the results of some of these activities,
which were funded by the Austrian Ministry for Science and the
Fine Arts:
Alice Pechriggl and Marlen Bidwell- Steiner (eds.):
"Brüche. Geschlecht. Gesellschaft. Gender Studies
zwischen Ost und West." Materialien zur Förderung
von Frauen in der Wissenschaft, Band 16. Wien 2003 (Transl.:
"Ruptures. Gender. Society. Gender Studies between East
and West")
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