Women & Resistance: Workshop on Rethinking and Decentering Approaches to Teaching Eastern Europe at Harriman Institute, Columbia University

On March 29, the Harriman Institute of Columbia University hosted a workshop titled Women and Resistance: Rethinking and Decentralizing Approaches to Teaching Eastern Europe. Ivanna Cherchovych, a researcher at the Center and Head of Education, joined the event, presenting the Center's educational platform REESOURCES. The presentation was the focus of the first panel of the workshop, starting a discussion about new resources and changes in curricula centered on Eastern Europe.

The workshop brought together researchers from various social disciplines and fields of interest (history, anthropology, sociology, art) who were looking for answers to questions: How does resistance relate to such key concepts as activism, protest, contention, disobedience, queering, disengagement, riot, revolution? How do we theorize the relationship and tensions between armed and unarmed (especially artistic) resistance? How can we promote, in both our fields and in our classrooms, critical discussions of the possibilities, forms, conditions, and problematics of female resistance in the context of 20th-21st-century Eastern Europe?

During the workshop, participants were encouraged to present their syllabi from the courses they delivered this year or from the courses to be delivered next year. In this regard, they were invited to reflect on the concept of resistance studies to discuss the possibilities and challenges of using it in teaching about the region. One of the discussed syllabi Ukraine and Decolonial Thought: History, Culture, Political Economy by Maria Sonevytsky you can already find on the REESOURCES. 

Credits

Cover Image and Gallery: photos by Ivanna Cherchovych