International workshop: Transferring Gender: Contested Gender Cultures Across the European Union, Germany

The workshop addresses the complex field of European gender cultures and politics from diverse disciplinary perspectives, in particular gender sociology, studies of European integration, history of Central and Eastern Europe, and religious studies. In the past, these threads have often been studied separately. This workshop will relate them to the topic of the contested gender cultures in the European Union.

Our starting point is the enlargement of the European Union since 1989, which has raised questions about the potential and limitations of cultural diversity within Europe. With regards to gender-relations, the 'return' to Europe has generated a reflection on a shared history which has been experienced differently. The European Union's machinery of Gender Mainstreaming reveals for instance different memories and visions of gender cultures that generate multiple points of controversies between Eastern and Western Europe. Against this background the workshop is concerned with transferring gender in socialist and post-socialist countries.

The east-west-coordinates of an enlarging Europe intersect with those of globalization and the influx of Muslim migration to Europe. The increasing visibility of migrated religions contributes to controversies on the religious and the secular. Gender, gender representation, and the modernity of gender are at the centre of this hot debate on `overt` or `discrete` religiosity. Accordingly, the workshop addresses threads of mobilizing gender and religion on the European screen.