Course description
This course provides an interdisciplinary insight into the processes of nationalization and nation-building in relation to gender. The focus is on three historical periods of transition: from pre-modern, agrarian societies to European modernity; the 20th-century nation-building after the collapse of the “empires”; the 21st post-colonial and post-national millennium. The objective is to study the correlation between national polity building and the construction of women’s role as biological, cultural and symbolic reproducers of the nation. This is illuminated in a comparative historical perspective that takes into account the differences in the “sexual contract” between modern (predominantly culturally homogeneous and sedentary polity) and the late 20th/early 21st centuries, marked by “feminization of migration”, transnationalization of welfare state and multiculturalization of national spaces of identity and belonging. In addition, differences between 1970s Western feminist, Eastern socialist and post-feminist (both West and East) will be explored.
The course will incorporate sociological theory of nationalism, feminist postcolonial theory, gender studies and migration/border studies. The thematic fields will explore racial/ethnic dynamics of nation-building and the contradictions, emerging from the globalization of care, including “global motherhood” and wellness services. The objective is to develop an in-depth understanding of the historical processes (from economic to cultural transformations) and the contingent nature of the collective identity building when inspected from the modern white patriarchal ideas of female social roles and women’s national obligations.
The course combines critical theoretical work with case studies in media, art and popular culture.

Thematic Fields
1. Critical theoretical introduction into the field
2. The rise of the modern sexual contract
3. The “romantic solution” and the construct of national motherhood
4. The welfare state and the housewife-mother ideal (the post-WWII US model)
5. The socialist modernity and the “woman’s question”
6. The clash between feminist and post-feminist politics of gender
7. Feminization of migration: reconsideration of space, borders and women’s mobility
8. Globalization of care: class and the theory of stranger
9. Global motherhood
10. A Post-national sexual contract: future challenges of theory

Course requirements
The course grade consists of three activities:
- Attendance and participation of in-class discussion, based on weekly readings (10%)
- 3 written essays (3-5 pages), based on the reading of choice (the list provided in class) (30%)
- Oral ppt presentation of the individual seminar project (20%)
- Final paper (up to 15 pages) (40%)

Learning outcomes
- Develop historical sensitivity for modern/postmodern constructs of national identity in relation to gender and migration
- Nurture critical approach to public discourses and ideologies of nationalism
- Deepen interdisciplinary competence in tackling the issues of gender/migration/nationalism
- Further analytical tools to engage in various theoretical arguments
- Develop skill to read various cultural texts from gender/nationalism/migration perspective

Bibliography
(additional readings handed in-class on a weekly basis)
Andall, Jacqueline, 2003: Introduction: The Space Between. Gender Politics and Immigration Politics in Europe. Gender and Ethnicity in Contemporary Europe (ed. Andall, Jacqueline). Oxford: Berg. 1–20.
Anthias, Floya, 2000: Metaphors of Home: Gendering New Migrations to Southern
Europe. In: Gender and Migration in Southern Europe: Women on the Move (eds. Anthias, Floya and Lazaridis, Gabriella). Oxford: Berg. 15–48.
Calavita, Kitty, 2005: Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in
Southern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morokvasić, Mirjana, 2008: Crossing Borders and Shifting Boundaries of Belongign in Post-Wall Europe. A Gender Lens.
Ehrenreich, Barbara in English Deidre, 1978: For Her Own Good: 150 Years of Expert Advice to Women. New York:
Hochschild A (2013) The Outsourced Self: What Happens When We Pay Others to Live Our Lives for Us. New York: Picador.Anchor Press.
Kaplan, Caren, Alarcon, Norma, Moallem, Minoo (eds.), 1999: Between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminisms, and the State. Durham in London: Duke University Press (selected chapters).
Mezzadra S and Neilson B (2013) Border as Method, or the Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press (selected chapters).
McClintock, A (1996) ‘No Longer in a Future Heaven’: Nationalism, Gender and Race. In G. Eley and R.G. Suny (eds), Becoming National. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 260–84.
Phoenix, Ann, 2013: Transforming 'Non-Normative' Motherhood: Retrospective Accounts of Transnational Motherhood in Serial Migration. Radical Psychology. 2 (2); undefined
Yuval-Davis, Nira, 1997: Gender and Nation. London: Sage.
Passerini, Luisa et al., 2010: Gender, Mobility and Belonging in Europe. In: Women Migrants from East to West: Gender, Mobility and Belongingin Contemporary Europe. New York:
Berghahn Books. 1–20.
Shome, R. (2011) ‘Global Motherhood’: The Transnational Intimacies of White Femininity. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 28(5): 388–406.
Vidmar Horvat, Ksenija, 2013a: Engendering Borders: Some Critical Thoughts
on Theories of Borders and Migration. Klagenfurter Geographische
Schriften. 19. 157–167.

Schedule
Week 1
22.2.2021: Critical theoretical introduction into the field (via zoom)
24..2.2021: Theories of nationalism (via zoom)
Week 2
1.3. 2021: Nationalism and gender (via zoom)
3.3.2021: Nationalism and gender: case studies (via zoom)
Week 3
8.3. 2021: The rise of the modern sexual contract (via zoom)
10.3. 2021: The “romantic solution” and the construct of national motherhood (via zoom)
Week 4
15. 3. 2021: The welfare state and the housewife-mother ideal (via zoom/in class)
17.3. 2021: Motherhood, race, ethnicity (via zoom)
Week 5
22.3. 2021: The socialist modernity and the “woman’s question” (via zoom/in class)
24.3. 2021: Gender and collective identity (via zoom)
Week 6
29.3. 2021: Popular culture, gender, nationalism during Cold war (via zoom/in class)
31.3. 2021: Popular culture, gender, nationalism after the Cold war (via zoom)
Midterm Break 5-9.4.2021
Week 7
12.4. 2021 Feminist and post-feminist politics of gender (in class)
14.4. 2021 Post-feminism and post-socialism (in class)
Week 8
19. 4. 2021 Feminization of migration (in class)
21. 4. 2021: Globalization of care (in class)
Week 9
26.4.2021: Theory of stranger and gender (in class)
28.4.2021: Global motherhood (in class)
Week 10
3. 5. 2021: Celebrity motherhood (in class)
5.5.2021: Women migrants and visual representations (in class)
Week 11
10. 5. 2021: Transnational identities and belonging (in class)
12.5. 2021: Migrant women, the EU and the art (in class)
Week 12
17.5. 2021 Post-national sexual contract: future challenges of theory (in class)
19.5. 2021: Summary and closing debate (in class)