Picturing Modernist Future: Women Illustrators and Childhood Conceptions in Socialist Yugoslavia (follow up)
Principal Investigator at ZRC SAZU
Katja Kobolt, PhD-
Original Title
Creating (for) the Child of Socialism
Project Team
-
Duration
1 October 2024–30 June 2026 -
Financial Source
How do we see the past, present and future of childhood when we look at it through the children's and youth literature of the socialist era?
Based on the extensive research material collected by Dr Katja Kobolt between 2021 and 2024 as part of the project Picturing Modernist Futures: Women Illustrators and Childhood Conceptions in Socialist Yugoslavia (funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement 101024090 - SOC-ILL), the follow-up project (Picturing Modernist Future: Women Illustrators and Childhood Conceptions in Socialist Yugoslavia (follow up)) examines various aspects of childhood under socialism in relation to social reproductive work, as well as social categories, practises and institutions at the intersection of past and present, and imaginaries of the future.
Special attention is paid in the research to:
- representations and practises of childhood in relation to social reproductive work and, in a broader perspective, artistic work for and with children;
- the ways in which social categories and practises related to care work, in particular motherhood, parenthood and the social care of children, are shaped and mediated;
- institutions and forms of integration of children into society, especially cultural and literary education;
- the changing topoi and practises of collective memory aimed at children.
As part of the project, biographical research on women illustrators who were active in the field of children's literature during this period will also be continued, with the aim of presenting them in the collection of illustrations by Yugoslav women artists (1945–1991): hdl.handle.net/20.500.12102/A2.788.
Funded by the “European Union – NextGenerationEU” within the framework of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, Investment “(Co)financing projects to enhance the international mobility of Slovenian researchers and research organisations and to promote the international involvement of Slovenian applicants.”
https://www.gov.si/en/registries/projects/the-recovery-and-resilience-plan/
Project funds awarded: 156.030,00 EUR
Photo credits: Illustration by Ida Ćirić for The First Reader by Bogdana Popović and Nada Vitorović, 1964, Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika, Sarajevo.
Project activities:
1) Friday, 13.9.2024, 13h
Paper presentation at international conference “War and theatre – A Backward Glance”, 12.–13.10.2024, Kino Šiška, Center urbane kulture Kino Šiška, Trg prekomorskih brigad 3, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
»The Little Prince« Defies Silence. Literary Agency After Migration: Ismet Bekrić, Šimo Ešić, Valerija Skrinjar-Tvrz
Based on interviews with authors and editors of children’s literature, mainly from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who continued their lives and creative paths either in Slovenia or Germany as a result of the war (1992–1995), this paper will analyse the ways and spaces of establishing as well as hindering authorial agency in exile. Following the professional trajectories of children’s writers and editors Ismet Bekrić (1943–), Šimo Ešić (1954–) and Valerija Skrinjar Tvrz (1928–2023), the author will shed light on the institutional forms of production structures, the problems within them, and ask questions about the ideological regimes of the field of intellectual activity in Slovenia and Germany since the 1990s. In this way, the paper will also provide insights into the heterogeneous ways of (non)confronting the fact of the brutal war in Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Slovenian cultural field of the 1990s.
https://maska.si/en/project/war-and-theater-a-backward-glance/
2) Wednesday, 9.10.2024, 12.30
Guest lecture by Elena Messner (University of Vienna, University of Klagenfurt): Translation of international literature in the interwar Yugoslav feminist magazine Žena danas, Institute of Culture and Memory Studies ZRC SAZU (Trg francoske revolucije 7, 2. floor)
The translation work in the magazine Žena danas (1936–1940) was linked not only to feminist, but also to Marxist and anti-fascist ideals. The translation work was an activist canonisation process that spread the global feminist-anti-fascist discourse through translations in Yugoslavia. It contained feminist-subversive elements as well as elements that did not escape the patriarchal or hegemonic discourse. What can we learn from this case in terms of feminist theories of translation?
Elena Messner (b. 1983 in Klagenfurt), grew up in Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Salzburg. She studied Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna and carried out a number of research projects and guest studies in Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Aix-en-Provence, where she also taught at the University of Aix-Marseille. Since 2023, she has been a Senior Scientist (FWF) at the University of Vienna, researching in the Department of Slavonic Studies. Elena Messner teaches at the University of Klagenfurt and is also active as a writer, translator, curator and editor.
https://www.elena-messner.com/
3) Wednesday, 9.10.2024, 17.00
Presentation of publications by Časopis za kritiko znanosti: Feminism, Art, Literature and The Kurdish Women's Movement, as part of the 30th City of Women Festival, ŠKUC Gallery, Stari trg 21, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
The introduction of the two new publications of the ČKZ journal is centred around the thematic issue of the ČKZ Feminism, Art, Literature, co-edited by dr. Katja Kobolt and dr. Petja Grafenauer, as well as the monograph The Kurdish Women's Movement by Dilar Dirik. Drawing from the post-Yugoslav space, Feminism, Art, Literature places the artistic, literary and, on a wider scale, intellectual work in materiality and sociality, revealing the ways in which they are and have been constituted as spaces where feminism is established as an ideological, methodological, affective and political intervention. In her monograph The Kurdish Women's Movement, sociologist and feminist Dilar Dirik presents not only the history and current practices of the revolutionary Kurdish women's movement, but also the possibilities for political action, including the importance of revolution for women's movements around the world today. Her main objective is to present the purpose of the revolutionary Kurdish women's freedom movement and the scope of its political vision, from the perspective of the movement itself and drawing on its practices, with the hope and desire to build bridges between the different fights for freedom.
Drawing from their own work, the participating women authors, editors and translators questioned the ways and the significance of the past and current feminism in the search for answers to the question of how and where to continue?
https://mestozensk.org/en/festival/2024/dogodek/119498
4) Friday, 11.10.2024, 13.30
Paper presentation at the international symposium “Youth Music since 1945 & Jeunesse Musicale”, Academy of Music, Palača Kazina, Kongresni trg 1, 1000 Ljubljana, Marijan Lipovšek Hall, Slovenia
Mira Voglar and Lidija Osterc: an art-educational tandem encouraging relationships through literary, visual, sound and haptic experiences
Mira Voglar (1935–), a musicologist, music pedagogue and poet, and Lidija Osterc (1928–2006), a painter and, above all, an illustrator and pedagogue, belonged to the few established artistic tandems for children in Slovenia. Their joint teaching engagement at the Secondary School of Education in Ljubljana led them to create original publications for children, parents and educators. Drawing on the conversation with Mira Voglar as well as her professional discourse on music and aesthetic education, this paper presents selected works of this artistic duo. Their books, like Čirule čarole(1966), Biba buba baja (1979) and Bibarije: pesmi – igre – slike (1982), mix words, sounds, rhythm and pictures to create a sense of touch and movement through abstract shapes, coloured surfaces and the construction of space. The paratextual elements are aimed at adults reading poems and riddles to and with children, and encourage rhythmic touch. The works by Mira Voglar and Lidija Osterc thus represent a programmatic model of a literary-visual-auditory-haptic experience through which readers - children and adults - connect.
Programme: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14hqsIsyjW4bN15v-1U79MEzUPw_qyxQQTD9sGr0-fpM/edit?tab=t.0
Abstracts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HFT7_z09_ftB3DYpZipABxJq01kdkCzAM9g9aqpWjWA/edit?tab=t.0