2025
2024
2023
4th ZARAH Annual International Workshop
Vienna, 16-18 October 2023
International experts:
Diane P. Koenker (University College London)
Leda Papastefanaki (University of Ioannina)
During the Annual International Workshops, the ZARAH Team discusses its work with external experts on the history of women’s labour activism internationally, in the ZARAH region, and in other countries and regions. Depending on the preferences of the external experts, the workshop participants also discuss the experts’ work and/or additional topics.
ZARAH Public Lecture
Leda Papastefanaki
Gender Conflict at the Workplace: Women’s Activism in the Greek Textile Industry, 1870s-1930s
16 October 2023, 17:40-19:10 (hybrid event)
Invitation (including registration information)
2022
3rd ZARAH Annual International Workshop
Vienna, 10-12 October 2022
International experts:
Mahua Sarkar (University of Toronto)
Sylvia Hahn (Paris Lodron University of Salzburg)
During the Annual International Workshops, the ZARAH Team discusses its approach and findings with external experts on the history of women’s labour activism internationally, in the ZARAH region, and in other countries and regions. ZARAH Team members present elements of their component studies and the ZARAH collaborative work, and (depending on their preferences) the external experts may present their own work. Furthermore, the team discusses core elements of the ZARAH collaborative work during the annual workshops, involving (if applicable) additional specialized experts.
ZARAH Public Lecture
Mahua Sarkar
Talking with Men: Ethnographic Research Among Transnational Labour Migrants
10 October 2022, 17:40-19:10 (hybrid event)
Invitation (including registration information)
ZARAH Presentation
24 March 2022, 17:00-19:00
Online via Zoom
Pulling the Threads Together: Individual Themes and Common Research Interest in a Collaborative Study of Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Internationally (late 19th to late 20th century)
Presentation by the ZARAH Team within a lecture series organized by Socioboard, the ERC Advanced Grant “Social Politics in European Borderlands: A Comparative and Transnational Study, 1870s-1990s”, European University Institute (EUI) in Florence.
Selin Cagatay
Olga Gnydiuk
Veronika Helfert
Ivelina Masheva
Zhanna Popova
Jelena Tesija
Eszter Varsa
Susan Zimmermann
The ERC-sponsored research project ZARAH studies the history of women’s labour activism and organizing of many types and political persuasions to improve the labour conditions and life circumstances of lower- and working-class women and their communities in the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, the post-imperial nation states, and during the Cold War and the years thereafter. In this presentation we discuss a crucial element of our ongoing work: How to tie in the individual research pursued by each team member with each other and how to make our research findings into a coherent whole that is intended to be more than the sum of the 10 component studies. First, we introduce how ZARAH combines collaborative and individual elements of the project research through its overall design and then we exemplify how the research of the team members contributes to answering the common research questions guiding our work.
In order to participate in the lecture, please register here.
ZARAH Workshop
26 January 2022, 17:30-19:00
Central European University, Vienna
Presentation and discussion of
Feminist Networks in a Man’s World: The ICFTU/ITS Women’s Committee and the Activities of Nigerian Women Trade Union Officials, c. 1957-1968
Immanuel R. Harisch
During this workshop invited guests and the ZARAH Team discuss with Immanuel R. Harisch a chapter taken from his dissertation.
Immanuel Harisch is currently finishing his dissertation on a scholarship from the Vienna Doctoral School of Historical and Cultural Studies. Earlier he was University Assistant (prae-doc) at the Research Center Mobile Cultures and Societies, University of Vienna. He holds MA degrees in International Development and African Studies. In his dissertation project he studies the history of African trade unions and the international networking and mobility of trade unionists from the African continent within the international labor movement, from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. His recent publications include “Facets of Walter Rodney‘s Pan-African Intellectual Activism during his Dar es Salaam Years, 1966-74,” in Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien/Vienna Journal of African Studies 20 (2020) 38, and Navigating Socialist Encounters. Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War, co-edited with Eric Burton, Anne Dietrich and Marcia C. Schenck (DeGruyter 2021).
2021
International Conference “Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries”
Central European University, Vienna, 14-16 October 2021
Please note that this conference is an authors workshop and attendance is open to invited participants only.
2nd ZARAH Annual International Workshop
Vienna, 11-13 October 2021
International experts:
Birgitta Bader-Zaar (University of Vienna)
Dorothy Sue Cobble (Rutgers University)
Brigitte Studer (University of Bern)
During the Annual International Workshops, the ZARAH Team discusses its approach and findings with external experts on the history of women’s labour activism internationally, in the ZARAH region, and in other countries and regions. ZARAH Team members present elements of their component studies and the ZARAH collaborative work, and (depending on their preferences) the external experts may present their own work. Furthermore, the team discusses core elements of the ZARAH collaborative work during the annual workshops, involving (if applicable) additional specialized experts.
ZARAH Public Lecture
Brigitte Studer
Travelling for the Global Revolution: A New Perspective on the Communist International
11 October 2021, 17:40-19:10 (hybrid event)
Invitation (including registration information)
Book Launch on the Occasion of International Women’s Day
Central European University, Department of Gender Studies/Department of History, 8 March 2021, 17:30 (online event)
Two New Books on the History of Women’s Activism
Veronika Helfert (Postdoctoral Fellow, CEU), Women, Stand up! A Women’s and Gender History of the Austrian Revolution and Council Movement, 1916-1924 (in German). Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, 399 pages, ISBN: 978-3-8471-1184-9
Susan Zimmermann (University Professor, CEU), Women’s Politics and Men’s Trade Unionism. International Gender Politics, Female IFTU Trade Unionists and the Workers’ and Women’s Movements of the Interwar Period (in German). Vienna, Löcker Verlag, 2021, 720 pages, ISBN 978-3-99098-026-2
2020
1st ZARAH Annual International Workshop
Vienna, 14-17 October 2020
International experts:
Claudia Kraft, Professor of Contemporary History, University of Vienna
Silke Schwandt, Professor of Digital History and Medival History, Bielefeld University
Samita Sen, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge
During the Annual International Workshops, the ZARAH Team discusses its approach and findings with external experts on the history of women’s labour activism internationally, in the ZARAH region, and in other countries and regions. ZARAH Team members present elements of their component studies and the ZARAH collaborative work, and (depending on their preferences) the external experts may present their own work. Furthermore, the team discusses core elements of the ZARAH collaborative work during the annual workshops, involving (if applicable) additional specialized experts.
ZARAH Public Lectures
Samita Sen
Left out of the Left: Gender and Class in Domestic Workers’ Unionisation in India
14 October 2020, 17:30
Claudia Kraft
Spaces of Knowledge and Gender Regimes: From Double Marginalization to a Gendered History of Knowledge of Central and Eastern Europe
15 October 2020, 17:30
ZARAH Project Presentation before the CEU Community
