Zsófia Lóránd

Dr Zsófia Lóránd

BA MA MA PHD

Zsófia is an intellectual historian of feminism in post-WWII state-socialist Eastern Europe, focusing on Yugoslavia, Hungary and the German Democratic Republic.

Zsófia Lóránd

She has a degree in Comparative Literature, English Literature and Linguistics, Political Theory, and History. She received her PhD at the Central European University in Budapest and held positions at the European University Institute in Florence and the Lichtenberg-Kolleg in Göttingen afterward. Her book, The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia was published in 2018 and was translated into Croatian in 2020. Further publications include articles about the history of feminist political thought in Croatia and Serbia after 1991, the problems of a missing women’s perspective in the nationalist commemorations of Hungarian history, the concept of the sexual revolution in Yugoslavia, among others. For eight years, she worked as an SOS helpline volunteer and trainer in the field of domestic violence.

Zsófia’s current project is the first comparative and transnational intellectual history of feminist thought and women’s rights discourses in three East-Central European countries: the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, and Yugoslavia from 1945 until 1956, the early years of de-Stalinisation. Drawing on a wide range of sources in four languages, and integrating the voices of women from ethnic and sexual minorities, this innovative project traces the circulation and transfer of feminist ideas in the region during the crucial period of “building socialism”, when communist regimes were implementing radical policies to achieve the emancipation of women. Challenging the received view that state socialist ideologies about women’s emancipation were imposed on a blank slate, this project focuses on the continuities as well as the ruptures with existing traditions of feminist thought. The project is funded by the EC MSCA and is supervised by Dr Celia Donert (Wolfson College Fellow, Faculty of History).

Zsófia has also been acting as editor of a volume of translated source texts from the history of feminism and women’s rights in East-Central Europe between the end of WWII and the early 1990s. The aim of the volume, co-edited with Adela Hȋncu and Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz, is to offer an English language selection of the most representative texts of feminism and the thinking of women’s rights from the region of East-Central Europe. The book is a simultaneous attempt to canonise to document East-Central European feminist thought and women’s rights discourses for scholars and students of European history.

What's on

Inger Mewburn

Kicking the can down the road: How to create research impact in seven (not so easy) steps

06/06/2023 at 17.30

We hear terms like ‘research impact’ and ‘engagement’ all the time, but what does ‘impact’ and ‘engagement’ actually look like in practice?

selection of books written by Professor Inger Mewburn

Productivity workshops for researchers with Prof. Inger Mewburn aka The Thesis Whisperer

10/06/2023 at 10.00

Join Professor Inger Mewburn, also known online as the Thesis Whisperer, for one or both workshops to help increase your productivity: Getting sh!t done and Building a second brain (for writing)

'You' by Gavin Fry

Art Exhibition: 'Things Put Differently'

10/06/2023 at 10.00

Visit Wolfson's latest exhibition 'Things Put Differently' featuring Gavin Fry and works by Anthony Green and Mary Cozens-Walker.

Photo of artist Gurpran Rau holding a piece of her artwork

Art Exhibition: 'Patterns of Renewal'

10/06/2023 at 10.00

We're delighted to be the first to display Gurpran Rau's latest exhibition 'Patterns of Renewal', featuring a series of paintings created during lockdown inspired by her walks in the woods of Cambridgeshire.

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