Faculty Director
Iveta Jusová, Director of Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe and Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Carleton College
Professor Iveta Jusová received her Ph.D. in British literature and Cultural Studies from Miami University, Oxford, OH, in 2000. Her MA in Czech and English is from Palacky University, Olomouc, the Czech Republic. Her first book, The New Woman and the Empire (Ohio State University Press, 2005), explores the intersections of gender, race, and colonial issues in the work of four British New Women writers: Sarah Grand, George Egerton, Elizabeth Robins, and Amy Levy. Her second book, Czech Feminisms: Perspectives on Gender in East Central Europe, co-edited with Jirina Siklová, was awarded the 2017 Heldt Prize for best book in Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian women’s and gender studies.
Iveta has also published numerous articles on European women writers, actresses and filmmakers in both US and European academic journals. In June 2015 Jusová was the Lawrence and Lee Visiting Research Scholar at OSU’s Theatre Research Institute; in 2010 she was the Women’s History Month Keynote Speaker at Beacon College; and in 2008 she was an invited participant in a panel discussion on (and with) Julia Kristeva as part of the Dagmar and Václav Havel “Vize” Annual Award Ceremony in Prague. Professor Jusová has taught courses in British and world literatures, global feminisms, feminist and queer theory, and feminist methodology.
The Faculty Director conducts the orientation session, leads seminars, facilitates discussion, guides the independent research projects, and evaluates students’ work.
Instructors
Local instructors will share responsibility for teaching GWSS 243: Situated Feminisms: Socio-Political Systems and Gender Issues Across Europe, and assisting with the independent student projects.
Amira Fretz is lecturer in the Humanities and Social & Behavioral Sciences at Erasmus University College (EUC) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She studied Gender Studies (research MA, cum laude) and International Law (LL.M, cum laude) at Utrecht University, where she frequently collaborates with the Graduate Gender Program. At EUC she teaches interdisciplinary courses in gender studies, political science, and law across two departments. Amira’s own research centers queer theory and queer of color critique; the bodies that are created and/or undone by international human rights law; as well as the construction and livability of queer Arab subjectivities.
Dr. Katrin Frisch studied English and Gender Studies. She holds a PhD in English Literature with a thesis on the interdependencies of right-wing ideology and Modernism, jointly awarded by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and King’s College London. After her PhD she worked at the Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), before joining the German Research Ombudsman in 2020. In the past years, she has also worked as a lecturer at both Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as well as Universität Postdam and published numerous articles. Her research and teaching covers topics such as ideology in literature, negotiations of class identity and human-animal studies.
Dr. Blanka Nyklová holds a PhD in sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University (Prague). She has worked as a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences since 2014. Her research interests include the Czech feminist scene, gender studies in the Czech Republic: notably issues connected with gender-based violence (GBV), and the geopolitical dimension of knowledge production. She specializes in qualitative research and has collaborated on numerous research projects and inter-institutional research into the effects of covid-19 on intimate partner violence. She served as the vice-chairperson of the Gender Expert Chamber of the Czech Republic, and is the president of the Centre for Study of Popular Culture.
Teaching Assistant and Resident Adviser
Veronica Sefic returns as the Teaching Assistant and Resident Adviser in 2024. Veronica is a graduate of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, and was a student on Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe in Fall 2019. More to come…
Affiliated Faculty
At each program site, students take seminars and attend lectures with NGOs, artists, activists, and professors from affiliated European universities, including Utrecht University (the Netherlands), Humboldt University (Germany), and Charles University (the Czech Republic).
On-site Staff
For additional logistical, cross-cultural, and academic support at each program site, the WGSE program has a Resident Coordinator in each program site, who is usually a local resident working in the field of Women’s and Gender Studies.