In September and October 2021, Virginia Tech will host a virtual mini course and workshop series featuring historian Andrea Pető. During the five-part series, the professor of gender studies at Central European University in Vienna will discuss the transgenerational trauma of war crimes against women during World War II. She will also explore the global situation of gender studies, gender politics, gender and illiberalism, and rightwing and anti-feminist movements in Europe.

In addition to being a professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University in Vienna, Pető is a research affiliate of the CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest and a Doctor of Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her works on gender, politics, the Holocaust, and war have been translated into 23 languages.

In 2018 Pető was awarded the 2018 All European Academies’ Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values. She is Doctor Honoris Causa of Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. Her most recent books include Forgotten Massacre: Budapest 1944 (DeGruyter, 2021) and The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War (Palgrave, Macmillan, 2020). She writes op-ed pieces for many international and national media outlets.

The event series was organized by Katalin Parti, an assistant professor in the Virginia Tech Department of Sociology.

Sponsors for the event series include the International Initiatives Committee of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences; the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention; the Women and Gender Studies Program; and the Center for European Union, Transatlantic, and Trans-European Space Studies.

The events will all take place on Zoom. Registration for all five events — including the four lectures/workshops and a documentary film screening — is available here. Registration for the individual events is also possible.

Andrea Pető
Andrea Pető

Past Events

Invisibility as an Analytical Concept in Analyzing Women’s Far Right Activism
(Open Lecture for Virginia Tech Faculty and Students)

A photographer takes photos of Soviet soldiers in 1945 Budapest
Photo courtesy of Fortepan.

In “Invisibility as an Analytical Concept in Analyzing Women’s Far-Right Activism: Historical and Comparative Perspectives,” Andrea Pető will discuss methodological and theoretical problems in researching the history of “unholy women’s organizations.” She will argue that using invisibility as an analytical category can contribute to a different insight into the history of illiberalism.

The event, an open lecture for Virginia Tech faculty and students, will take place on September 13 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Readings, which are available upon registration, include:

  • Pető, A. The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020); and
  • Pető, A. The rise of the far-right women’s movements in the 1930s and 2010s. In J. Rayner, S. Falls, & T. C. Nelms (Eds.) Back to the ’30s? Recurring Crises of Capitalism, Liberalism, and Democracy. (pp. 277–293) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
 
Also recommended is the “Dangerous Women” podcast found here.

Why Has Gender Become a Symbolic Glue in Global Anti-Equality Mobilization and What Are the Consequences?

(Workshop for Master’s and Doctoral Students)

Statue in War-Torn Budapest
Photo courtesy of Fortepan.

In this workshop, Andrea Pető will tackle rightwing and anti-feminist movements in Europe and discuss how the discourse on gender is affected by the conservative political agenda. She will also examine what anti-gender movements can tell us about global gender politics and the current international regimes promoting gender equality values. Her focus lies on anti-gender movements in Europe and their possible interpretative and theoretical frameworks.  

While extremism and gender politics are well-known and much-researched topics within the scope of the United States, the European — especially the Eastern European — picture of political extremism and radical anti-feminist movement has yet to be introduced to the Virginia Tech community, says Katalin Parti, the organizer of the event series and an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology.

The event, a workshop intended for master’s and doctoral students at Virginia Tech, will take place on September 21 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Readings, which are available upon registration, include:

  • Grzebalska, W., Kovats, E., & Pető, A. (2017, Jan 13). Gender as symbolic glue: How ‘gender’ became an umbrella term for the rejection of the (neo)liberal order, Political Critique. (Available in Hungarian, German, Serbian, Turkish, and Spanish.)
  • Grzebalska, W., & Pető, A. (2018). The gendered modus operandi of the illiberal transformation in Hungary and Poland. Women's Studies International Forum, 68, 164-172.
  • Pető, A. (2017). How are anti-gender movements changing gender studies as a profession? Religion and Gender, 6(2), 297-299.

Screening of Skrabski Fruzsina’s “Silenced Shame” (“Elhallgatott Gyalazat”)

Silenced Shame (Skrabski Fruzsina, 2013). Image from the trailer.

A still from the documentary “Silenced Shame” (“Elhallgatott Gyalazat”)
Silenced Shame (Skrabski Fruzsina, 2013). Image from the trailer.

“Silenced Shame” (“Elhallgatott Gyalazat”) is a Hungarian film (with English subtitles) about the violence of the Soviet army in 1945 Hungary. Research suggests that Soviet soldiers raped 400,000 to 800,000 women, a human rights catastrophe that was forbidden from being discussed until about 1990. Skrabski Fruzsina directed the 2013 documentary, and Daniel Farkas served as director of photography. Warning: The film contains disturbing images.

The trailer for the documentary can be viewed here; the actual documentary will be available for screening for those registered on September 28 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. here.

Sexual Violence During Wartime: From Silencing to the New Memorial in Budapest
(Open Lecture for Virginia Tech Faculty and Students)

Anthea Butler
Budapest in 1945. Photo courtesy of Fortepan.

In “Sexual Violence During Wartime: From Silencing to the New Memorial in Budapest,” Andrea Pető will discuss the history of sexual violence in wartime. What kind of sources are available? What are the ethical and methodological issues of using testimonies of survivors? How do geopolitical debates influence memorialization processes? What is the role of women’s activism in the memorialization process? How does one erect a new memorial for victims of sexual violence during wartime? What kind of lessons can we learn from this process, based on dialogue?

The event, an open lecture for Virginia Tech faculty and students, will take place on October 6 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

The reading will be available upon registration:

  • Pető, A. (2017). Silencing and unsilencing sexual violence in Hungary. In V. Kivimäki, P. Karonen (Eds.) Continued Violence and Troublesome Pasts: Post War Europe Between Victors after the Second World War. (pp. 132–148.) Helsinki: SKS

Writing Academic Texts Differently
(Workshop for Master’s and Doctoral Students)

Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House
Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In her final Virginia Tech presentation, Andrea Pető will present a workshop, “Writing Academic Texts Differently: Feminist Crime Fiction as a Model for Writing History Differently for Graduate Students with Creative Writing,” on October 14 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. The event is intended for master’s and doctoral students at Virginia Tech.

The reading will be available upon registration:

  • Pető, A. Writing Feminist Historical Crime Fiction as an Opportunity for a New Understanding of History. In N. Lykke (Ed.) Writing Academic Texts Differently: Intersectional Feminist Methodologies and the Playful Art of Writing. (pp. 80-95) (New York: Routledge, 2014).