Biljana Kašić
Biljana Kašić is a feminist theorist, peace and civil activist and researcher. She was born in Split and lives in Zagreb, Croatia.
She has a Ph.D. in political sciences, even though her professional life is at the same time a meeting and crossing place of disciplinary areas (history, sociology, philosophy, art, political sciences).
From 1977-1995 she worked as a research fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History in Zagreb; from 1995 to the present she has been a coordinator of the Centre for Women’s Studies – Zagreb.
Along with teaching at the Centre for Women’s Studies, she currently teaches at the University of Zadar (Department of Sociology, undergraduate program), the University of Rijeka / Philosophy Faculty (Department of Cultural Studies, undergraduate program) at the, and at the University of Zagreb / Faculty of Political Sciences (doctoral program).
She has been a guest lecturer at various universities worldwide (Torino, Tokyo, Bremen, Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, Ljubljana, Yerevan, among others).
Her fields of interest include feminist epistemology, postcolonial theories, women’s culture of resistance, theories of identities, and ethics.
She has participated at various conferences, seminars and gatherings worldwide including:
- (2004/Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Passing on Feminism (on the occasion of the 10 th anniversary of the EJWS [European Journal of Women’s Studies]) with her presentation “Feminist Cross-Mainstreaming: New Challenge or Stepping Back?”
- (2003/Cluj, Romania) Renegotiating Socio-Cultural Identities in the Post-Socialist Eastern Europe with her paper “‘Trendy’ Identities: Questioning Socialist Matrix, Memory and Loss” (organized by the Faculty of European Studies and the Institute for Cultural Anthropology)
- (2003/Bratislava, Slovakia) Memories of Women’s Project – from Oral History to the Interpretation of Biographical Materials with her lecture “Approach to Women’s Lives: An Existential Challenge to Feminist Researchers” (held at the Gender Studies Center – Faculty of Arts in Bratislava)
- (1999/ Troms ø , Norway) 7 th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women / Women’s Worlds with her paper “Women’s Studies in Croatia – Common Problems and Dilemmas”
She also organized the first international conference “Women and the Politics of Peace” to be held the region of post-Yugoslav countries in October 1996. The result of this conference was a multilingual publication “Women and the Politics of Peace: Contributions to a Culture of Women’s Resistance” (December 1997 / Centre for Women’s Studies: Zagreb).
Selected recent publications/papers:
- (2004) “ Value-oriented Context, Trends and Shifts”. InGyné Politiké or About Woman as Political Citizen: Survey of the Research ‘Women in Politics’ [ Gyné politiké ili o političkoj građanki: Osvrt na istraživanje Žene u politici ], (Eds) Biljana Kašić & Marjeta Šinko. Centre for Women’s Studies: Zagreb.
- (2004) F é minismes “Est-Ouest” dans une perspective postcoloniale. Nouvelles Questions Feministes, Revue internationale francophone, Vol.23, No 2.
- (2003) “Re-thinking the Imaginary of Home(s)”. n. paradoxa, international feminist art journal, volume 11, London: KT Press London
- (2002) “The Dynamic of Identifications Within Nationalistic Discourse: From Archetypes to Promising Female Roles”. In From Gender to Nation, (Eds) Rada Iveković, Julie Mostov. Longo Editore Ravenna: Ravenna.
- (2002) “Is Gender – Women’s Destiny? A Postsocialist Perspective. In response to Joan W. Scott’s article: ‘Millenial Fantasies – The Future of ‘Gender’ in the 21 st Century’”. In L’HOMME . Zeitschrift fuer Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft, 13(2).
Biljana draws exceptional power from her feminist activism which began back in the early eighties– when she was involved in the movement against violence against women – up to the present – through her active role within El Taller (international NGO located in Tunis) searching for alternative justice and peace.
