Moira Fradinger from Yale University Is New Visiting Professor of Gender Studies
Literary Scholar Teaches at Freie Universität during 2018 Summer Semester / Inaugural Lecture on May 30
№ 097/2018 from May 15, 2018
Moira Fradinger, a professor of comparative literature at Yale University, USA, is the new Dahlem International Network Professor for Gender Studies for the 2018 summer semester. Fradinger grew up in Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, and Venezuela. Prior to her academic career, she also worked as a clinical psychologist, was involved in the women’s movement, and directed a project in the Argentine Ministry of Social Development on the protection of women against violence. Her research focuses on Latin American literature, film, and theatre, with a special focus on the reception of Antigone in Latin America as a symbolic figure of female resistance. She will address this topic in her inaugural lecture, which will take place at Freie Universität on May 30 at 6 p.m.
Fradinger’s publications combine literary studies with political and philosophical questions. Her book Binding Violence: Literary Visions of Political Origins, which was published in 2010, is now one of the standard works on the literary representation of politics and violence. At the same time, Fradinger has repeatedly devoted herself to feminist theory as well as queer and gender studies. Her approach emphasizes the importance of gender history for a proper understanding of Romance literatures.
At Freie Universität Berlin, Moira Fradinger will be working on legal definitions of gender and belonging from an international perspective. She will teach a course (lecture cum seminar) on feminist, gender, and queer theory. She will cooperate closely with students and researchers in the Institute of Romance Languages and Literatures in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities, and with the Collaborative Research Center “Affective Societies,” in which scholars from the humanities and social sciences deal with the social function of emotions. She will also be involved with the Institute for Latin American Studies and the Margherita von Brentano Center for Gender Studies, opening up new networks with North and Latin America.
Professor Fradinger will deliver her Inaugural Lecture on May 30, 2018, on “Latin American Antigones: From Motherhood to Sisterhood.” The public lecture will take place at 6 p.m. in the Topoi Building Dahlem, 14195 Berlin, and will be held in English.
Gender equality and the promotion of gender studies have been firmly rooted in the ethos of Freie Universität Berlin for more than three decades. They are central features of the university’s institutional strategy, which in 2012 won Freie Universität Berlin excellence status in the German government’s Excellence Initiative funding program for universities.
The Dahlem International Network Professorship for Gender Studies was established in this context. It has been announced annually since 2013 and is awarded to a scholar with an outstanding reputation in this field. It supports activities aimed at strengthening the international orientation of gender research at Freie Universität.
The Dahlem International Network Professorship for Gender Studies was awarded for the first time in the 2013/14 winter semester to the Canadian political scientist and Latin America expert Professor Dr. Verónica Schild at Western University London, Ontario. The following years it was awarded to the Iranian archaeologist Leila Papoli Yazdi, the Romanian health expert Irina Catrinel Crăciun, the Korean sustainability researcher Pilwha Chang, and the U.K.-based economist Elisabeth Kelan.
Time and Location of the Inaugural Lecture
- Wednesday, May 30, 2018, 6 p.m.
- Topoi Villa in Dahlem, Hittorfstraße 18, 14195 Berlin; subway station: Freie Universität / Thielplatz (U3).
Contact
- Camilla Leathem, Program Manager, International Network University Division, Freie Universität Berlin, Tel.: +49 30 838-73917, Email: camilla.leathem@fu-berlin.de