Generational transmission and academic culture building in European Gender Studies in the 21st century

As an interdisciplinary subject of study and research, Gender Studies has been institutionalised in different ways in the context of European higher education during the last 30 years. However, only in some countries, like Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom Gender Studies is autonomously organized in academe, with chairs, teaching positions and PhD-training solely denominated to Gender Studies. In other countries, like Germany Gender Studies has been organised transdisciplinarily, which means that chairs in the field are mostly located within other disciplines such as Literature, Musicology, Philosophy, Science Studies or History. As a result, Gender Studies in Germany has not become a subject in its own right like other subjects of education and research. Still, regardless of the different forms of its institutionalisation or precisely because of the great organisational variety Gender Studies is often characterised by its multi-, inter- or transdisciplinary focus. In effect, Gender Studies research is wide in scope and covers a variety of fields within and across the Humanities, the Social Sciences and the Scien
Within this context, we a group of younger senior and junior Gender Studies scholars coming from the Humanities as well as the Social Sciences and working in academia in different European national contexts aim to strengthen the interdisciplinary field of Gender Studies, a field that is influenced by many disciplines but still needs a more secure platform in the academy to further develop multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary gender theories on issues such as the gendered aspects of knowledge and its production, ethics, racism, sexism, gender identity and sexuality. Within the network we will investigate the politics surrounding the field of gender studies, the transfer of knowledge as well as the emergence of new knowledge within it.