This regional seminar in gender/women’s and European studies will attempt to establish a regional floor for scholarly investigation into the points of specificity regarding the critical theoretical/scientific questions to be addressed, mapping the specific research needs of SEE in the field of gender/women’s studies.

Through the intersection of the gender/women’s and the European studies, introducing the integrative European perspective, the seminar will undertake the task of situating these points of specificity into the wider context of the European theoretical legacy in the realm of gender/women’s studies. Thus, by way of placing the specificity into its European context, through the comparative approach, the Seminar will also engage into an establishing of a pertinent insight into the points of intellectual and theoretical commonality.  More specifically, besides the aspect of – we would argue – the conjoint (predominantly) continental education and theoretico-intellectual tradition, one will also take upon oneself the endeavor of establishing the research priorities shared both in the Southeast as in the West of Europe by the gender/women’s studies.

This, ostensibly, predominantly scholarly focus of the Seminar will be appended by a discussion of also the questions of university policies. Nevertheless, the pragmatic discussion on the questions of policy will not only not hinder the unrestricted intellectual critique of the notion of University itself, but will - quite the contrary - also strive to draw upon the deeper insights brought about by the latter.

The seminar, conceived in this way, should also be an occasion to reinvestigate and initiate critique of the Idea/s of European Identity in a way that will be inclusive of the standpoint of gender scholars from the “Western Balkans” and of non-EU (marginal) European Identity.

The aim is to critically situate oneself with respect to the European identity as a cultural and political one, while exploring concepts of gender, knowledge and institutionalized higher education created and promoted by, both, the chief decision-making instances of EU as well as its relevant alternatives/critiques.

The purpose is, thus, to introduce the most influential and provocative contemporary concepts of European model-culture and (institutionalized) education - and in particular, the gender/women’s studies with an interdisciplinary overlapping with the European studies - in order to initiate creative critique inclusive of the legitimacy of the SEE specific standpoint.