Irina Diana Mădroane
Launched in 2002, the Gender Studies journal grew out of the effervescent research activities within the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies at the West University of Timișoara (WUT), spearheaded by Associate Professor Reghina Dascăl, one of the pioneers of feminist and gender studies in Romania. Over the years, the centre has garnered recognition for its members’ and collaborators’ successful commitment to the teaching, translating and studying of gender subjects. Their work has fulfilled a key role in the emergence and growth of this discipline during postcommunism, as part of Romanian English Studies, to the advancement of which they have thus also significantly contributed. The Gender Studies journal has been central to their efforts. Every issue selects papers from an annual panel that reunites national and international gender experts within the British and American Studies conference (BAS), organised by the English Department of WUT. In this way, the journal provides continuity to and furthers the scholarly discourse on gender at the intersection with Anglicist Studies. At the same time, it embraces an interdisciplinary orientation to literature and language, communication, social and political sciences.
Gender Studies impresses through the sheer diversity of research areas covered in its articles: canonical alongside non-canonical literature; popular culture and film; language, education and translation; ethnographic, political and media analyses of social issues and policy debates. Diversity also comes from the wide geographical space rendered visible in the journal, which extends beyond Eastern Europe – its home – and Western Europe and North America – the traditional centre – to representations and voices from Arabic, African, Asian and Latin American countries. What brings together these multiple spaces and heterogeneous research directions are illuminating interpretations of gender identities (in relation to class, sexuality, body, hybridity, the private/public divide, etc.), critical insights that expose gender-based exploitation, violence and inequality, and a focus on gender empowerment. The evolution of feminist stances and approaches throughout the centuries is particularly well captured in the journal’s pages, ranging from proto-feminism in seventeenth-century poems to women’s emancipation in modern literature, postfeminist attitudes in contemporary culture, and ecofeminism.
Prestigious and well-established scholars have associated themselves with the journal as members of the editorial board or as contributors, among whom Haleh Afshar, Pia Brînzeu, Margaret R. Higonnet, Hildegard Klein, Isabel Marcus, Elisabetta Marino, Mădălina Nicolaescu, Nóra Séllei, Jane Sunderland, Péter Gaál Szabó, and many others. Importantly, Gender Studies is open to contributions from doctoral and early career researchers, whose work, as future generations, is deemed crucial for the development of the field. In its eighteenth year of existence, Gender Studies is an acknowledged forum of academic debate on gender issues both in Romania and in the international community, being indexed in prestigious databases (CEEOL, EBSCO, ERIH PLUS, etc.). It welcomes articles that will strengthen the quality of this debate and make an impact in an array of disciplines, among scholars, educators and practitioners all over the world.
Gender Studies
The Journal of West University, Timișoara, Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies
De Gruyter Open, Online ISSN: 2286-0134
Language: English
One issue per year, Open Access
Website:
https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/genst/genst-overview.xml