As political walls crumbled and the Czech Republic reformed itself in the 1990s, Simona Fojtova and her peers at Masaryk University were expanding the cultural landscape in the town of Brno. Inspired by visiting professors who introduced them to new ideas and pedagogy, they wanted to explore writers and theories who were outside the canon. When they were unable to find the resources they needed in the university library, they created and staffed the Women\u2019s Interest Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In their effort to fill the void in feminist and gender studies, Fojtova and her classmates secured grants from the German government to purchase books. They translated texts, published magazines, and founded the Med\u00faza Gender Studies Center. Fojtova managed all of this while earning a degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the process, she learned that championing the marginalized and challenging established cultural constructs is rarely a popular effort. She smiles as she remembers that \u201ceven male expats who were important dissident figures at the time warned against importing western feminist issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fojtova knows well the persistence of power and privilege. But as the director of Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGS) at Transylvania, she also recognizes the immeasurable and lasting rewards of helping students become open, aware and informed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe field gives them not just a new analytical perspective,\u201d she explains, \u201cbut also a new way of knowing and understanding the world. My students describe it as being very eye opening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As they learn about the process of knowledge production, students begin to see the connection between what they learn in class and contemporary issues. WGS classes, Fojtova notes, \u201cshow students how the different systems of inequality position us differently with respect to opportunities and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fojtova enjoys bringing the research she does outside of class into the core content and joining professors from other disciplines to co-teach special topics courses, such as Body, Brain, Bias (with Meg Upchurch, neuroscience) and Women and Science (with Bob Rosenberg, chemistry).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With professor Upchurch, she also co-authored an article, \u201cWomen in the Brain: A History of Glial Cell Metaphors,\u201d that revealed to scientists how their use of metaphors for glial cells changed from feminine to masculine when new research demonstrated a more relevant function in the nervous system. Analyzing subtleties and subtext can tell us a lot about our culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Fojtova, WGS is the \u201cquintessential liberal arts discipline\u201d that easily intersects with many disciplines. \u201cOnce students get this new knowledge and these tools, it\u2019s really hard to go back to not knowing. It\u2019s a very transferrable skill,\u201d she adds, \u201cbecause it allows them to apply it in other contexts, not just in other disciplines or graduate school, but also in everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ph.D., University of New Mexico, 2006
M.A.., University of New Mexico, 1998
B.A., Masaryk University, 1996<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immigration, Gender, and Race
Global Feminisms
Romance, Gender, and Popular Culture
Mothering and Reproduction
Introduction to Sexuality Studies<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feminist Theory and Queer Theory
Transnational Feminism
Cultural Studies
Women’s Writing and Central and Eastern European Literature<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bingham Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bingham Award, Transylvania University, fall 2007<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\u201cContested Feminism: The East\/West Feminist Encounters in the 1990s,\u201d in Czech Feminisms: Perspectives on Gender in East Central Europe, edited by Ji\u0159ina \u0160iklov\u00e1, CSc, and Iveta Jusov\u00e1. Indiana University Press, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSex Work, Migration, and Law: La Strada and Human Trafficking in the Czech Republic,\u201d in Czech Feminisms: Perspectives on Gender in East Central Europe, edited by Ji\u0159ina \u0160iklov\u00e1, CSc, and Iveta Jusov\u00e1, Ph.D. Indiana University Press, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnglicist Women\u2019s and Gender Studies in the Czech Republic: An Uncertain Discipline,\u201d co-authored with Martina Hor\u00e1kov\u00e1 and V\u011bra Eli\u00e1\u0161ov\u00e1, in Rewriting Academia. Ed. Renate Haas. 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLegalizing Sex Work in the Czech Republic: Agency and Migration in a Transnational Feminist Context,\u201d in Between History and Personal Narrative: East-European Women\u2019s Stories of Migration in the New Millennium, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cStrategies of Inclusion and Shifting Attitudes towards Visibility in the Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Discourse in the Czech Republic after 1989,\u201d co-authored with V\u0115ra Sokolov\u00e1, in Queer Visibility in Post-socialist Cultures, 2013<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3738,"template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"academic_division":[5,42,45,46],"class_list":["post-214","faculty","type-faculty","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n