WILA19-91, WOMEN’S INTELLECTUAL AND ARTISTIC LABOR 1919-1991

WILA19-91, WOMEN’S INTELLECTUAL AND ARTISTIC LABOR 1919-1991

Lead: Dr.ⁱⁿ Manca G. Renko
Funding: Horizon Europe: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Duration: September 2025 - August 2028

 

 

 

 

The aim of WILA19-91 is to bridge the gap between intellectual history and labor history, and through a methodological innovation of using labor-centric perspective in the field of history of ideas not only highlight the disparity between intellectual labor and intellectual achievements, but also challenge historiography's perception of the latter. While intellectual history predominantly focuses on artistic and intellectual achievements, it often fails to question the underlying conditions that made such achievements possible. Consequently, many marginalized groups have been excluded from the canon, as they did not have the necessary working conditions to consistently produce intellectual or artistic labor.

The WILA19-91 project focuses specifically on women's intellectual labor from 1919 to 1991, utilizing multiethnic environment of Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes, Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a transnational laboratory spaces to observe the dynamics of intellectual and artistic labor across different generations, social classes, nationalities, and ethnicities.

The project's outcomes will hopefully contribute to establishing new norms for reevaluating artistic and intellectual achievements,  and ultimately, by focusing on underrepresented voices within the global intellectual history discourse, broadening and decolonizing the canon.