November 9 @ 6:00 – 7:00PM via Zoom
Register here: https://forms.gle/y6j6hXjBzZRKdtpV6
On August 9, 2020, Belarus, a post-socialist nation of nine and a half million, held presidential elections. After polling stations had closed, and Alexander Lukashenko, the president for the last twenty-six years, announced his victory with 80% of votes, people took to the streets. They have been protesting ever since, despite beatings by riot police, arrests, and even torture, demanding fair elections and the release of all political prisoners. The Belarusian revolution, as it is now called, became associated with the image of three women – a presidential candidate and two leaders of her team – raising their hands in the gesture of protest and solidarity. Elena Gapova will narrate the story of women emerging as the leaders of the Revolution as its most active and strong-willed participants.
Elena Gapova is Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan University specializing in gender, class, nation, and social movements in post-Soviet space. She was the Founding Director for the Centre for Gender Studies at European Humanities University in Minsk, Belarus. Her most recent book in Russian is The Classes of Nations: a Feminist Critique of Nation Building
About the Series
This series of lectures, the 13th Annual International Education Conference, is about Democracy In Recession. Is democracy in recession around the world, or is it striking back? Democracy worldwide is under assault by a spectrum of authoritarian regimes. Their anti-democratic toolbox varies from voter suppression to media control and state-sanctioned violence, but protesters and activists around the world are using some of the same technological tools to fight for freedom of assembly and expression. This series of region-specific lectures and concluding workshop is designed to give teachers tools for introducing these regions and their issues into the classroom, as well as project ideas to further enrich their students.
The full program can be viewed here.
