Now available from Ashgate Publishing…

De-Centring Western Sexualities

Central and Eastern European Perspectives
Edited by Robert Kulpa, Birkbeck College, London and
Joanna Mizielinska, Warsaw School of Social Sciences and
Humanities, Poland
‘De-Centring Western Sexualities advances critical studies of sexualities and sexual politics in significant and
inspiring ways. The authors provocatively question the “Western” focus of sexuality studies and highlight
the consequences of Central and Eastern Europe’s absence from recent queer critiques. This valuable
collection offers essential new perspectives on the marketization of (homo)sexuality and the functioning of
heteronormativity in these countries.’
– Gavin Brown, University of Leicester, UK and co-editor of Geographies of Sexualities

’De-Centring Western Sexualities is a landmark volume in the study of gender and sexuality. Kulpa and
Mizielinska have gathered here and framed some of the very best essays on discourses of sexuality in the
context of Central and Eastern Europe. Not content to simply mark distinctions between East and West, the
US and the rest, local and global, the editors’ introduction and many of the essays here actually retheorize
concepts of temporality, spatiality and sociality in the process of asking after the meaning of sexuality outside
of its framing in “the West”. Ranging in topic from heteronormativity to lesbian families, from transnational
activism to queer temporalities and combining social science methodologies with theoretical inquiries, this
collection is as broad as it is deep and it creates many new contexts for rethinking sexuality and de-centering
the West.’
– Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California, USA, author of In a Queer Time and Place

Providing rich case studies drawn from a range of ‘post-communist’
countries, this interdisciplinary volume brings together the latest
research on the formation of sexualities in Central and Eastern
Europe, alongside analyses of the sexual and national identity politics
of the region. As such, it will be of interest to sociologists, queer
studies scholars, geographers and anthropologists.
Contents: Introduction: why study sexualities in Central and Eastern
Europe?, Robert Kulpa and Joanna Mizielinska; ‘Contemporary
peripheries’: queer studies, circulation of knowledge, and East/
West divide, Joanna Mizielinska and Robert Kulpa; Between walls:
provincialisms, human rights, sexualities and Serbian public
discourses on EU integration, Jelisaveta Blagojevic; Nations and
sexualities – ‘West’ and ‘East’, Robert Kulpa; A short history of the
queer time of ‘post-socialist’ Romania, or, are we there yet? Let’s ask
Madonna, Shannon Woodcock; Travelling ideas, travelling times. On
the temporalities of LGBT and queer politics in Poland and in the
‘West’, Joanna Mizielinska; Researching transnational activism around
LGBTQ politics in Central and Eastern Europe: activist solidarities
and spatial imaginings, Jon Binnie and Christian Klesse; Rendering
gender in lesbian families: a Czech case, Katerina Nedbálková;
The heteronormative panopticon and the transparent closet of the
public space in Slovenia, Roman Kuhar; Heteronormativity, intimate
citizenship and the regulation of same-sex sexualities in Bulgaria,
Sasha Roseneil and Mariya Stoilova, Situating intimate citizenship in
Macedonia: emotional navigation and everyday queer/kvar grounded
moralities, Alexander Lambevski; Index.
Includes 1 b&w illustration

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To order, please visit: www.ashgate.com March 2011

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Hardback
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