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

WILA19-91 main aim is to to bridge the gap between intellectual history and labor history, and through this methodological innovation 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 Yugoslavia as a transnational laboratory space to observe the dynamics of intellectual and artistic labor across different time periods, generations, social classes, nationalities, and ethnicities.

The project's outcomes will contribute to establishing new norms for reevaluating artistic and intellectual achievements, ultimately broadening and decolonizing the canon.

The project examines work conditions, considering the power structures associated with intellectual authorities, social prejudices, intimate beliefs, and invisible social agreements at various times. To achieve this, it explores the intersection of intellectual, labor, and gender history.

By drawing on a diverse range of sources in different languages (Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, German) and amplifying the voices of women from ethnic and sexual minorities, this project will investigate working conditions, attitudes towards work, legislative changes, family dynamics, public reception, financial compensation and care work, in order to understand the division between intellectual work (as labor) and being an intellectual (as a status).