Assistant Professor Dr. Jasmina Šepetavc, researcher at the Centre for Cultural and Religious Studies (CCRS) at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, is the recipient of the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant. She was awarded the grant for her project QEAST.

The project explores memory activism and the cultural heritage of LGBTIQ+ communities in Southeast and Eastern Europe, which have been particularly overlooked internationally to this day. Through an analysis of regional self-organized archives and festivals, the project sheds light on how queer communities have been erased from official histories, yet have persistently developed their own forms of memory activism and memory infrastructure.  The term queer refers to identities, bodies, sexualities, and ways of life that escape heteronormative expectations and normative categorizations of gender and sexuality. 

In the context of a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives in global and local politics, which often portray queerness as a newly invented and imported phenomenon, understanding memory activism for inscribing minority stories into local collective memory and fighting against erasure is all the more important.

By combining archival research and ethnography, QEAST will map and analyze the strategies of memory activists during socialism and contemporary memory projects of LGBTQ+ archival networks and festivals in the region throughout the duration of the project. The aim of the project is to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of the production, transmission, and political uses of queer memory. The project moves away from Western-centric understandings of LGBTQ+ communities in Southeast and Eastern Europe by revealing alternative regional LGBTQ+ activist histories, forms of activism, and theoretical production.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Dr Jasmina Šepetavc on this remarkable achievement!

Learn more about the project on the link.

Photo: Jasmina Šepetavc