Assist. Prof. Dr. Jasmina Šepetavc Recipient of the Prestigious ERC Starting Grant for the QEAST Project
arhiv Jasmine Šepetavc
Date of publication:
Assist. Prof. 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 a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant. She received the grant for the project QEAST.
The project explores memory activism and the cultural heritage of LGBTIQ+ communities in Southeast and Eastern Europe (SEEE), which have so far been particularly overlooked internationally. By analysing regional grassroots queer archives and festivals, the project sheds light on how LGBTQ+ communities have been erased from official histories, yet persistently developed their own forms of memory activism and infrastructures of remembrance. In the context of a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives in global and local politics – where queerness, an umbrella term for identities, bodies, sexualities, and ways of life that escape normative categorizations of gender and sexuality, is often portrayed as a newly invented or imported phenomenon – understanding memory activism as a way of inscribing minority narratives into local collective memory and resisting erasure becomes all the more important.
Through a combination of archival research and ethnography, QEAST will, over the course of the project, map and analyse the strategies of memory activism pioneers during socialism as well as contemporary remembrance projects of LGBTQ+ archival networks and festivals in SEEE. The aim of the project is to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of production, transmission, and political uses of queer memory. The project moves beyond Western-centric understandings of LGBTQ+ communities in SEEE by uncovering alternative regional LGBTQ+ activist histories, forms of activism, and theoretical production.
This research approach not only brings new knowledge about LGBTQ+ histories of Europe but also broadens the understanding of preserving the heritage of other minority communities. In doing so, the project contributes to developing more inclusive and diverse perspectives on collective memory frameworks and cultural heritage, while at the same time strengthening the international visibility of research that connects scholarship with questions of social justice and memory.
The acquisition of the QEAST project is the latest achievement of the CCRS and represents a valuable contribution to the development of a regional cultural research platform that the Centre has so far built through national programme and project funding as well as other international projects in the fields of cultural and memory studies. Prof. dr. Mitja Velikonja, Head of the Centre, stated: “The ERC project is the result of several years of high-quality research work by Dr. Jasmina Šepetavc and a strong team in the field of memory studies within the Centre for Cultural and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences. We eagerly look forward to the next five years, when we will be able to develop new research ideas, strengthen our staff, and consolidate our Centre as one of the prominent European hubs for queer studies.”
Dr. Jasmina Šepetavc is currently writing a book on overlooked queer images in Yugoslav cinema. She is a member of the research team of the bilateral project MEMPOP – Mnemonic Aesthetics and Strategies in Popular Culture: Murals, Film, and Popular Music as Memory Work (project leaders: Natalija Majsova, UL, and Vjeran Pavlaković, UNIRI). More broadly, her research focuses on the intersection of film studies, queer theory, popular music studies, and feminist approaches to technology. She regularly publishes in domestic and international journals and serves as a member of editorial boards and the international association of film critics Fipresci.
