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On 3-5 June 2019, Dr Agata Ignaciuk and Dr hab. Agnieszka Kościańska participated as co-organisers (together with Kateřina Lišková, Kate Fisher, Anita Kurimay and Hadley Z. Renkin) in the conference „Sexual knowledge and expertise in Europe’s East, before and after 1945” at Masaryk University in Brno. Dr hab. Agnieszka Kościańska delivered a keynote address “Orgasmic Path:” Sexologists, their patients, and transnational flows of ideas in state socialist Poland” and Dr Ignaciuk presented a paper entitled “Marital intercourse is togetherness and parenthood”: Sexual and contraceptive expertise in Polish preparation for Catholic marriage guides in the 1970s”. The conference was supported by the Visegrad Fund.

More information on the conference: https://sexualknowledge.fss.muni.cz/

 

On 29 May 2019, Dr Agata Ignaciuk delivered an Open Lecture „Abortion cultures in the Cold War era” at Women’s Studies Centre of the University of Łódź.

More information on the event here.

Dr Agata Ignaciuk particiapted as a keynote speaker and commentator in the 10th European Spring School „Handling the body, taking control: technologies of the gendered body” (23-25 May 2018, Mahón, Spain). The School was jointly organized by Institut Menorquí d’Estudis, Societat Catalana d’Historia de la Ciencia y la Tecnica and the Universities of Cantabria and Granada. Dr Ignaciuk delivered a lecture entitled „Abortion „cultures”: politics, activism and experiences in the Cold war era”.

More information on the Spring School:

10th European Spring School on History of Science and Popularization

On 13 May 2019, Dr Agata Ignaciuk took part in a panel discussion on ethics in social research – between institutionalisatio and researcher’s intuition. The panel was organised by the Łódź branch of the Polish Sociological Society and was followed by an intense and rich discussion.

On 27 February 2019, Dr Agata Ignaciuk participated in a roundtable on reproductive rights organized by the student Women’s Rights’ Watch of the College of Europe in Natolin. She presented some of her research on birth control cultures in state-socialist Poland and discussed on present opportunities and challenges linked to reproductive health and rights in Europe with Marzia Sultana, Krystyna Kacpura and Barbara Nowacka.

On 11 October 2018, Dr Agata Ignaciuk participated in the conference “Społeczeństwo a płeć – problemy, wyzwania, perspektywy badawcze”. She presented a paper entitled “Kultury planowania rodziny w PRL: płeć kulturowa w popularnych dyskursach medycznych o antykoncepcji i aborcji (lata 50-80 XX wieku)”.

On 21-22 September, 2018 Dr Agata Ignaciuk participated in the conference “Women’s utopias in practice”, organized by the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. She participated in a panel on reproductive justice with a paper entitled “Reproductive justice in state-socialist Poland? Discourses and debates about abortion (1950s-1980s)”.

On 14 September 2018 Agata Chełstowska has presented a paper at the 10th European Feminist Research Conference in Gottingen on various strategies of abortion activism in Poland. The paper was based on historical research (by dr Ignaciuk), anthropological research (Agata Chełstowska) and most recent sociological findings on new strategies (by Natalia Broniarczyk).

The presentation is soon going to be developed into a journal article.

On 9-12 August 2018 Dr Agata Ignaciuk participated in the conference “Transnationalisms, Transgressions, Translations” organized at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver by the International Federation for Research in Women’s History. Dr Ignaciuk presented a paper entitled “Living in an abortion paradise? Women’s contraceptive choices in state-socialist Poland (1950s-1980s)”.

On 17 and 18 July 2018 July dr Agata Ignaciuk and Agata Chełstowska took part in an academic conference „Reproductive and sexual health activism, c. 1960 – present”. The conference, combining presentations referring to historical as well as contemporary forms of activism, was organized by academics from the University of Strathclyde and it took part in Glasgow, hosted by the Women’s Library.

Agata Chełstowska presented a paper titled „Stigmatization and destigmatization – abortion activism in Poland, 1957 – present” and shared her time with Natalia Broniarczyk, a PhD candidate from the Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw.