University of Washington
Which school did Věra Sokolová go to from 1994 to 2002?
Věra Sokolová Věra Sokolová ( born 1970 ) is a Czech academic who specializes in gender studies and specifically focuses on identity policy and the construction of sexuality from a historical and social perspective , evaluating the power , structuring and defining of sexuality to transcend binary boundaries . She is the chair of the Department of Gender Studies at Charles University in Prague . She is the co-managing editor of Gender and Generation , along with Kateřina Kolářová . Early life and education . Věra Sokolová was born in Czechoslovakia in 1970 . She earned a bachelor of science degree in geography at Charles University in 1992 , before continuing her studies in the United States at California State University in Sacramento . In the U.S. , she studied history and cultural anthropology . After graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in history in 1994 , she completed a masters degree ( 1996 ) and a PhD in history at the University of Washington ( 2002 ) . Her dissertation was titled A matter of speaking : Racism , gender and social deviance in the politics of the “Gypsy question” in communist Czechoslovakia , 1945–1989 . Sokolovás doctoral advisor was James Ramon Felak . Other academic advisors included Uta G . Poiger and Suzanne Lebsock . Career . Sokolová was one of the pioneering academics of gender studies in the Czech Republic , beginning to teach the subject before it was an accredited field in the country . She inaugurated the Queer Studies course in the arts faculty of Charles University in 2001 . Since 2003 she has been the chair of the Department of Gender Studies in the Humanities Faculty of Charles University and is the co-managing editor of the academic journal Gender and Generation of the department . She has lectured abroad at the New School University in New York City , University of Maryland , Baltimore , and the University of Washington . She also is a member of the Czech Republics Government Councils Committee for Sexual Minorities . Research . Sokolovás research interests lie in the development of the idea of gender and its historic constructs in society . She has studied the history of the discipline , as it moved from womens studies , to feminist studies , and finally gender studies and is interested in the way that the definition of gender effects power relationships in society . She has evaluated how feminist movements were different in Western and socialist countries , in that rather than a political movement , the state took over the mechanisms to modernize womens status in the East . She has analyzed the impact of the development of ethnic and gender studies on governmental policy . For example , under communism , Roma ethnic groups were treated as deviant , but launching programs to reignite the study of the Romani peoples ethnicity in the 1970s amplified their differences and escalated discrimination in society . In her studies on policy , Sokolová has shown that officials arbitrarily applied policy , based on ethnicity and gender . During the state socialist period , the national policy to increase births did not allow Czech and Slovak women to have abortions . Simultaneously a policy of forced sterilization was implemented on Romani women in an effort to correct falling birth rates among Czech and Slovak women . According to Sokolová , the invisibility of non-heterosexual lives in the Soviet period was erased with the birth of gender studies . Identification of homosexuals and lesbians created a consequence that they might be seen as criminals and hardened hetero-normative and binary definitions of society . She found that womens studies programs , or the interpretation of feminism projected to the country from Czech exiles living abroad , like Josef Škvorecký , created a disregard or anti-feminist reaction in the Czech Republic . This included lesbians , who were doubly discriminated against as women by society at large and as queer by the homosexual community . The Queer Studies course she launched at Charles University focuses on a critical analysis of how sexuality is used as a means of social control . She has been involved in the state television program for the LGBT community , known as Queer ( formerly called LeGaTo ) since it began airing in 2004 and participates in community activism on both a cultural and political level .