Dorit Geva
Dorit Geva is a sociologist specialising in political sociology, social and political theory, sociology of gender and sexuality, and comparative and historical sociology. Currently, she is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology and the Founding Dean of undergraduate studies at Central European University. Before her appointment as Dean, she was part of a team that created the BA in Culture, Politics and Society at CEU. She is known for her research on right-wing politics in Europe, and for her research on establishment of the US draft system and its history of racial discrimination. Geva is currently the  Chair of Publications Committee of Social Science History Association (SSHA) from 2021. Research and Career. Geva earned her PhD in Sociology from New York University in 2006, where she studied with Craig Calhoun, Stephen Lukes, Neil Brenner, and Lynne Haney. Following her PhD studies, she held a Vincent Write Fellowship in Comparative Politics at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (2006-2007), Italy, and was then a Harper Schmidt Fellow (2007-2011) at University of Chicago. She had also been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Budapest, and at the European Institute for Advanced  Studies at Collegium de Lyon. In 2011, Geva joined the department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University (CEU). She was the Chair of the department from 2017-2019 before being appointed the first Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Central European University in 2019. She was promoted to Full Professor in 2021. At CEU, she teaches courses on power and resistance, gender and sexuality, political sociology, and social theory. She is the MA supervisor of Ahmed Samir Santawy, a CEU student currently jailed in Egypt. Conscription and Family Politics. Geva’s book on conscription politics was published in  2013. The book examines how fathers were treated by military systems when conscription was institutionalized in France and then the United States. Her work on the United States Selective Service System shows how the draft system was never designed for universal military service, and how men who support families economically have long been deferred from the draft. In later research she has shown how the local draft board system was based on a distinctly American method of “rational informality,” where loose rules from federal guidelines gave local draft board members the power to decide who would be drafted and who  would be deferred. The result has been a discriminatory conscription system which has always drafted more African American men because they were not seen as family breadwinners who could benefit from draft deferments. She has also argued that the Selective Service System needs to be disbanded because it was designed to discriminate. Far-Right Politics in Europe. Between 2012 and 2016, Geva received a European Commission Marie Curie Career Integration Grant to study political dynasties within political parties. Her work focused on the gender politics of right-wing parties and on transformations in European party politics. This led her to  study the French National Front, whose leadership changed from Jean-Marine Le Pen to his daughter, Marine Le Pen. She has written on the difference between, but also the connections between, right-wing ideologies and populist performances, and how they are  connected by gendered symbolism, and also on how Marine Le Pen can perform masculine populist repertoires. Her work on new forms of rightwing politics has focused on epistemic politics, including within anti “gender ideology” activism in France. With Felipe Santos, she has written about the rise of right-wing anti-globalists and their influence on establishing far-right educational  institutions in Europe. Her work on how neoliberalism has merged with older forms of far-right politics in Europe has garnered widespread attention. She coined the term “ordonationalist” to capture this development, focusing especially on how Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is forging a new type of state and political regime.