Peer-reviewed
Self-Narration of Serbian Female Teachers: From Isolated Village Women to the Metropolises' Intellectuals
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to overcome the methodological reductionism of traditional historiography of Serbian society which has ignored women as historical subjects. The founding of higher education for women resulted in the emergence of the first female teachers, whose work changed Serbian society. In my previous research I pointed to the importance of fiction writing of the first female teachers-writers, but their documentary prose is also of importance. In order to shed light on the autobiographical writing of different generations of female teachers, I use new historicism, feminist theories, and the Theory of Literature method of "close reading." Published memoirs and diaries of known teachers (Stanka Gliševićeva, Katarina Bogdanović, Paulina Lebl-Albala), as well as lectures, journal articles, and letters by less-known teachers (Hristina Milenković-Bošković, Ružica M. Petrovićeva) provide more information on women's different subjectivities, lives, family relations and conflicts, motives for public activism and professional progress, and similarities and differences between female elite generations, thus allowing us to better understand Serbian society at large
Article, 2019