ANNA LOUTFI

Visiting Assistant Professor

Contact:

Email: visloutfi(at)ceu.hu
Office: Zrinyi 14. room 512/A
Phone: (36-1) 327-3000 ext. 3192
Fax: (36-1) 327-3296

Education:

Ph.D, History, Central European University, Budapest, 2006

M.A., Gender and Culture, Central European University, Budapest, 2002

B.A., English and Drama, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 1997

Research Areas:

Legal pluralism and legal codification processes in historical perspective (19th and 20th centuries), with a focus on family law and gender relations; law and social movements; cultural, social and legal constructions of ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ law; the use of critical legal theory for history and the use of global perspectives for local social thought.

Selected Publications:

Co-editor (with K. Daskalova and F. de Haan). A Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms. Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries. New York: CEU Press, 2006

“In the Name of the Father. Illegitimacy and Legal Ideology in Late Nineteenth-Century Hungary”. In Heindl, Kiraly, Millner, eds, Frauenbilder, feministische Praxis und nationales Bewusstsein in Osterreich-Ungarn 1867-1914. Kultur-Herrschaft-Differenz. Tubigen/Basel: Francke A. Verlag, 2006

“The European Norm. Hungarian Family Law and Paralysis in Hungarian Civil Rights Feminism in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries”. In Frysak, Lanzinger, Saurer, eds, Networks and Debates in post-communist Countries in the 19th and 20th Centuries. L’Homme Schriften 13. Reihe zur Feministischen Geschichtswissenschaft. Koln/Weimar/Wien: Bohlau Verlag, 2006

“Patriarchal Legalist Utopia in Late 19th Century Hungary. Processes of National Selection in the 1877 Law on Guardianship”. In Yearbook of Historical Demography for the Demographic Research Institute, Budapest (January 2005)

“Making Gender, Making States. Empire, Nation, State and Marriage Laws in the 19th Century”. In Rubikon Journal of International Relations (October 2002)

Conference papers presented at international conferences have dealt with topics such as the dialectics of state stabilisation and legal reform, legal constructions of the family as a site of cultural autonomy and freedom; gendered debates over state regulation of marriage (in 19th century Hungary); Hungarian feminist responses to civil codification (early twentieth century); feminist critiques of multiculturalism; the development of a global historiography for women’s history; exporting human rights; European norms, law and ‘paralysis’ in Hungarian civil rights feminism (late 19th and early 20th centuries); empire, nation, state and marriage law in the ‘patriarchal’ 19th century and a gender case study of Hungary’s 1868 ‘Law of Reciprocity between the Received Christian Religions’.

Current Research Projects:

Having recently completed doctoral research on Hungarian family law and ‘gender order’ in Hungary (1948-1914), I am keen to develop research frameworks better able to comprehend the seeming dichotomy between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ law. My research is now turning to (i) the historically shifting relations between religious and state institutions and (ii) the extent to which social movements shape, and mediate between, ‘legal’ and ‘extra-legal’ norms/forms of governance. I am keen to continue developing gender-sensitive research frameworks capable of addressing these two areas in the specific geographical context of Central and Eastern Europe. I am also a member of the Law and Society Collaborative Research Network (CRN) on Law and Social Movements.

Awards and Honors:

Academic Achievement Award for doctoral research in the field of Gender Studies, Central European University, Budapest, 2003.

Recent Course Offerings:

MA course:
Thinking the Body. 4 credits
Gender, Nation, State 4 credits

Favorite Budapest Activity:

having absolutely nothing to do and being free to do anything…