Join our Email List Berghahn Books Logo

berghahn New York · Oxford
Browse All Books
Challenging Norms: Family Planning as a Reflection of Social Change in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe

View Table of Contents


Series
Volume 7

New Perspectives on Central and Eastern European Studies

Email Newsletters

Sign up for our email newsletters to get customized updates on new Berghahn publications.

Click here to select your preferences

Challenging Norms

Family Planning as a Reflection of Social Change in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe

Edited by Heidi Hein-Kircher, Elisa-Maria Hiemer, and Denisa Nešťáková

392 pages, 27 ills., bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-80539-964-3 $145.00/£107.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (May 2025)

eISBN 978-1-80539-965-0 eBook Not Yet Published


View CartYour country: - edit Recommend to your LibraryAvailable in GOBI®

Description

Access to reproductive healthcare, including abortions and family planning services, remains a deeply polarizing issue within contemporary Eastern Europe. Originally a question reserved for couples, this topic has since been elevated to the public realm through the emergence of modern nation states. Challenging Norms offers a geographically wide-ranging re-examination of family planning in twentieth-century Eastern Europe, interrogating the relationship between social attitudes to family planning and the forces of social, economic, and political modernization. In doing so, this volume highlights how these changes provide invaluable insights into ever-evolving societal norms and values.

Heidi Hein-Kircher has been Director of Martin Opitz Library (Herne) and Professor at Bochum University since October 2024. Before, she was head of the Academic Forum at the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe. In her research, she focuses on gender and family history, urban history, historical security, and minorities studies, and on the emergence of modern values and norms in Eastern European societies since the nineteenth century. Her recent publications include the co-edited volumes, Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and Historicizing the Mobility/Security Nexus and the Making of Order (Routledge, 2023).

Elisa-Maria Hiemer is a postdoctoral researcher and project lead at the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Marburg, Germany. She received her PhD in Slavic Studies with a thesis on German-Jewish and Polish-Jewish literature in 2018. Her research is based on the intersection of literary sciences and history. With a focus on narrativization and marginalized viewpoints, her topics include Polish-German relations, memory, and gender studies. She is currently finishing a book on sexuality and abortion in interwar Poland and is co-editor of the Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction (De Gruyter, 2021).

Denisa Nešťáková is a research associate at the Herder Institute. Specializing in twentieth-century East Central Europe, the Holocaust, and gender studies, she is currently concluding her post-doctoral project Privileged to be in Hell. Jewish Women in the Sereď Camp which has been supported by the Saul Kagan Fellowship in Advanced Shoah Studies. Her recent publications include her 2023 monograph, Be Fruitful and Multiply. Slovakia’s Family Planning under Three Regimes (1918-1965) (Herder Institute).

Subject: Gender Studies and SexualitySociologyHistory: 20th Century to Present
Area: Central/Eastern Europe


Contents

Back to Top



Library Recommendation Form

Dear Librarian,

I would like to recommend Challenging Norms Family Planning as a Reflection of Social Change in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe for the library. Please include it in your next purchasing review with my strong recommendation. The RRP is: $145.00

I recommend this title for the following reasons:

BENEFIT FOR THE LIBRARY: This book will be a valuable addition to the library's collection.

REFERENCE: I will refer to this book for my research/teaching work.

STUDENT REFERRAL: I will regularly refer my students to the book to assist their studies.

OWN AFFILIATION: I am an editor/contributor to this book or another book in the Series (where applicable) and/or on the Editorial Board of the Series, of which this volume is part.