Between Movement and Academia.

The Leipzig Women’s Library MONAliesA and the Transformation of Women’s and Gender Studies in East Germany in the 1990s

Abstract

My contribution focuses on the interplay between political and epistemic practices of the autonomous women’s movement. I am particularly interested in links between movement and academia. From the perspective of the history of knowledge, I present practices by which the lesbian/women’s archives and libraries produced and circulated knowledge into other spheres of society – in this case academia – using the example of the cooperation between the East German women’s library MONAliesA and the association alma – Frauen in der Wissenschaft (alma – Women in Science) in Leipzig in the early to mid-1990s. Taking a closer look at these practices makes it possible to trace the circulation of knowledge and shed further light on the interconnections between the autonomous women’s movement and academic field of women’s and gender studies. I argue that MONAliesA acted as a hinge between the movement and academia, which resulted in a reciprocal relationship. The analysis aims to highlight the often overlooked political practices of the women’s movement and enrich research on the women’s movement and women’s studies in the GDR and in East Germany after 1989/90 through empirical observations.