We are committed
The Association for Women in Slavic Studies is dedicated to the promotion of research and teaching in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian women's, gender, and sexuality studies, and to the support of scholars who identify as women or LGBTQIA.
Membership
We welcome those of any gender identity who study women, gender, and sexuality in Slavic and Eurasian studies, as well as women working in any field pertaining to the region.
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Current Rates
Lifetime Membership // $400 (one time)
Graduate Student / Low Income // $15 Annually
Salary is LESS than 30K/year // $30 Annually
Salary is MORE than 30K/year // $40 Annually
Contributor // $55 Annually
Friend of AWSS // $100 Annually
Institutional Membership // $100 Annually
awss prizes and awards
AWSS awards prizes to scholars at all stages of their careers. We support the work of individuals who embody our organization's values and mission each year through the following awards.
- The Graduate Research and Graduate Essay Prizes are awarded to scholars at the beginning of their careers.
- The Mary Zirin Prize recognizes independent scholars.
- The Outstanding Achievement Award is given to senior scholars for their mentoring and scholarship.
- The Heldt Prizes recognize outstanding books and articles in several categories.
2025 Winners
Heldt prize for the Best Book in Slavic Women’s and Gender Studies: Alissa Klots, Domestic Service in the Soviet Union: Women's Emancipation and the Gendered Hierarchy of Labor
Heldt prize for the Best Book in New and Innovative Scholarship: Dr. Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston, Randia’s Quiet Theatre: Performing Care and Activism with a Romani Elder
Honorable Mention, Masha Salazkina, Romancing Yesenia: How a Mexican Melodrama Shaped Global Popular Culture
Honorable Mention: Cristina Vatulescu, Reading the Archival Revolution: Declassified Stories and Their Challenges
Heldt Article Prize: Olena S. Dmytryk, “Communicating community: Early Internet and trans* digital cultures in Ukraine and beyond,” Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics 10, 3, 2024, pp. 7-23.
Honorable Mention: Eralda L. Lameborshi: “My Body, My Choice, My Country, My Voice”: Kosovar Film, Women’s Rights, and Postwar Trauma,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 50, 2, 2025, pp. 441-463.
Patricia Herlihy Prize for Graduate Research: Anna Kozlova, Carleton University, Ottawa
Graduate Essay Prize: Kim Yehbohn Lacey (Ph.D. candidate in History, Washington University in St. Louis) for the dissertation chapter “Home Is Where We Are.”
Honorable Mention: Masha Bratishcheva (History, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Ph.D. 2025) for the essay “Beyond the ‘Woman Question’: Female Gender, Authorship and the Rise of the Early Women’s Movement in the Russian Empire during the Era of the Great Reforms”
Mary Zirin Prize: Svitlana Biedarieva, independent art historian, artist, and curator
Honorable Mentions: Megan Buskey, independent writer and Kathleen Cioffi, independent theater historian
Outstanding Achievement Award: Professor Karen Petrone, University of Kentucky, Department of History
AWSS 2026 Biennial Conference
Creating under Constraints: Gender in Politics, History, Culture, Literature, Social Change
May 21-23, 2026
Art Academy of Latvia- Latvijas Mākslas akadēmija in Riga, Latvia
Keynote Speakers
Dr. Oksana Kis, President of the Ukrainian Association for Research in Women's History and Head of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine: “Beauty that saved their world: Ukrainian women's arts and crafts in the Gulag”
Dr. Ineta Lipša, historian, senior researcher at the National Archives of Latvia, “From Parasitic Elements to Anti-Social Way of Life: Gendering Immorality under Cold War Ideology in the Latvian SSR”
Herlihy Prize Fundraising
In 2020 AWSS launched a fundraising effort to support a graduate research prize in honor of Patricia Herlihy and her incredible contributions to both the study of Ukraine as well as her support for multiple generations of scholars across disciplines engaged in study on Ukraine and its neighbors. Please consider making a donation to support the future of the field and honor the memory of a scholar who did so much to shape the field and her discipline. Select the Herlihy Prize For Graduate Research option on the drop-down menu through the Paypal link below.