Dr Lenka Vráblíková

Profile

I work in feminist theory, European continental philosophy, critical university studies and visual culture, and recently joined the University of South Africa (UNISA) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Gender Studies. In 2017 I completed a PhD in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies titled Tremendous Pedagogies: Feminist theory, deconstruction and the university. This research provides a theoretical exploration of the concept of the modern university and strives to imagine its future by bringing together particular threads within feminist and deconstructive thought. 

During this Postdoctoral fellowship, I focused on developing existing scholarship as well as initiating new collaborative research projects in feminist thought and practice, connecting research conducted at the School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies with other spaces of feminist scholarship around the world. In particular, this includes research projects by ن سوي ةال قرائ ات ش ب كة /Sdružení feministických čtení/Feminist Readings Network and ‘A feminist Space at Leeds’, a research collective initiated at the School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies in 2017, as well as a research project with Dr Elspeth Mitchell (Louborough University), which interrogates feminist academic work through the practice of feminist reading and mushroom hunting.

In addition, I focus on completing three publication projects. Currently I am working on an article which draws on my PhD research, and which is produced as a part of Australian Feminist Studies Journal’s ‘Mentoring programme for new academic writers’ for which she was selected in 2017. Together with Dr Thomas Clément Mercier I am a guest-editor of two special issues of parallax which explore how contemporary critical theory can challenge preconceptions on the body/ies. In 2018, I was one of the 15 scholars who received The University of Leeds Women of Achievement Award.

Research interests

I work in feminist theory, critical university studies, European continental philosophy, and visual culture, focusing particularly on feminist genealogies in art and thought, sexual difference(s), the (anti)disciplinarity of the humanities and feminist scholarship, and the politics and poetics of forraging and food preservation. 

Qualifications

• PhD in Cultural Studies, School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds
• MA in Cultural Studies, School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds
• MA in Fine Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology
• BA in Fine Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Ostrava