Tiina Kirss
Field of expertise: 20th-century comparative European literary history, autobiography and life stories, oral history, Siberian deportations in the Baltics, trauma theory, the European historical novel, postcolonialism, diaspora-homeland literary relations, and feminist theory
Short bio: Tiina Kirss was born in Buffalo, US to Estonian parents. She has a PhD in comparative literature and she is a professor of Estonian language and literature at Toronto University and a visiting professor in Tartu University in Estonia. Her research interests include 20th century comparative European literary history, the European historical novel and feminist theory.

Raili Põldsaar-Marling
Field of expertise: gender studies, gender and discourse
Short bio: Raili Põldsaar-Marling is an Associate Professor in American Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia. Her interdisciplinary research, which combines discourse analysis, gender studies and cultural studies, has primarily focused on the representation of gender and power. She has published internationally on gender studies, discourse analysis, American Studies and comparative literature. She is an acting editor of Ariadne Lõng, Estonian journal of gender studies, an editor of Aspasia, International Yearbook of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Women’s and Gender History and a board member of the Estonian Women’s Studies and Resource Center.

Liina Järviste
Field of expertise: gender studies, gender and social policy
Short bio: Liina Järviste is an analyst in the Department of Social Policy Analysis in the Ministry of Social Affairs. She is specialized in gender equality and social inclusion. Liina Järviste has an MA in Gender Studies from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Her recent publications include: “ Towards Balanced Society II. Men and Women in Estonia” (collection of analytical essays) (2010), “Policy Analysis: Policy measures to support active fatherhood: Estonian and European perspective” (2008), “Policy Analysis: Marriage and Cohabitation: Trends, Regulations, Attitudes” (2008).

Katrin Kivimaa
Field of expertise: feminist art history, contemporary feminist art, visual culture, nationalism and art
Short bio: Katrin Kivimaa is senior researcher and the Head ofthe Institute of Art History, Estonian Academy of Arts. Her research focuses on Estonian 20th century and contemporary art, feminist art history, nationalism and art, visual culture. She received a doctoral degree in art history from the University of Leeds, UK in 2004 with a dissertation on ‘Nationalism, Gender and Cultural Identities: The Case of Estonian Art from the Impact of Modernity to the Post-Soviet Era 1850-2000’. She has written extensively about women’s and feminist art in Estonia and is a co-editor of the collection of Estonian translations of the key texts of feminist art history. Her latest book deals with representations of national and modern femininities in Estonian 19th and 20th century art (Tartu University Press, 2009).

Kadri Aavik
Field of expertise: gender studies, gender and education, gender and development
Short bio: Kadri Aavik is a researcher and project manager in the Estonian Women’s Studies and Resource Centre. She has an MA in Gender Studies from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Her primary research areas and interests are related to the field of gender and education – she has studied the social construction of gender in Estonian kindergartens and analyzed Estonian high school history textbooks from the gender perspective.

Eve Annuk
Field of expertise: literary studies, women’s studies
Short bio: Eve Annuk (PhD) is a senior reseacher in the Estonian Cultural History Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum and the editor in chief of Ariadne Lõng, the only academic gender studies journal in Estonia. She has extensively published literary criticism and academic articles. She has focused on women’s studies since early 1990s and her doctoral thesis relates to this field. Eve Annuk’s main research areas include Estonian literary history from the gender perspecive, biographies of female writers and women’s studies.

Selection

Report on the selection process by the Estonian FRAGEN team

First, the experts sent via email their initial selections on the forms provided. Out of these selections a longlist of texts was compiled, consisting of 25 texts. At this point, a joint email discussion was initiated, involving all experts, with the aim to select the final 10 texts.
First, it was decided jointly that the number of times the texts were nominated by experts is an important indicator and thus, texts which were initially selected by several experts, would be included in the shortlist.

The longlist contained 2 texts from the Soviet era – upon reading the texts, the experts decided not to include these in the shortlist, as the texts were judged to be too ideological. The remaining texts were then considered from the perspective of the 3 priority issues [the three main issues of QUING] , upon which some of the texts were disregarded, as they were judged not to correspond to these 3 topics.

At this point, the experts gave their suggestions and arguments as to which texts to include in the shortlist. Based on these suggestions, the shortlist was completed.