 Daina Stukuls Eglitis
Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs,
Undergraduate Program Coordinator
Professor Eglitis' research has, to this point, focused largely on the social dimensions of postcommunist transformations in Eastern Europe. She is especially interested in the ways in which transformation has affected women in the region and the ways in which women have responded to the dramatic changes of the last decade. She is also interested in poverty and class inequality in both the newly-capitalist states of Eastern Europe and modern capitalist states like those in the West. In 2007-2008, Professor Eglitis was a Fulbright Scholar at the Academy of Culture in Riga, Latvia.
Primary Research and Teaching Interests
Classical and Contemporary Social Theory, Social Stratification in Newly Capitalist and Advanced Capitalist States, Women and Social Change, Sociology of Culture
Selected Publications
"Stratification and the Poverty of Progress in Post-Communist Latvia" forthcoming in Acta Sociologica.
"Cultures of Gender and the Changing Latvian Family: Women's Perspectives on Marriage and Fertility in the Early Post-Communist Period" forthcoming in Journal of Baltic Studies.
"Theorizing the Evolution of Revolution: The Case of Latvia in the 1980s and 1990s," chapter in Detlef Henning (ed.), Revolution in Nordost Europa (Luneburg, Germany: Nord-Ost Institut, 2009).
"Consumption" entry in William A. Darity (ed.), International Encyclodpedia of the Socioal Sciences, 2nd Edition (Macmillan Reference/Thomson Gale, 2008).
"The Baltic States," chapter in Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane Curry (eds.), Democracy, the Market, and Back to Europe (McGraw-Hill, forthcoming).
2005. "Latvia: The Changing Face of AIDS," with Jolanta Cihanovica, at Transitions Online magazine (www.tol.cz), May 19.
2004. "Means of Consumption," "Means of Production," and "Enchantment/Disenchantment" entries in Encyclopedia of Social Theory, George Ritzer (ed.) (Sage Publications).
2003. "Latvia," in Women in Europe, Lynn Walters (ed.) (Greenwood Press).
2003. "The Uses of Global Poverty: How the West Benefits from Economic Inequality," in Seeing Ourselves: Classic, Contemporary, and Cross-Cultural Readings in Sociology, sixth edition, Nijole Benokraitis and John Macionis (eds.) (Prentice-Hall).
2002. Imagining the Nation: History, Modernity and Revolution in Latvia. Pennsylvania State University Press.
2001. "Postcommunist Transformation and Sociodemographic Change: An Analysis of the Decline in Marriage and the Rise in Non-Marital Births in Latvia," National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER).
1999. "Body of the Nation: Mothering, Prostitution, and the Place of Women in Postcommunist Latvia" in Slavic Review, Vol. 58, no. 3.
Current Projects
Research Manuscript: "Forward to Utopia: Latvian Women in the Red Army in World War Two"
This work looks at a little-examined group of participants in World War II: Latvian women who volunteered for and spent time on the Eastern Front as nurses, junior nurses, snipers, radarists, and tank drivers in the Red Army. The paper discusses the means and motivations that brought these women to the bloody battle fronts, situating the narratives offered by autobiographies, biographies, and historical accounts within the literature on collective memory, power, and ideology.
Courses Taught
SOC 001: Introduction to Sociology
SOC 104: Contemporary Sociological Theory
SOC 170: Class and Inequality in American Society
SOC 175: Sociology of Sex and Gender
SOC 238: Classical Sociological Theory
SOC 801: Wealth, Poverty and Inequality in Washington, DC
SOC 801: Sociology of AIDS
Contact Information
dainas@gwu.edu
202-994-1515
Phillips 409 I
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