'Sexuality, Activism, and the State in Modern Europe' (SASME) brings together scholars from all disciplines from the EUI and beyond to ask how we can integrate the history of sexuality, sexual politics and sexual governance in 20th century Europe into a coherent, transnational analytical framework.

How did histories of intimacy, reproduction, and moral regulation shape Europe’s broader transformation from imperialism, authoritarianism, and state socialism to democracy and neoliberal governance?

We will explore these questions through a one-day workshop, bringing together an interdisciplinary team of researchers, including two scholars from the UK: Nikolaos Papadogiannis (University of Sterling) and Lola Dickinson (Birkbeck, University of London). Through this, we initiate a sustained transnational conversation on the sexual politics of 20th century Europe, critically examining how sexuality shaped and was shaped by the evolving relationship between the state and its citizens.

This workshop aims to make two crucial interventions into the study of modern sexuality. The last two decades have seen a rapid increase in scholarly works on de-centring Western sexualities and thematising sexuality in Eastern, East-Central, and South-Eastern Europe. We propose a space to consider these histories in conversation with one another by presenting case studies on how European states governed sexuality as part of broader projects of democratisation, public health, and European integration, and how activists, experts, and citizens negotiated, contested, and shaped these initiatives. Our second aim is to challenge the bottom-up/top-down dichotomy by looking at how sexual politics have been formed both through statutory and non-statutory intervention. By challenging these prevailing approaches, the workshop aims to explore how sexuality was not peripheral but constitutive to European state-building, shaping how states imagined citizenship, morality, and belonging. Our methodological approach is guided by recent scholarship, such as Margo Shea’s 2018 ‘Feminist oral history practice in an era of digital self-expression’, but the workshop incorporates case studies based on archival, material, oral and visual sources.

Keynote lecture 'Shared authority and queer oral history' by Nikolaos Papadogiannis (University of Sterling)

Caption: 1991 World AIDS Day in Budapest (Illustration by Emese Veszely)

Workshop - Sexuality, activism, and the state in modern Europe - 24 April 2026

Sexuality, activism, and the state in modern Europe