Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
Andrea Pető is an award-winning historian and sociologist. In 2018 she was awarded the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values and in 2022 University of Oslo Human Rights Award. She is Doctor Honoris Causa of Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. Petö's work was translated into 25 languages.
Pető's core research interests lie in four interconnected areas 1) analyzing and debating the relationship between illiberalism and the various anti-gender campaigns targeting gender studies and gender research 2) based on her recent personal experience as an academic in exile in Austria, Pető recently works on academic and student activists in exile, the sociology of intellectuals and 21st-century universities, and the intersection of higher education and conflict 3) historical research on perspectives and previously unrepresented topics, often related to subjects that societies and communities have sought to suppress, such as sexual violence and the role of women as perpetrators 4) gender perspective on the memory of the Holocaust.
Detailed description:
1) The first area of research is analyzing and debating the relationship between illiberalism and the various anti-gender campaigns targeting gender studies, gender scholars, and gender mainstreaming. She has tirelessly advocated for the importance of historical knowledge and sustained public discourse in creating sustainable and democratic societies centered on human rights. She has contributed chapters to key handbooks in her field, including "Gendering Illiberalism" in the Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism (2021), The Routledge Handbook of Gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia (2021), Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung (2018), and The Cambridge Global Handbook of Sexuality (2024). She is also an associate editor for The European Journal of Women’s Studies. She is on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed book series Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality (2008–present) and Routledge Gendering the Study of Religion in the Social Sciences (2019–present). Additionally, she serves on the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Progressive Studies. With colleagues, she is regularly discussing in the podcast series by the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Center entitled: Sleepwalking on assault on democracy and Standing up to the Assault on Democracy challenges and dilemmas facing democracies around the world today.
Pető is the recipient of the first COST network grant at CEU PU on Democratization at stake. Comparing Anti-Gender Politics in CEE and NME countries and she serves as a member of the Management Committee.
2) The second major area of research includes academic and student activists in exile, the sociology of intellectuals and 21st-century universities, and the intersection of higher education and conflict. I particularly draw upon studies of the illiberal capture of universities and knowledge production to investigate the numerous contemporary crises of critique and political freedoms in modern higher education. Her work connects contemporary threats to academic freedom, and the networks actively combating these threats, with historical research on previous authoritarian threats to academic freedom. She serves on the editorial board of New Europes at Transcript Verlag (2022–present). Petö is the recipient of the first COST network grant at CEU PU on protecting academic freedom and she serving as a member of the Management Committee.
3) A third major research area focuses on analyzing significant historical events of the 20th century using innovative research methods, cutting-edge theoretical frameworks, and interdisciplinary methodologies. Pető has recorded a podcast series based on her teaching interdisciplinary methods of oral history.
Pető's historical research explores new perspectives and previously unrepresented topics, often related to subjects that societies and communities have sought to suppress, such as sexual violence and the role of women as perpetrators, not just victims, during wartime. Her monograph on rapes committed by Red Army soldiers highlights how silencing influences present debates on memory politics. This work has been translated into German (2021), Russian (2023), and English (forthcoming in 2025). She is the author, with Ildikó Barna, of Political Justice in Budapest after WWII (2015) exploring post WWII transitional justice using quantitative methods. She is the co-editor, with Ayşe Gül Altınay, of Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories: Feminist Conversation on War, Genocide and Political Violence (2016) and edited the volume on War in the Interdisciplinary Handbook: Gender series (Macmillan, 2017).
4) The fourth connected major research area is to investigate the intricacies of remembrance in Europe’s most conflictive history from a gender perspective to shed light on Europe’s gendered memory of the Holocaust. She edited three pioneering books in the field of Jewish Studies with Louise Hecht, Karoline Krasuska Women and Holocaust: New Perspectives and Challenges. IBL, Warsawa, 2015., and with Szapor, Judith, Hametz, Maura, Calloni, Marina, Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe 1860-2000. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2012., with Helga Thorson The Future of Holocaust Memorialisation. Confronting Racism, Anti-Semitism, and Homophobia Through Memory Work. Tom Lantos Institute, Budapest, 2015. Her recent monograph is Forgotten Massacre: Budapest 1944. (DeGruyter, 2021) and The Women of the Arrow Cross Party. Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War. (Palgrave, Macmillan, 2020). She is the editor-in-chief of East European Holocaust Studies (DeGruyter) and serves on the Editorial Board of Perpetrator Studies by CEU Press (2022-). She is also active in Holocaust education and serves on the Academic Advisory Board of erinner.at in Vienna, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, Kiev, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), Amsterdam. Peto is an anchor of the influential podcast series in English, Hungarian, and German about the history and memory of the Second World War available on CEU Podcast Library. Presently she is working on the life story of Anikó-Hanna-Channah-Hannah Szenes-Senesh.
Peto has also been a guest professor at the Universities of Toronto, Buenos Aires, Novi Sad, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Jerusalem, and Malmo. Additionally, she was a distinguished fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZIF) at the University of Bielefeld.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Related documents
External positions
Fellow, Democracy Institute, Central European University
1 Jun 2021 → …
Keywords
- D731 World War II
- Holocaust
- political violence
- War Studies
- HM Sociology
- gender
- qualitative methods
- social movements
- museum studies
- JA Political science (General)
- extremes
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- 1 Similar Profiles
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IDEoPOP: International Dimensions and Effects of Populism
Peto, A. (Researcher)
1/10/24 → 30/09/28
Project: Research
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Protecting academia at risk: Towards a new policy agenda for a thriving culture of higher education in Europe
Peto, A. (Main researcher at CEU)
1/03/24 → 28/02/26
Project: Research
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UNTWIST: Policy recommendations to regain ""losers of feminism"" as mainstream voters
Peto, A. (Researcher)
European Commission - Horizon Europe - Collaborative Projects
1/02/23 → 31/01/26
Project: Research
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When Nationalism Fails. A Comparative Study of Holocaust Museums in ex-collaborationist countries
Peto, A. (Main researcher at CEU)
1/01/22 → 31/12/24
Project: Research
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Gender and Illiberalism in Post-Communist Europe
Bogaards, M. (CoPI) & Peto, A. (CoPI)
10/05/21 → 31/05/22
Project: Other
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A New Gender Equality Contract for Europe: Feminism and Progressive Politics
Pető, A. (Editor), Thissen, L. (Editor) & Clavaud, A. (Editor), 2025, Palgrave Macmillan Cham. 218 p.Research output: Book/Report types › Book › peer-review
Open Access -
Four Reasons Why Illiberal Politics Appropriated the Memory of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Pető, A., 3 Feb 2025, Verfassungsblog.Research output: Contribution to general interest publication types › Article
Open Access -
Imagining a New Gender Contract for Education
Pető, A., 2025, A New Gender Equality Contract for Europe: Feminism and Progressive Politics. Pető, A., Thissen, L. & Clavaud, A. (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan Cham, p. 87-103 17 p.Research output: Contribution to Book/Report types › Chapter › peer-review
Open Access -
Introduction: Imagining a New Gender Equality Contract for Europe
Pető, A., Thissen, L. & Clavaud, A., 2025, A New Gender Equality Contract for Europe: Feminism and Progressive Politics. Pető, A., Thissen, L. & Clavaud, A. (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan Cham, p. 1-8 8 p.Research output: Contribution to Book/Report types › Chapter › peer-review
Open Access -
A conversation with Monica Cornejo, Andrea Pető and Paola Rivetti on the book Religion, Gender, and Populism in the Mediterranean: Religion, Gender, and Populism in the Mediterranean , edited by Alberta Giorgi, Júlia Garraio, and Teresa Toldy, London, Routledge, 2023, 216 pp., £104 ISBN 9781032259741 (hardback), £31.19 ISBN 9781003300885 (ebook)
Giorgi, A., Garraio, J., Toldy, T., Cornejo, M., Peto, A. & Rivetti, P., 2024, In: Journal of Intercultural Studies. 45, 4, p. 795-805 11 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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En afsked er ikke et farvel
Peto, A. (Invited speaker)
26 Sep 2024Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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The Association of Swedish Higher Educational Institutions (External organization)
Peto, A. (Member of Advisory Board)
1 Jan 2024 → 31 Dec 2025Activity: Membership types › Membership of board
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Illiberal Memory politics, Post/Socialist Memory Cultures in Transition
Peto, A. (Speaker)
22 Sep 2023Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
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Illiberal memory politics as a paradigm shift in the memory of the Holocaust
Peto, A. (Speaker)
14 Sep 2023Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
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Illiberal reading of the Holocaust, Memories of the Shoah, Narrative Forms and Cultural Discourse in East-Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe
Peto, A. (Speaker)
11 May 2023Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
Prizes
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Exemplary and innovative educational project on teaching the Holocaust
Peto, A. (Recipient), 25 Jan 2015
Prize: Prize, award or honor
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Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Peto, A. (Recipient), 21 Jun 2014
Prize: Prize, award or honor