Zilka Spahić Šiljak

Profile

Gender studies scholar and activist addressing cutting edge issues involving human rights, politics, religion, education and peacebuilding, with more than fifteen years experience in academic teaching, as well as work in governmental and non-governmental sectors. She has been a visiting lecturer and researcher at numerous universities worldwide, most notably Harvard and Stanford University. She is also the founder and former academic coordinator of the Religious Studies department at University of Sarajevo, and has published several books on the topic of gender, religion, peacebuilding and reconciliation.

Life and Education

She was born Zilka Spahić in 1968 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She graduated from the University of Sarajevo with a bachelor's degree in Islamic Studies in 1994. In 2002, Spahić Šiljak received a joint master's degree in human rights from the University of Sarajevo and University of Bologna. She completed and defended her PhD thesis in gender studies, titled Women Religion and Politics, in 2007 at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Novi Sad. She also completed in executive leadership at Cornell University.

Academic Work

Spahić Šiljak further education and postgraduate studies brought her to several universities where she taught courses and conducted research, such as Arizona State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Oslo, University of Copenhagen, and others. Most notably she conducted her post-doctoral researches and worked as a guest lecturer at Harvard University and Stanford University. In 2016 she completed a yearlong specialization from Cornell University in the field of leadership. She has also collaborated with distinguished scholars in the field of gender studies and religion, such as Margot Badran, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Myra Strober, Amina Wadud, Stephen Batalden etc.

Spahić Šiljak's research focuses on the intersection between gender, religion, peace, and leadership. Her most notable works include: Women Religion and Politics, an analysis on how traditional and religious heritage influenced the engagement of women in public life in BiH, 2010; Contesting Female Feminist and Muslim Identities. Post-socialist Contexts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, 2012, and Shining Humanity: Life Stories of Women Peace Builders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2014 a collection of biographies of eleven female Bosnian activists that shows how their diverse backgrounds and narratives contributed to healing in a post-war society.

Activism

Starting in 1993, Spahić Šiljak became active in the first feminist organization in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Medica Zenica, established by German feminists from Medica Mondiale. She was part of the psychosocial team that worked with female wartime rape survivors, and provided a novel religious perspective in trauma healing that proved to be a very important coping mechanisms for the women. This introduction to feminism through her work with Western feminists combined with these field experiences became her first introduction to Islamic feminism, which she would later tackle in her academic works. From 1994 to 2004 she worked for the Ministry of Education in Zenica-Doboj Canton and was simultaneously active in several nongovernmental organizations that worked to promote peacebuilding, dialogue, and gender equality. In 1998 she became member of the International Multireligious and Intercultural Center IMIC Zajedno in Sarajevo, whose founder Marko Oršolić, was a Franciscan friar and a pioneer of interreligious dialogue in the Balkans. This work and the individuals she met along the way informed her later activism and provided her with a unique lens with which to explore the complex topics of gender, religion, dialogue and identity in the Balkan region, From 2005 she started collaboration with HNI TPO International and in 2006 established Transcultural psychosocial Educational Foundation (TPO) in Sarajevo, a non-governmental organization that advocates for gender equality and dialogue through partnering with academic and governmental organizations to create educational programs, raise awareness, and help groups that most marginalized in public life and society.

Training and capacity building expertise:

Important training programs Spahic Siljak designed with the team of TPO Foundation:

• Etos Initiative on intercultural and inter-religious education, living values and their integration in public schools system – ethic, tolerance, openness and solidarity
• Initiative for Creative Dialogue, to counter gender stereotypes and biases through art, performances and narratives.
• Program for Interdisciplinary Learning and Research (PILAR) on politics of memory and trauma healing.
• International human rights norms (CEDAW and UNSCR 1325 on women, peace and security) from religious perspective.
• Gender-based in family, school and community.
• Mindfulness meditative practices.
• Gender and Leadership.

Books

1.Shining Humanity – Life Stories of Women Peacebuilders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, 2014.

1.1. Sjaj Ljudskosti – Životne priče mirotvorki u Bosni i Hercegovini, TPO Fondacija, 2013.

2.Contesting Female, Feminist and Muslim Identities. Post-Socialist Contexts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, CIPS of the University of Sarajevo 2012.

2.1. Propitivanje ženskih feminističkih i muslimanskih identiteta. Post-socijalistički konteksti u Bosni i Hercegovini i na Kosovu, CIPS of the University of Sarajevo 2012.

2.2.Kontestimi i identiteteve femërore, feministe dhe muslimane. Kontekstet post-socialiste në Bosnjë dhe Hercegovinë dhe Kosovë, CIPS of the University of Sarajevo 2012.

3.Countering Violence With Dialogue, co-edited with Sabiha Husić, Sarajevo: TPO Foundation and Medica Zenica, 2011.

3.1. Dijalogom protiv nasilja, co-edited with Sabiha Husić, Sarajevo: TPO Fondacija, 2011.

5.  Women Religion and Politics - Impact analysis of interpretative religious heritage of Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the engagement of women in public life and politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo: IMIC, TPO, CIPS, 2016.

6.Baseline Study: Women and Peacebuilding, TPO Fondacija, 2011, co-edited with Aida Spahić and Elmaja Bavčić, 2011.

7. I vjernice i građanke (Women Believers and Citizen)s, co-edited with Jadranka Rebeka Anic, TPO Foundation Sarajevo, 2009.

8.Monotheistic Three Voices: Introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, co-edited with Dino Abazovic, IMIC, CIPS of the University of Sarajevo and TPO Foundation, 2009.

Selected Articles

1.“Žrtva ili preživjela? Odluka o identitetu nakon ratnog silovanja” (Victim or Survivor’s Agency? Self-identification after wartime rape), in Julianne Funk and Nancy Good (eds.), Neizliječena trauma. Rad na ozdravljenju i izgradnji mira u BiH, TPO Fondacija, 2017.

2.“Biologija (ni)je sudbina” (Biology is (not) a destiny) in Medina Mujic (ed.) Kad se sretnu feminizam i religija, Sarajevo: TPO Fondacija, 2017.

3.“Zašto još uvijek govorimo o seksizmu?” (Why we still speak about sexism?) u Monja Šuta-Hibert (ed.) Zvuči poznato: Rodni stereotipi?, TPO Fondacija, 2015.

4.“Believers for Social Change: Bridging the Secular Religious Divide in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, International Relations and Diplomacy, David Publishing, October 2015, Vol. 3, No.10, 681–690.

5.“Women Citizens and Believers as Agents of Peace Bosnia and Herzegovina”, in Susan Hayward and Katherine Marshall, (eds.) Women, Religion and Peace-building, Illuminating the Unseen, Washington:USIP,2015.

6.“Merhametli Peace is Woman's Peace” in Yasmin Saikia & Chad Haines, (eds) Women and Peace in the Islamic World: Gender, Agency, and Influence , London: I.B. Tauris, 2015.

7. Women, Religion and Peace Leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecumenical Women’s Initiative, Omiš Croatia 2014.

8.“Nation, Religion and Gender” in Politicization of Religion: The ex-Yugoslavia and its successor states, Gornana Ognjenovic and Jasna Ozelic (eds.) Plagrave McMillan, 2014.

9. “Do it and Name It: Feminist Theology and Peace-building in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, Indiana University Press,  Journal for Feminist Studies of Religion, November 2013.

10.''Women, Religion and Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina'' in Linell Cady and Tracy Fessenden (eds.) Religion, The Secular, and the Politics of Sexual Difference, Columbia University Press, New York, 2013.

11.“Frauen, Religion und Politik”, in Armina Omerika (ed), Muslimische Stimmen aus Bosnien und Herzegowina,  Freiburg, Basel, Wien: Herder, 2013.

12. “Ženska ljudska prava: islamska perspektiva” (Women's Human Rights: Islamic Perspective), in Ivana Radačić and Željka Vince Pallua: Ljudska prava žena. Razvoj na međunarodnoj i nacionalnoj razini 30 godina nakon usvajana Konvencije UN-a o uklanjanju svih oblika diksriminacije žena, Zagreb: Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar, 2011.

13.''Images of Women in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Neighboring Countries, 1992–1995,'' in Faegheh Shirazi, ed., Muslim Women in War and Crisis: from Reality to Representation, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010.

14.“Rodna ravnopravnost u monoteističkim religijama kroz feminističku teološku kritiku” (Gender Equality in Monotheistic Religions in feminist Theological Critic), in Vera Vasic (ed.), Discourse and Discourses: Proceeding in honor of Svenka Savic, Novi Sad: Filozfski fakultet Novi Sad, 2010.

15.'' Merjem/Marija, polazište islamsko-kršćanskog dijaloga” (Maryam/Mary, foundation for Muslim-Christian Dialogue), in Svenka Savić and Jadranka Rebeka Anić, Rodna perspektiva u međureligijskom dijalogu u XXI veku, N Sad: Futura Publikacije i Ženske studije i istraživanja, 2009.

16. ''Analysis of the Image of Woman in the School: Religious Textbooks in Bosnia and Herzegovina,'' in Moravcikova, Michaela, Greskova, and Lucia (eds.), Ženy a Naboženstva  

Women and Religions,  2. Bratislava: Ustav pre vztahy statu a crkvi, 2008.

17. “The Image of Woman in Religious Community Magazines in Bosnia-Herzegovina” in Christian Moe (ed), Images of the Religious Other. Discourse and Distance in the Western Balkans, Novi Sad: CEIR and Kotor Network, 2008.

18. “Religious Practices: Religious Commemorations in Southeast Europe,'' in Souad Josef (ed.), EWIC Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, Ledien: Brill Academic Publishers, 2007.

19. “Ženska prava  u islamu i rađanje feminizma”, ''Women's Rights in Islam and the Roots of Feminism,'' Novi Pogledi (Alumni Association of Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Sarajevo-Bologna University), Spring 2004.  

20. “Arwa kompetentna vladarica Jemena:, Znak Bosne, BZK Preporod Zenica, 2004.

21. ''U.N. Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security in the Bosnian Context,''Novi pogledi  (Alumni Association,  Sarajevo), Summer, 2004, No. 3.

22. ''Women’s Rights in the U.N. System,'' magazine for legal theory and legal topics, Pravna misao (Sarajevo: University of Sarajevo, January-February 2003.

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