Areas of Interest: The sociology of art and gender studies in communist and postcommunist societies.
Marilyn Rueschemeyer is an adjunct professor and professor emerita of sociology at the Rhode Island School of Design. During 2003–2004, she was a Watson visiting professor. Rueschemeyer specializes in communist and postcommunist societies and for several years has been the representative of the American Sociological Association to the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the organization that brings together scholars from all disciplines working in postcommunist societies. Specifically, Rueschemeyer works extensively in the sociology of art and in gender studies.
In the fall of 2004, Rueschemeyer received an invitation from the Social Science Center in Berlin to spend part of the semester working in the German Bundestag. Her study is part of a larger comparison of the experiences and political goals of women from five postcommunist states. The Woodrow Wilson Center has given a grant to the scholars and representative politicians for a workshop in Washington D.C., which was held in the spring of 2004.
For several years, Rueschemeyer chaired the Watson Institute's Future of Germany Seminar Series. This year, she co-initiated a new seminar series on European politics. Aside from these series, Rueschemeyer has organized a number of workshops at the Watson Institute. These included: "Left Parties and Social Policy in Postcommunist Central Europe and Russia," "The Future of the German Welfare State," and "Housing Design and Housing Policy in Europe and in the United States." She was co-organizer of a workshop and film presentation on "Hybrid Culture: Minorities in Germany."
Among her numerous publications is a new work she has co-authored with a colleague in the United Kingdom titled Art and the State: The Visual Arts in Comparative Perspective. Other publications include Left Parties and Social Policies in Postcommunist Europe (co-edited with Linda Cook and Mitchell Orenstein, 1999); Participation and Democracy East and West: Comparison and Interpretations (co-edited with Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Bjorn Wittrock, 1998); Women in Postcommunist Eastern Europe , 2nd edition 1998; The Quality of Life in the German Democratic Republic: Changes and Developments in a State Socialist Society (co-edited with Christiane Lemke, 1989; Soviet Emigre Artists: Life and Work in the United States and the USSR (co-authored with Igor Golomshtok and Janet Kennedy, 1985; and Professional Work and Marriage: An East-West Comparison (1981).
Her professional honors include: Invited Guest, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (Social Science Research Center); Fellow, The Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden; Visiting Fellow, Stockhom Institute of Soviet and East European Economics; IREX grants for work at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and for research in the former German Democratic Republic; Chosen by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States as an Exchange scholar at the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic; Visiting Fellow, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Senior Associate Member of St. Antony's College, Oxford University in 1979, 1982, 1997.
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