Where and when was the question of the relationship between academia and the feminist social movement in Greece first raised? This collective volume systematically records the genesis, activities, and theoretical elaborations of the Women’s Studies Group during its main period of activity, 1983-2003. The Women’s Studies Group was the name given to the first feminist collective of female academics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which was formed in the early fruitful years of the Metapolitefsi.

Giota Kravari and Zoya Chronaki, both lecturers at the Law School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and active members of the Movement of Democratic Women, proposed in 1982 the creation of a Women’s Group at the Law School, which was recognized by its General Assembly. followed in 1983 by its expansion to include female academics from other scientific fields, thus achieving the goal of interdisciplinarity, a defining characteristic of women’s studies since then.

The group’s initial goal was to give intellectual and theoretical form, within the university setting, to the ideas that had emerged from the women’s movement. Through the experiential texts and valuable documentary material included in the volume, the writing team sheds light on the timeless positions and demands of the OGS, as well as its relationships with other women’s collectives within and outside various universities, in Greece and abroad, in order to highlight the positions, resistance, and reactions that existed within and outside the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

At the same time, issues related to similar forms of women’s studies and gender studies, which developed at that time in direct correlation with the theoretical and ideological questions of the international feminist movement, at universities in Northern Europe and the USA were also discussed.

● Sasha Lada is an architect, emeritus professor at AUTH, and a founding member of OGS. Anna Michopoulou is a researcher in Women’s History, holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from the University of York. Olga Pantouli holds a Ph.D. in Pedagogy and is a teaching staff member of the Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy at AUTH. Gianna Savvidou is a philologist, holds a doctorate in Women’s Studies and Literature from Université Vincennes-Saint-Denis (Paris VIII), and is a founding member of OGS.