Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus

Highlights from the 2010 Convention

Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus CFPs

The following CFPs for the 2011 convention are listed under Women’s and Gender Studies. (See the full CFP.)

Advancing Gender Equality (Roundtable): This roundtable seeks proposals for 5-10 minute presentations exploring how literary representations of bisexuality may promote or advance gender equality.How does the challenging of unequal power relations by bisexual charaters advance gender equality? How do literary representations of bisexuality that support homosexuality or feminism or that challenge sexism promote gender equality? Please send 250 word proposals to Ines.Shaw@ncc.edu.
The American Short Story Cycle: A Gendered Genre?: An inter-related, yet self-sufficient collection of stories, the short story cycle, or composite novel, has appealed for over 100 years to a wide range of American authors. The logical assumption might be that the genre’s multiple perspectives, evolutions, and revolutions allow for greater gender performativity and fluidity, but is such an assumption accurate? Even though the terms seem interchangeable, can a genre or a gender be both cyclical and composite? Send a 300-word abstract to Lisa Day-Lindsey, Eastern Kentucky U at lisa.day@eku.edu
Best Practices in Women’s, Gender and Feminist Studies: This roundtable will present a sampling of best practices in Women’s Studies programs in the Academy. Participants will give special emphasis to historically successful programs at the undergrad and graduate levels, cutting-edge curricula, strategies to increase diversity, methods to increase program participation, proven pedagogical methods, global interactions, funding strategies, useful texts and contemporary scholarship. 500 word abstracts/CV to Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, <Suzanne_Stewart-Steinberg@brown.edu>
The Classic Figure: Women in the Ancient World: This panel will explore the role and importance of women in the ancient world (e.g. Greece, Rome, etc.) as portrayed in archaic texts. We welcome all topics related to the depictio of women in ancient literary productions. Please submit your abstracts via email to Shelly Jansen, SUNY Binghamton, mjansen1@binghamton.edu.
Classical Women in Modern Literature and Media (Seminar): For this panel, we seek papers that investigate the issues that arise when modern literature and media appropriate the female figures of ancient Greece and Rome. This can focus on a single modern work’s depiction of a figure or figures, or how a given Classical character has evolved over time. Please email all submissions to ksburns@buffalo.edu.
Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing: Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing: While proposals on well-established authors are welcome, papers on less well-known contemporary Black British women writers in all genres are particularly encouraged. Focus may be on transnational connections, national identity, intersections of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class, etc., and may raise other issues as well. Susan Alice Fischer, Medgar Evers College/CUNY, safcpw@earthlink.net
Contemporary Women’s Novels: The Changing Story?: To what extent can contemporary fiction by women and about women from different cultures can be brought together coherently for discussion? What has happened to such fiction as women’s political and social conditions have been challenged? This session will investigate how women’s fictional plotting has changed with globalization and what that contributes to the comparability/incomparability of these works. Email 300-500 word abstracts about recent women’s novels in a comparative / world literature teaching context to kwaldron@coa.edu.
Death, Dying and Dislocation: Transnational Grief Literature (Roundtable): Literature of grief traditionally transcends boundaries of time and place, focusing on archetypal experiences. But when we are dealing with loss in more than one locale, more concrete and culture-specific complications ensue. Papers should examine specific contemporary transnational writers’ depictions of coping with death, dying, and grief. Are the protagonists’ caught between two worlds or are they able to negotiate each one distinctively ? Texts can be fiction, memoir, or poetry ellen.dolgin@dc.edu.
The Devil Comes in Many Genders: Depictions of the Diabolical in Literature: This panel seeks interrogate changing representations of the gender of the devil. From its roots in religious texts to postmodern literature, devilish figures draw in listeners, readers, and viewers alike. Of particular interest to this panel are the relationships between devils and gender, the body, the individual, and society. Papers will enhance understanding of the relationship between devils in narrative and our understanding of gender, genre, seduction, and power. Please email 250-300 word abstracts (in an attachment) to mwm9@buffalo.edu.
Disordered Narratives: Psychological Illness in Women’s Life Writing: This panel will explore memoirs by women that describe efforts to cope with, undergo treatments for, or recover from psychological disorders. Issues of narrator reliability, the role of figurative means of describing psychological disorder in narrative, and the influence of mental illness on identity may be examined. Send a 300-500 word proposal as an email attachment to Dr. Georgia Kreiger, gkreiger@atlanticbb.net. Include institutional affiliation and contact information with proposal.
Donors and Helpers: Masculinity in Contemporary Fairy Tales: This panel explores masculinity in contemporary fairy tales through papers which support or refute the argument that the majority of feminist fairy tales subvert gender roles and place female characters into positions of power over males, in effect creating the potential for reverse sexism, which may culturally condition male behavior. Abstracts of 250-500 words should be sent to Susan Redington Bobby at bobbysu@wesley.edu.
Female Friendship in Local Color Fiction: This panel seeks papers on the New England local color writers, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rose Terry Cooke, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins Freeman, focusing primarily on the emotional support the women in their fiction provided one another, especially as they aged and how their lives were not bounded by the restrictions of either marriage or spinsterhood. Please send 300-500 word abstracts and brief biographical statements to Gail C. Keating - gck3@psu.edu
The Female Player in European Fiction (1780-1900): Gender Issues: Between 1780-1900, the ‘actress’ gradually gained ground: first of all, she finally upgraded the actor (in terms of wages and fame); and secondly she became a fictional heroine. We would like to investigate ‘novels with actresses’ and see how the gender issue is dealt with. Is the actress a female artist? or still a fallen woman? And is the writing of the actress ‘gendered,’ that is to say, can we notice differences between male and female writing about female players? Corinne François-Denève, UVSQ, corinne.francois-deneve@uvsq.fr
Feminist Alternative Media in the long 1970s: This panel seeks papers that examine how technological and political changes during the long 1970s enabled feminists to create and control alternative media. We welcome articles that discuss women’s video and film; feminist serial and ephemeral publications; women artists, alternative exhibition spaces, and art collectives; performance pieces; and feminist publishers and distributors. Please send 200-300 word abstracts and a brief CV to Karen Alexander at kalexander@signs.rutgers.edu.
Flânerie and the Rise of the Modern Urban Woman: This panel seeks papers that explore the multifaceted inter-relationship between female characters and the city from the fin de siècle to World War II. Although the panel’s primary focus will be on British, Irish, and North American texts, I would also be interested in papers that extend this discussion to other areas of the globe. Please send a 300-word abstract and brief bio to Elizabeth Foley O’Connor (lizfoley@gmail.com).
Gender & Healing: Utilizing Films for the Feminist Classroom (Roundtable): Taking a multimedia approach to teaching literature, this roundtable covers texts about gender and healing. Presenters will speak on teaching texts (film, lit, electronic) on gender and healing. Send 300 word abstracts to Deanna Utroske at deannautroske@gmail.com with ‘Gender & Healing’ in subject line.
Global Feminist Science/Speculative Fictions Advance Social Change: Expanding the conversation among global feminist science/speculative fictions, this panel will discuss what (social, political, cultural, etc.) changes these literatures envision; how these visions are distinct and similar across national boundaries; and what we can learn from each other to better foster change through these literatures in our global and local spaces. Send 400 word abstracts or complete papers with abstracts as Word attachments to Deanna Utroske at deannautroske@gmail.com with “feminist sf submission” in the subject line.
Interdisciplinary Studies and Women Modernists: This panel explores interdisciplinary inquiry and its relationship to gender in modernism. How did non-literary disciplines influence the articulation of gender in the work of writers in this period? What lenses might the visual, aural, perfomative, sciences or social sciences provide for reading gender in literary modernism? Finally, what are the implications of such interdisciplinary or intermedia work for pedagogy and scholarship? Please submit 300-word abstracts to Laurel Harris, Graduate Center, CUNY, at laurel_e_harris@yahoo.com.
The Loudest Voice: Jewish American Women’s Literature: Is there a common, traceable voice in the writing of Jewish American women writers? This panel seeks papers that explore Jewish American women’s writing from the early 20th century to now and may include poets, fiction and non-fiction authors, and comic writers/artists. Papers can address individual authors, comparisons of works by several women, or comparisons across generations. What does this writing tell us about how Jewish identity has been conceived over the past century? Send 250-500 word abstracts to Tahneer Oksman, toksman@hotmail.com.
Narrating the Public Self: YouTube, Facebook, and Contemporary Feminism: This panel investigates the ideological work being done by public feminist intellectuals in the age of YouTube and Facebook. How have new social media configurations altered the intellectual practice of feminist advocacy? Topics and/or critical paradigms can include, but are certainly not limited to: feminism, memoir, politics, class, gender, critical race/reception/queer theory, literature, and poetry. Send 1-page abstract and brief bio as Word attachment to Rebecca Williams, rebelwill7@gmail.com, with “NEMLA” in subject line.
The Outsider Within: Women as Contingent Faculty in the Academy (Roundtable): This roundtable will explore the experiences of women in the academy who are teaching part time and off the tenure track. We will explore the discourse surrounding women’s work, the role of agency in women who are contingent faculty, and women’s status in higher education. The 3-6 participants in this session will give informal presentations (5-10 minutes) with the remainder of the session given to a conversation between the participants and the audience. Submit a 1-page abstract to Rhonda Filipan at Kent State University: rfilipan@kent.edu
The Power of Marginal Spaces in the Works of Carmen Martin Gaite: In the works of Carmen Martín Gaite, how do marginal spaces empower or debilitate? How do they figure in her ideas about history and feminism, aesthetics and politics? How can her ideas about marginality reposition her within a feminist canon from which she has been mostly excluded? Range of critical/theoretical approaches welcome. Send abstracts (500 words) for 15-minute papers to Elizabeth.Huergo@montgomerycollege.edu.
Representations of Gendered Transnational Identity in Contemporary Literature: Sponsored by the Women’s & Gender Studies Caucus. This year’s panel invites papers which analyze the ways that writers negotiate nationally-multiple, gendered identities. Writers such as Julia Alvarez, Sherman Alexie, and Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrate the ways that writing may vary greatly in response to the intersection of gender and transnational identity. Papers may consider any relevant writer or genre. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts to Kirsten Bartholomew Ortega at kortega@uccs.edu
Rethinking Second & Third Wave Feminisms (Roundtable): This rountable seeks to discuss what is and can be the relationship between second and third wave feminisms. Participants can explore a range of related questions, such as: What has been the relationship between the two? What needs to change in order for a productive relationship between the two?; What is currently problematic between the two?, and How have both the generational and wave metaphors made an alliance between the two difficult? Please send inquiries or 250-500 word abstracts to D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, lhallst@bu.edu
Simon de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex: Newly Translated and Rediscovered (Roundtable): Sixty years after its initial publication, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex has been newly translated and unabridged for the first time in English. How does this new translation provide fresh insights into this canonical text? How might it influence women’s studies today? This roundtable panel invites abstracts on the evaluation of de Beauvoir’s work and on the impact of the new translation on feminism and gender studies. Send abstracts in body of email to df@berkeleycollege.edu, with ‘The Second Sex’ in subject line.
Transnational Women’s Writing in 20th-century Europe: Taking Natalie Clifford Barney’s “Academy of Women” as an example of what Tirza Latimer characterizes as “women converging in Paris between the wars to establish the terms of on-going debates about representation, sexuality, and the politics of gender,” this panel will explore works written by women in Barney’s circle or works written within the broader context of transnational women’s writing in twentieth-century Paris. Please send 200-300 word abstracts and a CV to Chelsea Ray @ chelsea.d.ray@maine.edu.
We’re plotting our evil, feminist agenda: Women’s Documentaries: This panel will examine women’s documentaries, which often push the boundaries of reporting truth or capturing reality, as these works are often unconventional and hybrid in their form and content. Topics for the panel include, but are not limited to: travelogues, photo essays, scrapbooks, cookbooks, war journalism, letters, anthologies, graphic novels, autobiography, films, mixed media projects, etc. Please send inquiries or 250-500 word abstracts (as MSWord attachments) to Magdalena Bogacka, mbogacka@gc.cuny.edu.
When Motherhood Studies Meets Other Disciplines: This panel explores how feminist maternal scholarship or the study of motherhood challenges, changes, and/or supports other disciplines, theories, perspectives, and institutional policies, particularly in regard to women and professing. Topics can include: What institutional policies must change to accommodate mothers lives? How does motherhood studies challenge current intellectual theories? How does motherhood studies support other theories? Please send inquiries or 250-500 word abstracts to D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, lhallst@bu.edu
Women Writers and Psychoanalysis: This session is seeking paper submissions for a panel on American women writers’ responses to Freud. Submissions should address one of the following subjects: Revisions of Freudian texts; Alternatives to the Freudian model of psychoanalytic practice; Responses to Freud as a cultural figure; Writing psychoanalysis through form, style, and technique. Please email submissions to Kristina Marie Darling, KristinaMarieDarling@yahoo.com

Caucus Information

Description

The NeMLA Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus welcomes members interested in feminist scholarship, women’s studies, and the status of women in the profession. The Caucus organizes panels, promotes publication, and fosters the establishment of networks linking senior and junior faculty. CONCERNS, the quarterly journal of WCML, contains scholarly articles, personal essays, news of conferences, research in progress, and jobs.

Officers (2010-2011)

Past-President: Elaine Savory; Eugene Lang College, New School University; Department of Literature (Chair); Elaine Savory teaches at the New School University in Literary Studies.; She has published extensively on Caribbean and African literatures, and one of her major interests is gender and literature. Her most recent book is the Cambridge Introduction to Jean Rhys. She was Chair of Gender and Development Studies at the Barbados campus of the University of the West Indies and a founding faculty member in the program.; savorye@newschool.edu
President: Ellen Dolgin; Dominican College; English, Gender Studies (Chair); Teaching ranges from classical drama/literature to contemporary multicultural literature, and includes all genres. Recent book, Modernizing Joan of Arc: Conceptions, Costumes, & Canonization (2008) traces the images of Joan in women’s political activism as well as in literature and visual arts/film, with emphasis ca. 1790-1930.; ellen.dolgin@dc.edu
Vice President and Representative to the MLA: Kirsten Ortega; University of Colorado-Colorado Springs; English Department; Areas of Interest: Particularly interested in modern American urban poetry and the issues of gender and ethnicity that arise therein, she has published articles and given presentations on the work of Adrienne Rich and Gwendolyn Brooks, among others.; kortega@uccs.edu
Secretary: Johanna Rossi Wagner; The Pennsylvania State University; Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese; Areas of Interest: Italian postcolonial literature; historical trauma narratives; migration/transnational literature and theater; women writers; early 20th century visual culture and film. She has published and presented on 20th century Italian theater, Italian postcolonial women writers and colonial culture in East Africa.; jrwagnerpsu@gmail.com
Treasurer: Merry Lynn Byrd; Virginia State University; Department of Languages and Literature; Areas of Interest: Contemporary women’s autobiography and representations of race and gender in environmental literature.; mbyrd@vsu.edu
Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Representative to NeMLA: Sophie Lavin; SUNY Stony Brook; Department of English; Sophie Lavin is a doctoral student in English Literature. A former Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, she has taught undergraduate courses in both public and private universities and managed national gender violence initiatives. In addition to her undergraduate and graduate degrees, she possesses two French language certificates from the Sorbonne. Her academic areas include: Modernism, Victorian literature and Gender Studies. Sophie’s recent presentations include: “Women as Commodities in Black British Literature,” “Quaker Jane: Brontë’s Response to Empire,” “The Engagement of Scholarship and Family in Academe” and “Plowing the Empty Vessel in My Ántonia.” Sophie can be reached at: blavin@optonline.net

Business Meeting

At its annual meeting held at the NeMLA Convention hotel site, the Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus conducts elections for new officers and invites suggestions for speakers and topics for future NeMLA Conferences. For the Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus 2010 meeting, please sign up on conference registration.

Past Events

Recent Caucus-sponsored speakers:

Montreal 2010: Novelist Madeleine Monette presented selections from her recent text America is Also a Québec Novel

Boston 2009: Scholar Carole Boyce Davies (Cornell University), “Caribbean Women and the Black Radical Intellectual Tradition”

Buffalo 2008: Poet NourbeSe Philip, selections from and commentary on her remarkable poem Zong! (Wesleyan U Press, 2008). (Jointly sponsored with the CAITY Caucus)

Baltimore 2007: Novelist Elizabeth Nuñez, “The Women in Shakespeare‘s The Tempest: The Perspective of a Woman Novelist”

Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Best Essay Award

Criteria for all Caucus Essay Awards:

Submitted essays should be between 7,000 and 9,000 words (there is a 10,000 word limit, notes and works cited included). Unrevised paper presentations are not accepted and will be returned. The author's name, address, and academic affiliation should appear only on a separate cover sheet.

Each caucus prize offers a $100 cash award. Prize-winning essays will automatically be considered for publication by Modern Language Studies; all essays are subject to MLS’s double-blind review.

Winner of the Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Essay Prize, 2010

Daniel Moore, of Queens University, Kingston Ontario. The title of his essay is “Mourning the Mourners: Gender Politics of Commemoration in the First World War.”

Winner of the Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Essay Prize, 2009

Zach Hutchins, of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The title of his essay is “Eschewing Eve and Emulating Elizabeth: The Wisdom of Anne Bradstreet.”

Winner of the Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Essay Prize, 2008

Catherine Keyser, an Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. The title of her essay is “Keeping Ironic Company: Mary McCarthy and the Smart Woman in Politics.”

Membership

You can join the NeMLA Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus, and the Women’s Caucus of the MLA, by indicating your interest on the registration form when you join NeMLA or renew NeMLA membership.

Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Membership: $39
Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus Membership (graduate student and part-time): $14

Joint memberships are also available (includes one subscription to Concerns). Add $5.00 to a higher paying members’ dues. Membership in NeMLA Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus comes with a membership in WCML.