CFP: MLA '14 Women in Literature (5/9/2014; 1/8-11/2015)

MLA 2014, Section: Women in Literature

Vancouver, Canada

January 8-11, 2015

Deadline: May 9, 2014

Topic: Gendered Spaces; Gendered Places: Women’s Lives in the City

“Places are not merely discrete, rooted phenomena; they are ever evolving outcomes of social relationships that span and link regional, national, and even global geographies” (Altha J. Cravey and Michael Petit, “A Critical Pedagogy of Place: Learning Through the Body” 108).

In Space, Place and Gender, Doreen Massey rejects the idea that space is fixed and apolitical. Drawing in part on Marxist feminists, she posits instead that “space is constituted through social relations and material social practices” (254). Not only is space constructed through the social for Massey, but the converse is also true: “the social is spatially constructed too, and that makes a difference…in its broadest formulation, society is necessarily constructed spatially, and that fact—the spatial organization of society—makes a difference to how it works” (254). In other words, the spaces we inhabit produce the societies in which we live—all the while the societies in which we live socially construct the spaces we inhabit. This establishes the kind of web of intra-action between humans and others that can be traced through the recent theoretical work of Donna Haraway and new materialist feminists like Karen Barad and Stacy Alaimo. It also holds major implications for thinking about how spaces and places are active in women’s lives and women’s literature.

Using the concept of spaces and places as active participants in the lives of humans, and in accordance with the conference’s theme of “The Lives of Cities,” this panel seeks papers that explore the issues of space and place in women’s literary texts. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: gendered spaces and/or places, queer spaces, metaphorical spaces, urban autobiography and/or memoir, representations of gender within the space/place of a narrative, globalization and gender, historical representations of urban spaces in women’s literature, issues of performance and performativity in relation to urban space, and place-based approaches to teaching women’s literature.

Please submit 250-word abstracts and a brief 100-word bio to Meg Gregory at magrego@ilstu.edu by May 9, 2014.  Chair: Meg Gregory, Illinois State University

Workshop: Locating Women in Victorian Print Culture (6/13/2013)

Locating women in Victorian print culture

Thursday 13 June 2013

R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick

A workshop co-organised by the University of Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Study and the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies.

Speakers:

Laurel Brake (Birkbeck, University of London) 

Beth Palmer (University of Surrey)
Margaret Beetham (University of Salford)
Tara Puri (University of Warwick) 

The last few decades have seen an increasing interest in nineteenth century print culture. This workshop aims to build on this recent scholarship by bringing together academics working on different aspects of Victorian periodicals. The papers will focus both on questions of gender and genre, as well as the methodological challenges presented by these capacious and diverse entities. Beginning with inquiries as basic as what constitutes a periodical, the papers will explore questions like: What is women’s role as editors, contributors, and readers of these periodicals? How does the form and the multi-generic nature of the periodical shape its reading? And where do women’s magazines fit into women’s literary history?

Programme:

• 11.00 - 11.30:  Welcome and coffee
• 11.30 - 13.30:  Laurel Brake, Young Oxford in Print 1869-1889. The (Humphry) Wards and the (Walter) Paters. Beth Palmer, Locating the editor in women's literary magazines 
• 13.30 - 14.30:  Lunch
• 14.30 - 16.30:  Margaret Beetham, Sable Sisters, Missionary Wives, and Bad Mothers: Domestic Femininity in Victorian Religious Periodicals. Tara Puri, Thinking about materiality in women’s magazines 
• 16.30 - 17.00:  Closing remarks
• 17.00:  Wine reception 

Please note:

Attendance at the workshop is free and lunch is provided. However, numbers are limited so please email Tara Puri to register: T.Puri@warwick.ac.uk. 

Two travel bursaries are available for postgraduate students to attend the workshop. If you would like to be considered, please submit a short outline of your research.

CFP: Navigating Networks: Women, Travel, and Female Communities (4/1/2013; 10/4/2013)

In the field of travel studies, the past two decades have witnessed an ever-growing interest in women’s travel writing. One aim of scholars has been to counter stereotypical assumptions about travel and travel writing being a principally masculine enterprise, emphasising instead that the perception of the gendering of travel is to a large extent a misconception, an ideological construct that assumes the notion of gendered separate spheres. This day-­long conference seeks to move beyond the already established fact that women travelled far more than the patriarchal ideology of separate spheres would suggest. It aims to delve further into the rich topic of women’s travel and travel writing practices by examining the ways in which women navigated female networks and created communities with one another, both through their travels and travel writing. In doing so, it will draw upon the notion of travel as a means of building networks and fostering connections with others. Through an examination of various female travel networks, this conference seeks to explore further the significance of women’s travel throughout the ages, including the opportunities for communication it fostered and the unique privileges that it cultivated.

We invite papers that address the topic of women’s travel networks in any historical period. We welcome discussion on any of the following: nonfictional or literary accounts; diaries; letters; articles; films; documentaries; photographs; and paintings.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

The Act of Travel

• women travelling in groups, independently of men (‘unprotected’ female travellers, spinsters abroad)
• access to exclusively female spaces abroad (harems, baths, spas, circles of gossip)
• development of alliances between the female traveller and the female local
• issues of ‘othering’ – do women have an imperial agenda or do they sympathise with foreign women?
• bonds of sisterhood, friendship, and partnerships
• communities of female expats; salons and social scenes abroad
• feminine self-­fashioning: creation of female travel identities abroad
• negative associations with female travel networks: women’s aversion to being lumped together with other female travellers; their desire to break free from collective identities and stereotypes

Recording Travels

• female literary communities developed through the practice of travel and writing
• female travel writers’ engagement with one another’s texts
• female reception to travel texts
• modern travel blogs
• travelogues, advice books, or periodical pieces aimed at female readers/ travellers
• similar stylistic characteristics of women’s travel writing
• shared attitudes, interests, and goals in women’s travel writing

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words (for papers of 20 minutes) to Hannah Sikstrom and Kimberly Marsh at <travelculturesseminar@gmail.com> by 1 April 2013.

Travel Cultures is an interdisciplinary seminar series at the University of Oxford for anyone with an interest in inter-­cultural communication, exploration, and travel writing.

Deadline Extended: Violent Women in 19th-Century England (12/15/2012)

Deadline Extended for the CFP on Violent Women in 19th-Century England
New Deadline: 15th December 2011

The number of women who are victims of crime has always been higher than the number of women partaking as offenders. However, women were very often involved with crime- not always petty in nature. Previous research in women and crime in 19^th-century England has focused attention on the lives of women who committed crimes such as infanticide, or the social and economic situations that led to their working in the sex industry, and in doing so have explored the lives and times of women in 19^th-century England. This collection aims to write more women back into the criminal record by focusing on those women who committed violent crimes during this period. This collection asks what narratives were created about these women (and possibly their femininity), what were societal and cultural responses to these women and crimes, and what methodologies are employed by scholars to reveal the stories about women who have, until now, been ignored or overlooked?

Possible topics (but by no means limited to this list):

• Treatment of violent women by the courts early, mid- and late nineteenth century (changes to the punishment of violent offenders, perceptions in the courtroom of violent offenders)
• New methodologies by which we could study violent female criminals in the nineteenth century
• Possible crimes these violent women partook in: women who were part of street gangs; women involved in violent robberies; women who murdered for commission, revenge or jealousy; women who were involved in abductions, blackmail or extortion; women who were serial killers
• Violent women from the working vs middle or upper classes (outside of the traditional Madeline Smith; Constance Kent and Florence Maybrick cases): representations, responses to them
• Narratives from the offenders themselves and how they saw their place in English society, the significance of their crime, how they saw themselves as women etc.
• Newspaper narrative creation about violent female offenders
• Social changes that women’s crimes were in answer to

Entries to this collection will be in the range of 7,000-9,000 words due in early June 2012.

Currently am in talks with Routledge series editors about publication of this collection

Please send abstracts (250 words) and short bio by 15th December 2011 to vicnagy AT gmail.com OR vicky.nagy@monash.edu

CFP: Violent Women in 19th-Century England (Collection) (11/12/2011)

The number of women who are victims of crime has always been higher than the number of women partaking as offenders.  However, women were very often involved with crime - not always petty in nature. Previous research in women and crime in 19th century England has focused attention on the lives of women who committed crimes such as infanticide, or the social and economic situations that led to their working in the sex industry, and in doing so have explored the lives and times of women in 19th century England. This collection aims to write more women back into the criminal record by focusing on those women who committed violent crimes during this period.  This collection asks what narratives were created about these women (and possibly their femininity), what were societal and cultural responses to these women and crimes, and what methodologies are employed by scholars to reveal the stories about women who have, until now, been ignored or overlooked?

Possible topics (but by no means limited to this list):

• Treatment of violent women by the courts early, mid- and late nineteenth century (changes to the punishment of violent offenders, perceptions in the courtroom of violent offenders)
• New methodologies by which we could study violent female criminals in the nineteenth century
• Possible crimes these violent women partook in: women who were part of street gangs; women involved in violent robberies; women who murdered for commission, revenge or jealousy;  women who were involved in abductions, blackmail or extortion; women who were serial killers
• Violent women from the working vs middle or upper classes (outside of the traditional Madeline Smith;  Constance Kent and Florence Maybrick cases): representations, responses to them
• Narratives from the offenders themselves and how they saw their place in English society, the significance of their crime, how they saw themselves as women etc.
• Newspaper narrative creation about violent female offenders
• Social changes that women’s crimes were in answer to

Entries to this collection will be in the range of 7,000-9,000 words due in early June 2012.
Please send abstracts (250 words) and short bio by 12th November 2011 to vicnagy AT gmail.com