Women's Caucus

Description & Officers Panel CFP Breakfast and Business Meeting
Events Essay Award Membership

Description

The NeMLA Women's 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.

Women's Caucus Officers (2008-2009)

Past-President
Susan Muchshima Moynihan
University at Buffalo/SUNY
Department of English
Areas of Interest: Asian American literature, gender and feminist theory, autobiography studies
sm246@buffalo.edu
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
Vice President and Representative to the MLA
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
Secretary
Kirstin 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
Treasurer
Bill Waddell
St. John Fisher College
Department of English
Areas of Interest: Areas of interest include modernism, modern and contemporary poetry, and African American literature. He has recently edited a collection of essays on Adrienne Rich: "Catch if you can your country's moment": Recovery and Regeneration in the Poetry of Adrienne Rich (2007).
bwaddell@sjfc.edu
Women's Caucus Representative to NeMLA
Sophie Lavin
SUNY Stony Brook
Department of English
Sophie Lavin is a Ph.D. candidate 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. Her areas of interest include: women's and gender studies, postcolonial literature, the social-problem novel, modern literature and poetry, art and literature
blavin@optonline.net

Women's Caucus Panels

The following panels for the 2010 convention are listed under Women's Studies. (See the full CFP or jump to the Women's Studies area.)

Cross-referenced panels:

American: "The Adoption Memoir"; "Ah Got De Law in My Mouth': Black Women Writing Justice"; "Female Absence and the Expression of Black Masculinity in African-American Literature"; "Illness, Wellness, and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing"; "'Making Her Meaning Known': New Scholarship about Audre Lorde"; "(Re)Writing Anaïs Nin and Her Diaries"; "Rethinking Home: Representations of Male Domesticity"; "'This world only my body remembered': Women Writing Nature, Nation and Self"; "Zrá mó croi: Mapping the Moral Domain in Alice McDermott's Novels"

British: "The Future of Women's Literature in Modernist Studies Roundtable"; "Religious Argumentation in Women's Writing of the Mid- to Late Eighteenth Century"; "Shakespeare's Cougars"; "Uncovering the Irish Woman in Early 20th Century Fiction"; "Women and the Politics of the Vernacular"

Comparative Literatures: "Communal Modernisms"; "Women, Utopia and the Fantastic in 20th and 21st-century narratives"

French: "Beauvoir Reloaded: Possibilities and Dangers of 'The Second Sex'"; "Elles réécrivent leur(s) H/histoire(s): le particulier et le collectif dans la littérature maghrébine"; "Her Story: Telling Stories of French and Francophone Women's Lives"; "Madness in Women's French and Francophone Fiction"

Gay/Lesbian/Queer: "Ghostly Women & Apparitional Lesbians"

German: "Female Authors and Images of Femininity"; "Verena Stefan: From 'Radical Feminist" in "Häutungen" to "Feminism as Humanism" in "Fremdschläfer""; "Withdrawals. Debating Masculinities in German Literature and Media"

Russian: "Russian Women Writers: New Views"

Spanish: "The Articulate Silence of Women Authors/Literary Subjects in Early Modern Spain"; "Latin American Women's Writing and the Fantastic"; "Mujeres afro-descendientes en Latino América Seminar"; "Women Writing Spanish American Revolution(s)"

Being and Thinking as an Academic Mother: Theory and Narrative
While previous books and panels have examined being a mother academic from narrative or "lived experience" and others explored mother academics' experiences from a theoretical perspective, this panel will incorporate both narrative and theory. The panel will explore how both research and narrative can inform contemporary understandings of academic motherhood and will strengthen the dialogue among academic motherhood, intellectual ideas, and narrative. Please submit 200-300 word abstracts to D. Lynn O'Brien Hallstein at lhallst@bu.edu.
Classic and Contemporary American Girl Lit Board-Sponsored
Over the past century, American fiction for girls has evolved in parallel with its culture. In life and literature, girls have been transfigured from elegant-mannered doyennes to chippy problem-solvers. This panel will examine how classic and contemporary texts offer a continuum of expanded roles for girls, from wives-in-training to adventurers, detectives and heroines. Abstracts should examine specific text(s) that demonstration the historical progression of female empowerment through reading. Sophie Lavin SUNY Stony Brook blavin@optonline.net.
Literary Hostesses
This panel will address the role of the hostess in literature as a means to consider the gendered roles-social, domestic, political, economic, and otherwise-of women. Topics may include the figure of the hostess in literary works, as well as the writer as hostess. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts about the hostess as a literary figure to Meghan Gilbert-Hickey at mgilbert-hickey@tamu.edu.
Literary Motherhood in the New World
This panel seeks submissions of 200-400 words which focus on the relationship between a mother and her children and/or the social role of the mother in the New World in both racialized and non-racialized contexts. Submissions from literary works which draw from the New World-North and South American mainland as well as the Caribbean-are welcomed as are works which draw from both the colonial and postcolonial periods. Please send submissions to Kate Caccavaio <caccavai@msu.edu>.
National Identities in Twentieth Century Women's Writing
This panel will examine the intersection between nation and gender in recent postcolonial and ethnic American women's writing. How do women writers negotiate national identities in their texts? How do women writers deal with issues of crossing nations or borderlands? How do issues of transnationality, diaspora, and/or globalization complicate models of national identity in these literatures? Please submit 250-350 word abstracts to Ann Marie Alfonso-Forero at amaforero@gmail.com.
Recasting the Role: Older Women in Memoir and Drama Seminar Women's Caucus Session
'When did women "of a certain age" cease to be dowagers or harmless biddies? Conversely, have traditional roles of healers, "wise women," and mentors been preserved? This panel will address middle-aged to elderly women across cultures and examine our newer appreciation for their self-determination, evolving choices, and ways of growing as well as knowing. Papers should reflect the memoir's looking backward or the play's /screenplay's portrayal of mature "coming of age." Re-working of traditional mythological figures in contemporary drama can also be explored. 250-word proposals ellen.dolgin@dc.edu.
Traveling Alone: Women Migrating Across Cultures
The proposed panel will examine narratives that represent the experience of women who, traveling alone, leave their countries of origin for unknown new lives. Whether their decision comes from a desire to explore different places or whether their departure is imposed by oppressive cultures, these women have inspired artists, writers and filmmakers who have represented their pioneer spirit in works of art and fiction. This panel will examine the impact of gender on the representation of migrant women’s dreams as well as their experience in newly adopted countries. Papers will be accepted both in English and in French. Send 300 word abstracts to Jehanne-Marie Gavarini <jehannemarie_gavarini@uml.edu> by September 15, 2009.
Where Are We Now? The Evolution of Women's, Gender and Feminist Studies Roundtable
Ms. Magazine's 2009 "Guide to Women's Studies" cites 900 programs in the United States. This roundtable traces historical progressions and contemporary repositionings of Women's, Gender and Feminist Studies in the Academy, and examines the changing definitions, scholarship and issues impacting programs. Participants should incorporate research and selected themes that detail the evolution of Women's, Gender and Feminist Studies (2nd/3rd wave, Africana, feminist, gender, queer, spirituality, ecofeminist, sexuality, gender violence and gender disability, inclusivity issues and tolerance for divergent philosophies). 500-word abstracts/CV to Sophie Lavin <blavin@optonline.net>.

Breakfast and Business Meeting

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

Events

We will be planning additional Women's Caucus events for the 2010 conference. They will be posted on the webpage and in the program.

2010 Women's Caucus Best Essay Award

Women's Caucus Best Essay in Women's Language and Literature Award

The award is given for a 20-25 page essay based on a paper presented at the 2008 NeMLA Convention in Buffalo using women-centered approaches (concentrating on women characters or women authors, using feminist analysis). This essay may not be submitted to another journal for the duration of the award's deliberation. The winning paper will be considered for publication in Modern Language Studies.

Please send submissions to Elaine Savory: savorye@newschool.edu

Deadline: January 9, 2009

The author's name, address, and academic affiliation should appear only on a separate cover sheet.

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 Caucus Essay Prize, 2009

The winner of the Women's Caucus essay prize was 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 Caucus Essay Prize, 2008

The winner of the Women's Caucus essay prize was 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 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.

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