Women's Caucus

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 (2007-2008)

 

Past-President:

Name:     Joyce Harte

Institution:   Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY

Department/Program:  English Department (Deputy Chair)

Areas of Interest: Caribbean and postcolonial literature; concepts of home and homeland, loss and mourning

Email:    joyce_harte@yahoo.com  
 
President: 
Name:    Carine Mardorossian

Institution:   University at Buffalo/SUNY

Department/Program:   Department of English

Areas of Interest: Caribbean, postcolonial and feminist studies

Email:    cm27@buffalo.edu  
 
Vice President: 
Name:    Susan Muchshima Moynihan

Institution:   University at Buffalo/SUNY

Department/Program:  Department of English

Areas of Interest: Asian American literature, gender and feminist theory, autobiography studies

Email:    sm246@buffalo.edu 
 
Secretary: 
Name:     Elaine Savory

Institution:     Eugene Lang College, New School University

Department/Program:  Literature (Chair)

Areas of Interest: Caribbean, African and Postcolonial Literatures, especially women’s writing, poetry and drama; women’s studies

Email:    savorye@newschool.edu  
 
Treasurer: 
Name:    Bill Waddell

Institution:   St. John Fisher College

Department/Program:  Department of English

Areas of Interest: modern and contemporary poetry, sharing the pleasures of poetry with students, African American literature

Email:    bwaddell@sjfc.edu  
 

Women’s Caucus Representative to NEMLA: 
Name:    Lisa K. Perdigao

Institution:   Florida Institute of Technology

Department/Program:   Department of Humanities and Communication

Areas of Interest:  twentieth-century American literature, African American literature, literary theory, children’s and adolescent literature, popular culture

Email:    lperdiga@fit.edu  
 
Representatives to National WCML at MLA:   

Carine Mardorossian and Lisa Perdigao 

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Women's Caucus Panels

Panels of Interest from the 2009 CFP (click on a link to be taken to the listing on the CFP)

American Literature

• Activist Poetry / Poetic Activism, Kirsten Ortega, chair
• The "Breaking of Style" in Postmodern Poetry, Lisa Perdigao, chair
• Post-Feminist American Masculinity: Backlash and New Frontiers, Elizabeth Abele, chair
• Revisiting (Re)Memory: Re-evaluating Trauma and Nostalgia in Contemporary Multiethnic Literature, Shari Evans, chair
• "The simple fact of having lasted": America's Poet-Elders, Bill Waddell, chair
• The Transnational of National(ist) Discourse in Asian/American Literature, Susan Moynihan, chair

British/Anglophone Literature

• Body Building: Empire, Gender and Disability in Victorian Literature, Elizabeth Anderman, chair
• Gothic Excess, Claudia Stumpf, chair

Canadian Literature

• Beyond Green Gables, Rita Bode, chair

Caribbean Literature

• Caribbean Poetry: Tradition and Innovation, Elaine Savory, chair
• Frantz Fanon Carine Mardorossian, chair

French and Francophone Literature

• Europe at the Turn of the 19th Century: Universal or National? Martina Lüke and Barbara van Feggelen, chairs

Gay/Lesbian Literature

• Narratives of Passing in Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Literature, Lisa Perdigao, chair

German Literature

• Humorous Strategies in Post-Unification German Literature and Film Barbara Mabee, chair

Pedagogy

• Teaching English to Non-Majors, Julie Strongson, chair

Popular Culture

• Fins-de-siecles: Narrative Form in the Victorian and Postmodern Serial, Anne Moore, chair
• Those Who Do Not Study History Are Doomed to Watch Repeats, Julie Flynn, chair

Theory

• Intersections between Orality and Postcolonial Theory, Pamela Haji, chair
• Literary Modernism and Modern Art: Intersections of Creativity, Jane Wood, chair

Women's Studies

• American Suffrage Literature: Fostering a Field, Angela Mills, chair
• Global Perspectives on Women and Myth, Dolores DeLuise, chair
• In Word or Deed: Global Women's Unauthorized Modes of Communication, Ellen Dolgin, chair
• Postfeminism and the Future(s) of Feminist Film and Media Studies, Marcelline Block, chair

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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 2008 Breakfast, please sign up on conference registration.

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Events

We will be planning additional Women’s Caucus events for the 2008 conference. They will be posted on the webpage and in the program.

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2008 Women's Caucus Best Essay Award

Call for Papers:

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

Given for a 20-25 page essay based on a paper presented at 2007 NEMLA Convention in Baltimore using women’s centered approaches (concentrating on women characters or women authors, using feminist analysis). The 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: Carine Mardorossian  cm27@buffalo.edu                    

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.

 

Winners of the Women's Caucus Essay Prize, 2007

The winner of the Women's Caucus essay prize was Shari Evans, an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.  The title of her essay is  "Fortress, Haven, Home:  Programmed Space, Themed Space, and the Ethics of Home in Toni Morrison's Paradise."  The runner-up was Lynn Johnson, Dickinson College.

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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.   

Women’s Caucus Membership and Breakfast (full time)  $43

Women’s Caucus Membership      $33

Women’s Caucus Membership (graduate student and part-time) $7

Women’s Caucus Breakfast       $17

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.

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