Highlights from the 2011 Convention
Stephanie Li, “The Gospel According to Toni Morrison.” Stephanie Li is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Rochester. Her research addresses the intersections of gender, race and class, which is exemplified by her two recent publications: Signifying Without Specifying: Racial Discourse in the Age of Obama (Rutgers UP, Fall 2011) and “Something Akin to Freedom: The Choice of Bondage in Narratives by African American Women” (SUNY Press, 2010). “Something Akin to Freedom” won the First Book Prize in African American Studies. She has also published a brief biography of Toni Morrison (Greenwood Press, 2009). Stephanie’s talk is linked with two American panels “New Approaches to the Contemporary Narrative of Slavery I” and “New Approaches to the Contemporary Narrative of Slavery II”.
The following sessions at the 2012 convention are listed in the Women’s and Gender Studies area:
Issues of Mobility and Confinement in Women’s Literature I 3.15
Gender in a Postnational Context I 3.16
Corporeal Borderlands: Food Narratives and the Female Body II 4.12
Issues of Mobility and Confinement in Women’s Literature II 5.23
Gender in a Postnational Context II 5.24
No Man Left Behind: Homosocial Masculine Obligations in American War Literature 6.12
International Eating: Women’s Global Food Stories 6.16
Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex: Newly Translated and Rediscovered 6.23
Speechifying Women: Multi-Pronged Legacy from the Rochester Circle 7.06
Women and Spirituality: Ministries 7.23
Best Practices in Women’s & Gender Studies Programs 8.01
Corporeal Borderlands: Food Narratives and the Female Body I 8.11
From Xena to the Powerpuff Girls: The Gender Politics of the Female Action Hero 8.18
Postmodern Fiction and Gender Equality 9.15
Maternal Hauntings: Feminine Spectral Identities in Asian-American Literature 9.16
Masculinity and Consumerism 10.11
Representations of Femininities and Masculinities in Translation 11.22
Women’s & Gender Studies Caucus Board Meeting 11.25
Teaching Literary Studies in the Women’s and Gender Studies Classroom 12.12
New Approaches to Old Texts: Studying Medieval and Early Modern Women and Gender 12.17
20th Century Irish Women Writers I 13.02
Re-Assessing the ‘Crisis of Masculinity’ in American Culture and in the Academy 13.10
‘Of Queen’s Gardens’: Victorian Ecofeminism 13.24
Women’s & Gender Studies Film Screening 14.20
Middlebrow and Alternative Modernisms 15.03
Masculinity in Superhero Comic Books and Films I 15.20
Women’s & Gender Studies Speaker 16.04
Masculinity in Superhero Comic Books and Films II 17.12
20th Century Irish Women Writers II 17.16
The NeMLA WGS Caucus is launching a two-semester pilot mentoring program for junior faculty and doctoral students. For more information or other inquiries contact Johanna Rossi Wagner at jrwagnerpsu@gmail.com.
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.
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.
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”
The NeMLA Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus invites submissions for the “Best Essay in Women’s and Gender Studies Award.” The award is given for a paper presented at any session of the 2011 NEMLA Convention using women and/or gender-centered approaches. This essay may not be submitted to another contest for the duration of the award’s deliberation. The winning paper will be considered for publication in Modern Language Studies.
Send entries to Kirsten Ortega, President, NeMLA Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus: kortega@uccs.edu by 15 January 2012 with “NeMLA WGS Essay Prize Submission” in the header.
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. If this information appears elsewhere, the submission will be disqualified.
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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.