Conferences, Calls for Papers and Events Listings

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Evening Course: University of Liverpool Centre for Lifelong Learning, Women's Rights- Women's Wrongs: Suffrage, Protest & Reform c1860-1928, 10 weekly meetings from Jan 26, 6-8pm, 126 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool

Women's emancipation divided opinion among both sexes in Victorian and Edwardian England. This short adult education course explores the antecedents and ideologies of the 19th and early 20th century women's movement and ask why the campaign for female suffrage took so long to achieve its aims. Credits towards a University award are optional.

Fees £74 or £44 (concessions). Please enrol by calling 0151 794 6900, preferably by the closing date of Monday January 13 2012. For more information please contact Dr Claire Jones, clairegj@liv.ac.uk or visit the Centre for Lifelong Learning History web or www.liv.ac.uk/conted

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Seminar: Women's Studies Group 1558, Saturday January 28 2012, 2-5.30pm, at Room 273, Stewart House, University of London.

Carl Thompson:  Maria Graham. Maria Graham as an Early 19th-Century 'Woman of Letters': A Missing Link in the History of Women's Literary Professionalism?; Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi: ‘Literary Networks: George Eliot, M. E. Braddon and Public Renown’; Jackie Mulhallen: ‘Eliza O’Neill and the Art of Acting’.

All welcome; for information please visit www.womensstudiesgroup.org.uk

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Call for Papers: Women, the Arts and Activism, Friday-Saturday 2-3 March 2012, Sarah Laurence College, New York.

Historically, women have been seen and represented as protectors and transmitters of culture, yet, although some women gained recognition as artists, many more struggled to be seen, heard, and taken seriously.  As in other disciplines, women bring their own diverse voices and points of view to the canvass, writing table, music stand, stage, and street.  From Renaissance painters to contemporary hip hop and performance artists, women represent their particular journeys as singular personalities and as members of various groups.  Whoever they are and from wherever they hail, their expression expands our global understanding of women’s history.  Additionally, The women’s history conference at its core is about women’s activism. Throughout time, women have used their artistic expression as a method of activism. This year we will explore the ways in which women have used their art as means of liberation.

We invite the submission of proposals for papers, panels, workshops and performances that express the extremely diverse nature of the story of women in the arts and their activism, from ancient to modern/postmodern from all areas of the arts. Specific topics may include, but are not limited to: Women in the Black Arts Movement; Women’s Social Protest Expressed Through the Arts; Arts and Race; Women, Art and Sexuality; The Role of Women’s Artistic Expression in War and Revolution; Women’s Artistic Expression Across Cultures; Women in Literature.

Please include a short description of each presentation and a one-page c.v. for each presenter.  Proposals for whole panels or workshops are especially welcome, but we will also consider individual papers. Send proposals to: tjames@slc.edu<mailto:tjames@slc.edu> Deadline:  Monday, December 5, 2011. This conference is free and open to the public.

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Call for papers: Women, Health and Welfare, WHN Southern Spring Meeting, Saturday 17 March, Kingston University.

The topic is deliberately broad to encourage a wide range of papers and participants interested in the history of women’s health and welfare. In resonance with the CHR’s (Centre for theHistorical Record) remit to promote public history, the conference seeks to identify themes from history which resonate with women’s experiences of health and welfare today, and can inform policy makers. Proposals for papers are invited that relate to women either as receivers or providers of health and welfare, in any time period. We are particularly interested in papers which discuss these twin themes in women’s history in the context of public history, which may include a discussion of available archival sources and records. Conference themes might include but are not limited to:
Women and Health
Physical health – different understandings of ‘illness’ and the medicalisation of women’s bodies. Mental health - changing ideas about treatment and perceptions of women’s relationship with their inner selves. Sexuality and medical discourse.
Women and Welfare
The impact of welfare policy on women; The impact of women on welfare policy; Women as consumers of welfare.
Public History
How can women’s history direct or inform modern media debates in matters relating to women’s health and welfare? How can women’s history help inform current policy on women’s health and welfare? How well is women’s health represented in archives; and discussions on accessibility to relevant records?

Please send a proposal of 250 words and a short biographical note to Sue Hawkins (s.e.hawkins@kingston.ac.uk) or Nicola Phillips (n.phillips@kingston.ac.uk). The deadline for the submission of proposals is 16 January, 2012.

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Call for Papers: 'Thinking through Time and History in Feminism', Birkbeck Institute for Social Research Colloquium, 23 March 2012, Birkbeck, University of London.

There has been an emergent call within the field of gender and feminist studies to consider themes that might be broadly situated under the umbrella term of “temporality”. Nostalgic and apocalyptic narratives of feminism abound in both popular culture and academic writing, with feminism’s death or out-datedness being the dominant narrative. Countering these narratives is crucially about unravelling the logic that makes them viable as well as interrupting their production. Explorations of alternative narratives have productively emerged from work in the field of collective and personal memory, new technologies as they impact feminist organizing, and creative activism and archival practices. There is a continued political need to explore alternative mechanisms of telling feminist time, alternative relationships to be forged with the recent and historical past and alternative means for considering how feminism might forge a future for itself both in and out of the academy.

This colloquium aims to provide the opportunity for an interdisciplinary, creative and exploratory approach to time and history in feminism. We welcome contributions from academics, artist and activists working in the area. Contributions could include but are not limited to, paper presentations, digital media, photography, film, poetry and performance. Contributions could consider, but are by no means limited to, some of the following questions:

How does the personal, social and collective memory of the feminist past create, sustain, or challenge feminism in the present?
How might we forge relationships between temporal periods that resist generational affects of duty or shame?
How might remembering and forgetting occur not only within the spaces of activism and the institution, but also between them?
How can we think critically about how, for example, citing, course building, and curating are practices of remembering and forgetting?
How might feminist activists, artists and theorists respond to the narratives of ‘the death of feminism’ or the ‘post-feminist’ era?
How does time, and the various ways we think of it, both enable and constrain politics?
Is the time of activism the same as the time of the institution?
What are the theoretical and methodological challenges of working within feminist archives?
How can we account for the multiple and diverse voices that comprise ‘feminism’ and the relationships between these voices? How can the use of creative methodologies enable the exploration of these issues?

Please submit a 200 word abstract by 25 November 2011 to Carly Guest and Sam McBean at bisrcolloquium2012@gmail.com. If you have any questions, please contact us.

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Call for papers: Gender and Irish Society in the 19th and 20th Century: New Perspectives and New Ideas, 23 & 24 March 2012, National University of Ireland, Galway

This two-day interdisciplinary conference, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences ‘New Ideas’ Scheme, will examine the theme of gender in Irish society in the 19th and 20th centuries. The conference will take place at the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies at the National University of Ireland Galway and bring together academics, early career researchers and postgraduates working in the fields of history, gender studies, children studies, English literature, sociology, film studies and related areas.

One of the aims of the conference is to produce an edited volume which will include chapters on gender incorporating a wide variety of issues. This collection of essays will represent the most up-to-date research in gender studies in Ireland with authors taking a fresh look at gendered topics. Potential paper topics may include but are not limited to:Gender and history; Gender and science, medicine and technology; Gender and education; Gender and human rights; Gender and sociology; Gender and literature; Gender and Irish studies; Gender and legal studies; Gender and religion; Gender and children’s studies; Gender and philanthropy; Representations of masculinity and femininity in 19th and 20th century Ireland and The future of gendered themes within the humanities: is gender a valuable mode of investigation?

Abstract proposals (approx. 300 words) are to be submitted to Dr. Laura Kelly at genderandirishsociety2012@gmail.com by 13 February 2012. Invitations to present at the conference will be sent by the end of February 2012. After the conference, selected conference speakers will be invited to submit their papers as chapters of the proposed edited volume. More details will soon be available on the conference website: http://genderandirishsociety2012.com

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Call for papers: Women on the Home Front, WHN Midlands and University of Worcester, Saturday 24 March 2012, National Memorial Aboretum, Staffordshire.

In the twentieth century wars were fought not just on the battlefield but on the Home Front; in the factories, shops, kitchens, gardens, halls and cinemas of Britain. This conference is intended to critically explore the myths, memories and histories of women’s lives on the Home Front in the First and Second World War.
Potential topics may include but are not restricted to: Women’s work; Cooking and food production; Domesticity and evacuation; Women’s organisations; Fashion and clothing; Women’s lives and leisure; Film, radio and magazines.

We invite submissions of proposals for papers that explore any aspect of women lives on the Home Front in the First and Second World War. Abstracts of 250 words  should be sent via email to  Dr Maggie Andrews  by 15 January 2012  maggie.andrews@worc.ac.uk

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Call for papers: Displaced Women: Multilingual narratives of migration in Europe, 29 March 2012, Glasgow Women's Library

This interdisciplinary conference will provide a forum for discussion of the issues facing women who have moved from one culture to another and have as a result adopted in their daily lives and for their creative work a language other than their ‘mother tongue’. We will look at the creative, linguistic, economic and psychological effects of this displacement. The critical examination of women’s narratives in Europe (fiction, poetry, diaries, memoirs, pamphlets), from a literary perspective will be complemented by sessions looking at these issues from a historical, political and sociological perspective. The broad nature of this conference provides an excellent opportunity for exchange between researchers in different disciplines who do not always have the chance to come together
(literature, cultural studies, social sciences, history etc).

Abstracts in English of no more than 300 words should be sent to Lucia Aiello (L.Aiello@sheffield.ac.uk), Joy Charnley (j.charnley@phonecoop.coop) and Mariangela Palladino (p.mariangela@googlemail.com). Papers should be 20 minutes in length and accessible to a multidisciplinary audience. Proposals for thematic workshops are also welcome. Deadline: 29 April 2011

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Call for papers: ‘The stress of life’ : Gender, Emotions and Health  after the Second World War, 2 – 3 April 2012, Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter

In 1952, Hans Selye published a best-selling book on the relationship between stress and disease.  Based largely on the results of his own laboratory experiments on the role of pituitary and adreno-cortical hormones in the mediation of stress reactions, Selye’s account of biological stress was neither new nor universally accepted.  Nevertheless, The Stress of Life captured the imagination of post-war populations struggling to reconstruct families, communities and societies torn apart by the traumas of global conflict and threatened by the politics of the Cold War. 

Funded by the Wellcome Trust, this international conference seeks to bring together historians of medicine with scholars of social, cultural, gender and economic history to analyse not only the manner in which links between emotions and health were formulated and substantiated during the post-war decades, but also how the stress of life was variably articulated and experienced in the aftermath of the war.  Papers are invited to address any aspect of the following broad themes in any geographical location: Work, home and health; Gender and stress; Mind, body and health; The psychosocial determinants of ill-health and Stress.

Please provide a title and 250 word abstract by 1 October 2011. Contact Claire Keyte at the Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ or by email at c.e.keyte@exeter.ac.uk.

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Call for Papers: Social History Society Annual Conference, Tuesday 3 - Thursday 5 April 2012, University of Brighton

The Society's conference has no single theme. It is organised in strands: Deviance, Inclusion and Exclusion; Life-cycles and Life-styles; Markets, Culture and Society; Political Cultures, Policy and Citizenship; Narratives, Emotions and the Self; Spaces and Places and Theory and Methods.

We encourage submissions of panels of up to 4 speakers. Proposals for individual papers of up to 20 minutes are, of course, also welcome.
Postgraduate students are encouraged to offer papers. Details of bursaries and the postgraduate paper prize are available on the conference website. Papers presented at the conference can be submitted to the Society´s journal, Cultural and Social History, to be considered for publication. For details, see http://www.socialhistory.gellius.net/Journal.php. 

General enquiries should be sent to: Mrs. Linda Persson, Administrative Secretary, Social History Society, Furness College, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YG (01524 592547; l.persson@lancaster.ac.uk).  Deadline: 26 October 2011.

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Call for papers: Moving Dangerously: Women and Travel, 1850-1950, 13-14 April 2012, University of Newcastle.

The period between 1850 and 1950 is widely acknowledged to have been one of dramatic societal and cultural change, not least in terms of women's experience of and relationship to travel. The rapid expansion of the travel networks both nationally and internationally towards the end of the nineteenth century coincided with the impact of first wave feminism, as the suffragette movement gathered momentum and the figure of the New Woman appeared. By 1950, new forms of technology and transport, and their widespread availability, had substantially altered women's perception of and ability to travel.

This two-day international and interdisciplinary conference invites papers that explore the changing relationship of women and travel across key moments in modernity, such the First World War and its effects on women's independence, the developments in British Imperial activity, and the boom in rail, air and sea travel. The conference aims to stimulate academic discussion on a range of topics relating to women and travel in the period ranging from 1850-1950. These topics include representations of women and travel in fiction and film, non-fictional portrayals and documentations, as well as archival work on first-hand accounts of women travellers. As such, we welcome papers from those working in the fields of Literature, History, Geography, Film and Media, Modern Languages, Gender/Women's Studies, and Politics.

Potential paper topics might include considerations of: both published and unpublished travel-writings by women of the period; fictional accounts of travel written by women throughout the period; representations of women travellers in contemporary biography; representations of women and travel during the period in fiction and film, and the benefits of archival research into women and travel on contemporary understandings of women's role in modernity.

Please send abstracts of 250 words for 20 minute papers by 30 November 2011to:
moving@ncl.ac.uk .

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Call for papers: Histories and Archives of Women Religious: Vocation, Education and Care, 21-22 June 2012, University College Dublin.

Paper proposals are invited for the annual conference of the History of Women Religious in Britain and Ireland. Presentations should be 20 minutes in duration and address some element of the conference theme with reference to British and/or Irish contexts or relations.

Proposals (300 words) and biographical details by Friday 30 December 2011 to deidre.raftery@ucd.ie and/or louise.oreilly@nuim.ie

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Call for papers: Women and Local Activism after the Vote was Won, West of England and South Wales Women's History Network, Saturday 30 June 2012, Bath

The annual conference will be held on Saturday 30 June 2012 at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, Queen Square, Bath. Papers are invited that address issues of how women acted as citizens, at a local level, once they had gained enfranchisement. Both activism and the local can be defined broadly. For example spheres of activism could include local government, work for political parties, women only organisations or voluntary groups. The relationship between various activities or between the local and the national /international would be of interest. Proposals that look at countries other than Britain will also be welcome.

Abstracts of up to 300 words should be sent to June Hannam and Katherine Holden by 4th March 2012 to June.Hannam@uwe.ac.uk and                                         katherineuna.holden@googlemail.com

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Call for Papers: Home/Land: Women, Citizenship & Photographies, 2-7 July 2012, The School of Arts, Loughborough University.

Home/Land is an interdisciplinary conference that asks what dialogues might be engendered, globally and locally, around concepts of citizenship and belonging by engaging with women’s photographic practices. In the terms of this conference, ‘photographic practices’ may include both historical and contemporary work, still and/or moving image, derived from fine art and social science contexts and embracing genres such as portraiture, landscape, documentary and installation.

We invite papers and presentations from theoreticians, historians and/or practising artists on the issues raised by this theme, which may include:
How questions of sexual and other forms of difference impact upon the geopolitics of citizenship; how the imaged communities formed through multiple modes of photographic practice inform, unform or reform notions of ‘home’; and how women’s photographies redefine personal and communal identities in relation to the politics of ‘land’.

Send abstracts of no more than 300 words accompanied by a brief biographical statement (150 words) to Marion Arnold (M.Arnold@lboro.ac.uk) & Marsha Meskimmon (M.G.Meskimmon@lboro.ac.uk) by 11th November 2011. Where presentations are focused upon artists’ work or practice-led research, please include no more than 10 low-res images or a small quick-time file – maximum file size of total: 2MB.

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Call for papers: Disability and the Victorians, Confronting Legacies, 30 July - 1 August 2012, Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, Leeds Trinity University College

The 19C was the period during which disability was conceptualised, categorised and defined. The industrial revolution, advances in medicine, the emergence of philanthropy and the growth of asylums all played their part in creating what today's society describes as the medical model of disability. Disability can be traced through many forms: in material culture and literary genres; scientific, medical and official enquiries; art, architecture; the history of disabled charities; disabled people's experiences; the legacies of phrenology and physiognomy; events such as the 1880 Milan conference, and the taxonomies of disability; the intersection of disability, theories of evolution and anthropology, gender and degeneration. How can we draw disabled voices and testimonies together to consturct 'the long view'? What are the advantages and challenges of teaching about disability and the disabled in the Victorian period?

For information please contact Karen Sayer, k.sayer@leedstrinity.ac.uk (a fuller call is also available).

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Conference, 'Blessed Virago': The International Mysticism of Jane Lead, 10.00-16.00, 8 September 2012, London EC3

Unlike other women in the pantheon of English mystics like Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, the seventeenth-century visionary Jane Lead is far from a household name. And yet her writings, first published in English between 1681 and 1702, have enjoyed a remarkably wide and enduring circulation, influencing the international Pietist movement as well as prophecy movements in the nineteenth century and Pentecostal readers in the twentieth. This day colloquium aims to bring together leading experts on English radicalism but also mystical religion in Europe more widely, to examine Lead's context and networks, and the significance of her reception.

Keynote speakers: Prof. Nigel Smith, Princeton University and Prof. Phyllis Mack, Rutgers University Venue: The Hoxton Hotel, Shoreditch, Great Eastern St, London EC2A 3HU. Contact: Dr Sarah Apetrei, Theology Faculty, Oxford. Contact: sarah.apetrei@keble.ox.ac.uk: For registration visit the colloquium web.

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Call for papers: Women and Science, Annual Conference of Midlands WHN, November (exact date tbc) University of Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester WR2 6AJ

The University of Worcester’s annual Women’s History Conference seeks papers for next year’s event under the heading of ‘Women and Science’.  Potential topics may include, but are not restricted to: Scientific Women – papers that evaluate the female experience within the scientific community and/or institutions. The Science of Women – papers that analyse the biological construction/s of femininity; the medical treatment of women and the idea of “women’s illnesses”.Science and Feminism – papers that explore how science has contributed to (or frustrated) the development of feminism.

We invite you to submit a paper based on your current research in the field of Women and Science.  We welcome submissions on any country and in any historical period.

Send an abstract of 300 words to Dr Wendy Toon w.toon@worc.ac.uk by October 1st 2012.

 

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