CALL FOR AUTHORS

Celebrating Women in American History

5-Volume Illustrated Reference Series

Golson Media are inviting academic editorial contributors to a new series of social and cultural history reference books for the high-school and college library market. The two available chapters are ’Marriage and Family’ for volumes 3: 1900 to 1937: Emerging Roles in the Progressive Era and Great Depression and 4: 1938 to 1960: Expanding Social Roles and Postwar Activism.

Celebrating Women in American History will be published by Facts On File, Inc., and is a production of Golson Media.  Elizabeth Purdy, Ph.D., serves as General Editor, reviewing all submissions for historical accuracy and acceptability.

Each chapter is assigned as 6,000 words, including sidebars and bibliographies. Deadline for submission is August 3, 2009. A $250 honorarium is paid for each chapter.

If you would like to contribute to building a truly outstanding reference on our ethnic heritage, please contact Susan Moskowitz (Managing Editor, Author Recruitment) at sue@golsonmedia.com. Please provide a brief summary of your academic/publishing credentials.

Conference Report

7^th European Feminist Research Conference, Utrecht, 4-7 June 2009.

By Jonathan Dean (LSE Gender Institute)

Whilst much of Europe recoiled in the aftermath of the alarming election results, this huge gathering of feminist academics provided much needed intellectual respite from the current political and economic malaise. Utrecht, the fourth largest city in the Netherlands, supports a huge and well-resourced university, replete with an internationally renowned women’s and gender studies programme. A little worryingly, the British contingent was minimal, an unfortunate state of affairs given the avowedly transnational orientation of much contemporary feminist research. Despite the absence of Brits (indeed, the Netherlands and Scandinavia accounted for probably more than half the delegates), the sheer numbers of feminist researchers present (around 600 of us, apparently) and the conference’s glossy, professional veneer meant that this almost felt like the apotheosis of the feminist “long march through the institutions.”

As would be expected for such a large conference, the research topics covered were extremely wide ranging but, despite this, a number of recurrent themes popped up. Theoretically, there were recurrent expressions of dissatisfaction with a perceived dominance of feminist theory by the discursive at the expense of the material and, similarly, anthropocentric understandings of agency and politics. Consequently, a number of papers – in keynotes and panels – explored ways of re-engaging notions of materiality and non-human (or, rather, post-human) agency within feminist academic production. Several different approaches were suggested: Claire Colebrook, in a lucid and often witty keynote, drew largely on Deleuze to advance an “anti-organicist” understanding of agency, whilst a number of panel papers – as well as keynotes by Karen Barad (via video-link) and Amade M’charek – drew on aspects of genetics and feminist science studies to re-assess the role of materiality in feminist theory. This trend towards exploring ways of rethinking materiality in feminist theory (adding up a new movement dubbed the “new materialism” by some) is undoubtedly timely, but it seems particularly prone to produce confusion and befuddlement among the audience. As someone with a lamentable knowledge of the natural sciences, when Amade M’charek posted a cross section of a cell on a power-point slide, I felt like my ability to think across academic disciplines was being stretched to breaking point.

More within my disciplinary comfort zone was the very strong emphasis throughout the conference on troubling the boundaries between academic knowledge production and artistic creativity, with several keynotes and panels exploring the intersections of art and feminist politics. Included in the conference programme were feminist art exhibitions and excursions to local art museums and galleries, whilst one of the most intellectually impressive keynotes came from Griselda Pollock’s exploration of relations between trauma and feminist ethics via a psychoanalytic reading of some paintings by Israeli feminist artist Bracha L. Ettinger. However, much the most prominent manifestation of this was a half hour documentary in which up and coming Dutch hip hop artist Bad Brya was shown in conversation with several prominent Dutch women’s studies professors, culminating in the composition of a track entitled ‘What’s Up With Gender?,’ which was performed live in front of an appreciative audience (you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2LOXAs-8k).

Aside from these main themes, the keynotes were always excellent and at times sensational. Anne McClintock provided an immensely powerful, if rather saddening, feminist reading of the leaked Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture photos, whilst the intellectual highlight of the conference for me was undoubtedly Sara Ahmed’s wonderful reflections on the role of “happiness” in feminist theory and politics. The social highlight was the conference party in Utrecht city centre, in which the hypothesis that feminists can’t dance was resolutely falsified.

Towards the end of the conference, a new European gender studies network, AtGender, was launched amidst much fanfare, as was a new DVD, Rosi Braidotti: A Portrait, in which Braidotti recounts key aspects of her life story and her work. Much to my chagrin, we were not given a full screening, but rather just a selection of preview clips and a glass of champagne. Braidotti’s presence was felt throughout, and so it seemed appropriate that she was given the task of providing the closing remarks. As political apathy prevailed across Europe, Braidotti admonished both the populist left and the populist right for rejecting the cosmopolitan, social democratic Europe which she seemed to want the conference to embody. The event, to be sure, was glitzy, professional, diverse and inclusive, yet somehow, like the utopian vision of European social democracy Braidotti sought to advance, it felt a little too good to be true.

 

Press Release:

Alors que l’émancipation féminine apparaît comme l’un des faits majeurs du 20e siècle, son histoire, et plus encore celle du féminisme qui en est l’expression politique, demeurent largement méconnues du grand public. Un pan important de l’évolution sociale reste ainsi dans l’ombre, ce qui rend peu compréhensibles certaines étapes vers l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes.

La nature même du féminisme est ici en cause : toujours minoritaire et élitiste, souvent décrié voire ridiculisé, ce mouvement a dû adapter ses stratégies pour s’imbriquer dans la société, y trouver des alliances, s’articuler aux autres courants afin de distiller ses idées et les faire progresser. 

Catherine Jacques décrit l’émergence du mouvement féministe au 19e siècle et son développement jusqu’au début des années 1970. Elle est attentive à la place que les organisations créées par les femmes occupent dans le système belge des clivages et aux relations qu’elles entretiennent avec le monde politique. C’est donc un panorama presque complet d’histoire de Belgique qu’elle convoque pour retracer l’évolution du féminisme.

Catherine Jacques

Le féminisme en Belgique de la fin du 19e siècle aux années 1970

Courrier hebdomadaire n° 2013-2014

Prix : 12,40 euros

Renseignements : 

CRISP – Place Quetelet, 1A – 1210 Bruxelles

Tél. 02/211.01.80 – Fax 02/219.79.34

www.crisp.be <http://www.crisp.be/>  - info@crisp.be 

A special issue of the journal ‘Amnis’, published by the University of Western Brittany (France) looks into the question of Women and Activism in Europe and the USA from the 19th century to the present. There are articles in French, English and Spanish. Please follow this link for more information: http://www.univ-brest.fr/amnis/pages_francais/articlesrecents.php

Women in Transnational Movements in the Long 20th Century

Deadline - 30.06.2009

Women in Transnational Movements in the Long 20th Century
GENESIS, co-edited by Elisabetta Bini and Arnaldo Testi

The Italian historical journal “Genesis: Rivista della Società Italiana delle Storiche” will devote one of its next issues to transnational women?s movements in the long 20th Century, from the last third of the 19th Century to the present.
The issue aims at analyzing the transnational dimension in its full, radical meaning. We are interested in exploring the specific forms of action, discourse and language which were allowed or generated by the “trans/national” dimension, as an autonomous terrain of cultural production, not as an area of interaction and mediation among pre-determined national passions and interests (inter/national).
To the usual suspects — suffragist and feminist organizations — we add professional and business all-female associations as well as “separate” or mixed-gender pacifist groups, benevolent and charity societies, “moral” and family reformers, advocates of new reproductive politics and policies, queer and transgender groups.

Interested parties should send a 1-page proposal, along with a 2-page CV, by June 30, 2009, to Elisabetta Bini (elisabetta.bini@nyu.edu) and Arnaldo Testi (testi@stm.unipi.it). Successful applicants will be expected to email their articles by January 31, 2010.

 

Title: Should feminism transcend nationalism? A defense of feminist nationalism in South Korea  Journal: Women’s Studies Internatioanl Form Author: Hee-Kang Kim Reference:Volume 32, Issue 2, March-April 2009, Pages 108-119 Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBD-4W4S383-1&_user=10&_coverDate=04/30/2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c5b8e557f064d16a9d4908818c151b94

Tiffany K. Wayne is looking for scholars to write up brief
entries/annotations for primary document excerpts for a two-volume
collection to be published by ABC-CLIO in 2010.  The collection will include
excerpts from more than 250 documents related to feminist thought and
resistance throughout history and around the world.  See below for entries
currently needed by a FIRM deadline of SEPTEMBER 1, 2009.

Each entry is a total of 1500-words, which includes a brief document excerpt
(usually half the entry, or 700-800 words), plus contextual information,
analysis, and a bibliography for further research.  Sample entries will be
provided and, in most cases, Tiffany has bibliographic and source information to get you started.
You need not be a specialist on the specific document or writer, but must be
able and willing to do the research necessary to place the writing in
historical and theoeretical context. Tiffany welcomes participation by established scholars as well as graduate students.

A small honorarium is provided by the press ($40 per entry), or those
contributing 4 or more entries may instead choose a copy of the published
volumes as compensation.

Please contact Tiffany at tkw@sidera.com

*****************************************
ENTRIES LIST – Contributors Needed – as of May 2009
FOR:  History of Feminist Thought (Greenwood/ABC-CLIO)
Editor:  Tiffany K. Wayne, PhD   (tkw@sidera.com)

 1.. “The true woman…” poems by Enheduanna (Sumer, c.2300-2200? b.c.e.)
 2.. “Women received from the gods the same ability to reason that men
have…,” Musonius Rufus (Rome, 1 c.e.)
 3.. “Lessons for Women,” Pan Chao (China, 80 c.e.)
 4.. “…I always write as I please…,” Xue Tao (China, c. 800)
 5.. “Because I am a woman…” and “This wild lady…,” poems by Yeshe Tsogyal
(Tibet, c. 800)
 6.. “I hate silence when it is a time for speaking…,” Kassia (Greece,
c.800s)
 7.. “…my silken woman’s dress obscures my poetry…,” Yu Xuanji (China, c.
860)
 8.. “Appeasing Radhika,” Muddupalani (India, c. late 1700s)
 9.. “La Defensa de las Mujeres,” Benito Feijoo (Spain, 1739)
 10.. “Discurso sobre la educacion fisica y moral de las mujeres,” Josefa
Amar y Borbon (Spain, 1790)
 11.. “…men and women are equal before God…,” Muhammad ‘Abdu (Egypt
c.1890s)
 12.. Memoranda on women’s education, Raden Ajeng Kartini (Indonesia/Java,
1903)
 13.. Call to the Women of Ireland, Constance Markievicz (Ireland, 1918)
 14.. “The Difference between Men and Women…,” Nabawiya Musa (Egypt, 1920)
 15.. “Unveiling and Veiling: on the Liberation of the Woman…in the Islamic
World,” Nazira Zain al-Din (Lebanon, 1928)
 16.. manifesto of Irish Women’s Social and Progressive League and
“Electoral Address,” Hanna Sheehy Skeffington (Ireland, 1943)
 17.. speech at Arab Feminist Conference Huda Shaarawi (Egypt, 1944)
 18.. founding statement of Singapore Council of Women, Shirin Fozdar
(Singapore, 1951?)
 19.. “Towards Equality,” Committee on Status of Women in India (India,
1974)
 20.. “A General Strike,” Mariarosa Dalla Costa (Italy, 1974)

Evelyn Sharp: Rebel Woman Thursday 7 May, 7pm (90 mins), The Women’s Library

£6 / £4 concessions

Angela V John (Professor of History, Aberystwyth University) talks about her latest biography, the life of Evelyn Sharp (1869-1955), journalist, suffragette, pacifist and incorrigible rebel. Sharp was a popular writer of children’s school stories and fairy tales. She was twice imprisoned for suffrage militancy, and edited Votes for Women in its later years. The Women’s Library London Metropolitan University 25 Old Castle Street London E1 7NT To book: Call 020 7320 2222 or email moreinfo@thewomenslibrary.ac.uk with your name, the events you want to book, and a contact number, and we’ll call you back as soon as we can. Concessionary rates are available for full-time students, senior citizens and ES40-holders. Please bring relevant ID when attending events.

Call for Participants
ESSHC round table/session – to celebrate the book launch of Globalizing feminisms before 1945  (ed. Karen Offen, forthcoming 2010 from Routledge, in the series: Rewriting History).

For the upcoming European Social Sciences and History Conference (ESSHC) in Ghent, Belgium, 13 – 16 April 2010 we propose a round table session on the pre-1945 history of transnational feminisms, taking as our frame of reference the forthcoming collection of articles Globalising feminisms before 1945. We would like to invite speakers to address one of the four themes of the book and compare, from a transnational perspective, several (or all) of the contributions in each section to their own specific research on feminist movements.

Please send a SHORT c.v. and statement of your interest in (and commitment to) participating in this round table, and indicate which theme you would like to address. E-mail to both Karen Offen & Julie Carlier no later than Saturday 25 April 2009. kmoffen@stanford.edu and julie.carlier@ugent.be . We realize this is very short notice but our proposal to the ESSHC must be submitted by May 1st – and this idea just occurred to us.

The four organizing themes of Globalizing feminisms are:

1. Opening Out National Histories of Feminisms

2. Rethinking Feminist Action in Religious and Denominational Contexts

3. Birthing International Feminist Initiatives in an Age of Nationalisms and Imperialisms

4. Reconceptualizing Historical Knowledge through Feminist Historical Perspectives

Please find a table of contents below. 18 of the 20 articles in the book (except one in translation, by Florence Rochefort, and an original contribution by Ellen Carol DuBois) have previously been published in widely distributed scholarly reviews or as book chapters and can thus be accessed prior to the actual publication of the collection.

We are especially interested in comments addressing the following questions:
- How do the essays in each section, with their wide geopolitical scope, raise further questions and angles of research for scholars of European feminisms in particular?
- What is the relationship between the national and the transnational, in terms of the complex historical interconnections between national and international feminist movements, as well as the way in which the transnational perspective calls into question accepted categories in national histories of feminisms? How do transnational perspectives illuminate our understanding of national feminisms?
- What would you propose as the next steps to take in researching the history of feminisms comparatively and transnationally?
- How can the comparative study of feminisms prior to 1945 inform our understanding of global feminisms in our contemporary world?
Globalizing Feminisms before 1945: Table of Contents

PART I: Opening Out National Histories of Feminisms

1 Was Mary Wollstonecraft a Feminist? – Karen Offen

2 Re-Rooting American Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives on 1848 – Nancy Hewitt

3 Liberty, Equality, Morality: The Attempt to Sustain an International Campaign against the Double Sexual Standard – Anne Summers

4 “To Educate Women into Rebellion”: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Creation of a Transatlantic Network of Radical Suffragists – Sandra Stanley Holton

5 Women’s Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870-1925 – Barbara Molony
PART II: Rethinking Feminist Action in Religious and Denominational Contexts

6 Feminism and Protestantism in the 19th Century: First Encounters 1830-1900 – Florence Rochefort (translated from the French)

7 From Fredrika Bremer to Ellen Key: Calling, Gender and the Emancipation Debate in Sweden, c. 1830-1900 – Inger Hammar

8 Indian Christian Women and Indigenous Feminism, c. 1850-1920 – Padma Anagol

9 Settler Anxieties, Indigenous Peoples, and Women’s Suffrage in the Colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and Hawai’i, 1888 to 1902 – Patricia Grimshaw

10 Challenging Traditions: Denominational Feminisms in Britain, 1910-1920
- Jacqueline R. DeVries
PART III: Birthing International Feminist Initiatives in an Age of Nationalisms and Imperialisms

11 Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women’s Organizations, 1888-1945 – Leila J. Rupp

12 The Challenge of Multinational Empire for the International Women’s Movement: The Habsburg Monarchy and the Development of Feminist Inter/National Politics – Susan Zimmerman

13 The Other ‘Awakening’: The Emergence of Women’s Movements in the Modern Middle East, 1900-1940 – Ellen L. Fleischmann

14 Latin American Feminism and the Transnational Arena – Francesca Miller

15 Internationalizing Married Women’s Nationality: The Hague Campaign of 1930  - Ellen Carol DuBois (original contribution)

16 Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms: Australian Women’s Internationalist Activism in the 1920s-30s – Angela Woollacott

Part IV: Reconceptualizing Historical Knowledge through Feminist Historical Perspectives

17 Feminism, Social Science, and the Meanings of Modernity: The Debate on the Origin of the Family in Europe and the United States, 1860-1914 – Ann Taylor Allen

18 Women’s Suffrage and Revolution in the Russian Empire, 1905-1917 – Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild

19 Women’s Suffrage in China: Challenging Scholarly Conventions – Louise Edwards

20 Rethinking the Socialist Construction and International Career of the Concept “Bourgeois Feminism” – Marilyn J. Boxer

Title: Mary Baker Eddy’s Pragmatic Transcendental Feminism

Author: KATIE SIMON

Journal: Women’s Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal, Volume 38, Issue 4, pp. 377-398