Call for Submissions for a Special Issue of Legacy. A Journal of American Women Writers. Guest Editor: Tamara Harvey

In many ways, the study of women and the early Americas has never been more robust. Work on women throughout the Americas, including European, African, and native omen, both free and enslaved, has profited from decades of ground-breaking scholarly ttention not only to those whose names appeared on the title pages of books, but towomen whose texts were hidden in the works of others, stagnating in untapped manuscript archives, or awaiting interpretive methodologies that could address oral and material texts.

And yet in the metaphors of maps and routes that frequently dominate the emerging fields of Atlantic, transnational, and hemispheric studies, women can seem to be pushed to the margins, left to lounge in the cartouches of mappae mundi or to stand duty as figureheads on the bows of ships. That is to say, while their presence is acknowledged, the way that presence might require these studies to be revised, rethought, and retheorized remains to be fully engaged.

In their introduction to Women, Religion, and the Atlantic World (1600-1800), Continue reading →

Gender, Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft Issue 03/2010 (Web)

9 November 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the historical starting point of the political and social transformation of the former socialist societies in Eastern and Central Eastern Europe, and the starting point for the German re-unification in 1990.

While in the (early) 1990s, the discussion was still intense on the unification of two patriarchal systems and the alleged lead in gender equality in Eastern and Central European countries vis à vis the Western neighbours, it seems to have become somewhat more quiet in the perspective of women and gender studies regarding state and consequences of transformation and respective gender effects.

By now, from a gender perspective, the historical importance of the rivalry of the systems and the post-socialist constellations in East and West are hardly understood. At the same time Continue reading →

Stiftung Archiv der deutschen Frauenbewegung (Web)

Deadline: 23.11.2009

Der Lobgesang auf die 1950er und frühen 1960er Jahre – angestimmt von konservativen Feuilletonisten, die diese Jahre als Hochphase ‚traditioneller‘, westdeutscher Familienwerte preisen – erweist sich bei genauerer Betrachtung als Abwehrgesang gegen heutige Veränderungen in den Geschlechterverhältnissen. Verschiebungen in der Familienstruktur, eine immer breiter werdenden Akzeptanz neuer Familienformen und das Aufbrechen rigider Männlichkeitsvorstellungen lassen die ‚ruhigen‘ und nicht zuletzt deshalb auch beruhigenden Anfangsjahrzehnte der Bundesrepublik im Rückblick als Ausweg aus der heute diagnostizierten Geschlechter-Krise erscheinen.

Noch bis Mitte der 1950er Jahre geisterte das Schreckgespenst vom „Frauenüberschuss“ und den „unvollständigen Familien“ durch die westdeutschen Medien. Als Gegenmaßnahme wurde Continue reading →

Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for the History of Emotions (Web)

Datum:01.-03.07.2010
Ort: Berlin
Deadline: 18.01.2010

Although research in emotions gained momentum in the last decade or so across a wide range of disciplines – including psychology, anthropology and neuroscience -, the historiography of emotions is still a widely unexplored terrain. By focussing on the interactions between different emotional styles the workshop aims at enhancing further investigations into this field.

In which ways can the simultaneity of distinct styles help to understand and to explain the dynamics and the changes of emotional patterns and practices? During the workshop participants will explore and discuss ideas and queries revolving around this question.

Is it possible to discern diverging emotional styles, i.e. ways of dealing with and expressing feelings, within one socio-cultural context? Do different (culturally or otherwise defined) communities Continue reading →