CANADIAN WOMEN’S STUDIES ASSOCIATION/L’ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES ÉTUDES SUR LES FEMMES (CWSA/ACEF)

Date: May 24-26, 2009
Location: Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
CfP-PDF

The CWSA/ACEF is now seeking proposals, in either French or English, for its annual conference, held in conjunction with the Congress of the CFHSS/FCSH. Submissions for papers and panels can be made by individuals or groups, and as joint sessions with other associations. The conference will be structured around two embedded themes in addition to an open call:

Theme 1: Roots, Territories, and Territorial Struggles in Women’s Studies

This theme honours a tradition of self-reflexivity within Women’s Studies and encourages presenters to reflect upon the nature of the discipline, its past, and its continuing challenges.

a) What are the territories that Women’s Studies has claimed and occupied within academia? What struggles have been waged/continue/are evolving in order to create and secure these spaces? What is the role of Capital in these struggles, in the neo-liberal university? What have been the implications within the academy of Women’s Studies’ commitment to interdisciplinarity/transdisciplinarity with respect to capital, terroir (ground, roots), and territory? What are the territorial implications of naming ourselves feminist/women’s/gender studies?

b) Under this theme, presenters are also encouraged to consider contested spaces within the discipline:

• Diversity has been a central theme in feminist theoretical work for at least two decades, but how has this translated into the classroom? How are territories and boundaries of exclusion reproduced (or diminished) within this space?
• Deconstruct/otherwise explore the binary between academic and activist feminisms. Issues such as those raised by bell hooks in “Theory as Liberatory Practice” could be considered: e.g., the appropriation of collective and/or non-academic thought by academics; intellectual class hierarchies; disconnections between lived realities and academic theory classes.
• How is transnational feminism–with the new concepts space, nation, territory it presumes–being translated in WS classrooms? Do the uncritical ways transnational feminism is mobilized in WS merely replicate the imperialism it was ostensibly meant to critique?
• In Canada the concept of “nation” is crucial and has important implications for the nature of Canadian Women’s Studies. For example, Indigenous feminisms often discuss nation, nation-building, and (dis)connections between First Nations and non-Native women’s issues. What are the potential connections and breaking points between WS and Native Studies?
• How are national issues of language/nation mirrored within Canadian Women’s Studies? How can CWSA/ACEF better fulfill its bilingual mandate, or should it try? Are there better structures to encourage and improve dialogue?
• What connections/struggles/common ground/divisions can be productively explored between Women’s Studies and other contested and inherently self-reflexive disciplines such as cultural studies, transgender and queer studies, race and ethnicity studies, disability studies?
• We encourage presenters to think about this topic broadly and welcome submissions that address these debates at the institutional, administrative, intellectual, and pedagogical levels.

Theme 2: Capital, nation, terroir, territoire: through the lens of gender This conference theme invites feminist scholars to consider the implications of nation and territoriality from the perspective of women and/or through a gendered lens. Again, this theme may be applied broadly to include many areas of scholarship:

• Empire: The relationship of gender to new forms of empire; historical perspectives on the role of women in empire-building
• Women, gender and discourses and practices of nationalism
• War: Situating women and gender in nations currently at war (including the US and Canada); feminist pacifisms
• Relations among „race,“ racialization, and nations and nationalism
• Theories of space; geographies of gender
• Gender in/and the relationship between nation and global flows of capital
• Indigenous feminisms and the practices of nation they articulate
• Francophone and Anglophone feminisms in Canada: How do French language and the English language feminisms conceptualize/practice feminist issues and struggles differently?
• What are the spaces that women have created within government and as independent activist organizations, and how are these being sustained or eroded?

Theme 3: Open Call. Papers which do not address the above themes specifically.

**Please indicate clearly which theme you are submitting to on the proposal form.**

We encourage presentations in a variety of formats, including papers, panels, workshops, roundtables, poster sessions, film and video screenings, performance art pieces, exhibits, and cultural events. If you are proposing a non-traditional presentation, please include a brief write up on any necessary audiovisual, technical, logistical, or room size and location considerations.

HOW TO SUBMIT:
The proposal form (as a Word document), can be found on the CWSA/ACEF website: www.yorku.ca/cwsaacef.

All submissions must include the proposal form in addition to a maximum 250-word abstract for individual papers and panels. In addition to the 250 word abstract summarizing the panel theme, pre-arranged panel submissions must also include short (50-100 word) abstracts of the individual papers clearly indicating the contributions of each member. All proposals will be anonymously reviewed.

**You must be a current member of CWSA/ACEF to submit an abstract.**

To join, please visit www.yorku.ca/cwsaacef.

Send proposals by email only, in Word/RTF, to Shana Calixte, Assistant to Dr. Andrea Levan, Program Chair, at scalixte#laurentian.ca

Deadline: January 15, 2009. Late submissions and proposals over the stated word limit will not be considered.

aus: H-WOMEN@H-NET.MSU.EDU