Coalition of Women in German (WiG): 39th Annual German Conference (Web)

Time: October 23-26, 2014
Venue: Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort, Shawnee on Delaware, PA
Deadline: March 15, 2014

The 100th anniversary of the WW1 is an opportunity to revisit the texts that emerge out of this violent conflict, to expand the canon dominated by male writers, and to reconsider the understanding of the experience of war beyond the arenas of combat. German women not only commented on their nation’s war efforts in various ways, but they also documented and imagined the events of this tumultuous time period through literature, journalism and life writing, in both fictional and non-fictional texts. This panel seeks to examine how German women wrote the First World War and how these writings deepen our understanding of the gendered experience of the war.

This panel seeks to address such questions as:

• What roles did German women play in war efforts, both on the front and at home, and how are these contributions described through women’s literature?
• What genres do women employ in writing the war, and how does genre influence the text or the story told?
• How do women narrate their experiences of war? What narrative strategies do they use?
• What themes are prevalent in women’s writings about the war, and what new topics, insights, and approaches to the discussion of war do they introduce?
• In what ways do women’s representations of war broaden our understanding of the history of the First World War, as well as women’s experiences of war and conflict?
• What is the place of German women’s literature in the canon as we examine the First World War 100 years later?

We invite proposals from across disciplines that examine female-authored texts about the First World War. Please send a 250-350 word abstract and brief bio by March 15, 2014 to Barbara Kosta, bkosta(at)email.arizona.edu and Julie Shoults,julie.shoults(at)uconn.edu.