2011 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women (Web)

Time: June 9-12 2011
Place: University of Massachusetts in Amherst
Source: H-WOMEN@H-NET.MSU.EDU

Call for Panels

• CFParticipants: Law and the family; DL: 01.03.2010
• CFPanelists: Transnational Single Parenting/Alternative Families; DL: –
• CFPanelists: Same-sex marriage, non-U.S. perspective; DL: –
• CFPanelists: Consumers, Control, and Women’s Economic Activity; DL: 15.02.2010
• CFPanelists: Race, Gender, and Performance; DL: –
• CFPanelists: Community regulation of reproduction; DL: –
• CFPanelists: Domestic violence; DL: 01.03.2010
• CFPanelists: Women, Science, and Feminism; DL: 17.02.2010
• CFParticipants: Women and Labor in Early America; DL: –
• Call for discussant for African American Gender & Sexuality; DL: 24.02.2010
• CfPanelists: Motherhood/Midwifery, DL: –
  

– –

CFParticipants: Berks 2011: law and the family

Greetings, I am looking for one co-panelist and a commentator/chair to participate in a panel on law and the family at the 2011 Big Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians. My paper considers family conflict in the aftermath of romantic misfortunes through the lens of sexual suits such as bastardy, breach of promise of marriage, seduction, and divorce while the other panelist examines freedom suits as a window into mother-daughter relationships under slavery. We are particularly interested in panelists not working in U.S. history.

Unfortunately the deadline for submissions (March 1) is quickly approaching. If you are interested, please respond as soon as possible to hayes2681@yahoo.com.

Thank you.

Melissa Hayes
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
Northern Illinois University

– –

CFPanelists: Transnational Single Parenting/Alternative Families, Berks 2011

Hi All,

I would like to put together a panel for the Berks around the themes of gender and single parenting and/or alternative family structures (obviously what constitutes “alternative” varies across time and place) in transnational perspective. I was thinking about the twentieth century, perhaps even post-1945, but I am open to proposals from earlier periods as well.

My own paper will explore the role of gender and class in the 1957 founding of Parents without Partners, a New York City-based organization dedicated to providing a support network to custodial and non-custodial parents in the family-oriented society of the postwar United States.

Please respond off list to kristin.celello@qc.cuny.edu.
Best, Kristin Celello

– –

CFPanelists: Same-sex marriage, non-U.S. perspective, Berks 2011

Hello,

I am looking to put together a panel on the history of same-sex marriage for the Big Berks conference, June 9-12, in Amherst, Massachusetts.

I would like to present a paper on a marriage between two women in Vermont that lasted from 1807 to 1851. I will be exploring how the women, their families, and their neighbors understood this marriage, and how the marriage secured social sanction within the community. Multiple sources from differing perspectives describe the relationship as a marriage or marital. While the marriage had no legal status, it had social standing. How does the recognition of the relationship as marital challenge the historiography of romantic friendship during the early nineteenth century?

I am looking for fellow panelists and commentators who will bring a non-U.S. perspective to the history of same-sex marriage.

Please contact me at rcleves@uvic.ca

Sincereley,
Rachel Hope Cleves

– –

CFPanelists: Consumers, Control, and Women’s Economic Activity

I am seeking potential paper(s) for a panel addressing the theme of economics, labor and consumption for the BERKS 2011 conference. My work concerns mid-nineteenth-century criticism of textile factory girls’ shopping habits — a critique found in newspaper editorials, preachers’ sermons, and mid-century sensational fiction. In story after story, girls who shop foolishly attract the wrong kind of attention and end up the victims of sexualized crimes. Here print acts as a means to shape and control young women’s sexuality, establishing a hazy tension between earning money and spending money. This paper will explore the boundaries of consumer activity and appropriate womanhood as young women navigated the dual roles of paid producers of goods and eager consumers of goods.

A second paper concerns how middle class and elite families’ consumer activities helped to shape family relationships. Using account books, letters and diaries from several families, this paper will explore how men used their control of family finances to inculcate gratitude and dependence in their wives, and how mothers and fathers used consumer spending to teach their children proper financial management and a proper sense of deference toward their parents.

We seek an additional paper(s) to complete our panel. Work beyond New England and beyond the 19th century are particularly welcome, but any topic will be considered. We are also seeking a panel chair and commentator and would welcome your interest in participating in either of those roles.

Please send me a description of your potential paper and a short cv or biographical blurb by FEB. 15.

The BERKS 2011 conference will be held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on June 9-12. For more information see www.berksconference.org

Thanks—
Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Dept. of History
University of New England
Department of History
11 Hills Beach Road
Biddeford, ME 04005
207-602-2322
edewolfe@une.edu

– –

CFPanelists: Race, Gender, and Performance, Berks 2011

I am looking for interested participants for a panel on Race, Gender, and Performance (broadly defined) for the 2011 Berks conference. Deadline for submission of individual abstracts and panel proposals is March 1.

My paper will be on the raced and gendered performance of freedwomen in the female-authored post-bellum slave narratives. My paper will explore such questions as: How did freedwomen construct and represent their raced and gendered identity through autobiographical performance? How did they
represent and negotiate their relationship to a history of slavery? What do post-bellum narratives add to our understanding of the female slave experience, the transition to freedom, and African Americans‘ attempts to create a usable past?

I welcome panelists doing work related in any way they see fit. Although my own work reads the narratives as performance, there are obviously other ways of „classifying“ this project for the purposes of a panel. Please contact me off-list as soon as possible if you are interested: heatherlyc@yahoo.com.

Thank you,
Heather Cooper
Ph.D. student, History Dept., University of Iowa

– –

CFPanelists: Community regulation of reproduction, Berks 2011

I would love to present a paper at the Berks on the role of the community in (supporting/policing) reproduction (or more broadly in women’s lives) with a particular emphasis on rural communities. I have a paper that explores the ways in which community members–both men and women–supported women
in their search for a doctor to perform an abortion, as they underwent the operation, and as they recovered from it. I describe this rural response to pregnant women and analyze the changes that occurred as the professionalization of doctors and the criminal justice system wrested control away from local communities.

Would you be interested in joining me on this panel?

You can email me directly at mazie.hough@umit.maine.edu
I look forward to hearing from you.

– –

CFPanelists: Domestic violence, 2011 Berks panel

All,

Katherine French and I are looking for a third panelist for the 2011 Berks. We would like to explore issues of domestic violence across time and space. She has research on late medieval England and I have work on eighteenth-century Buenos Aires. The deadline for panel submissions is March 1. Please write to me directly if you are interested in joining us.

Allyson M. Poska
aposka@umw.edu
Professor of History
University of Mary Washington
Fredericksburg, VA 22401

– –

CFPanelists: Berks 2011: Women, Science, and Feminism

Science and Feminism–Berks Panel Proposal

Margaret Rossiter (Cornell) and I are looking to put together a panel on „Women, Science, and Feminism“ for the 2011 Berks. Her paper looks at the growth of women’s professional caucuses in the 1970s (U.S.) and beyond. Mine will look at the activist efforts of women’s scientific societies before the „second wave“ of American feminism.

We are looking for another panelist with interests in any of the following subjects: female scientists and their work experiences; efforts to expand women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and science education; the relationship between feminism and science more generally. US and comparative topics are both welcome.

We are also eager to locate people who would be willing to serve as a chair or discussant.

If you are interested, please email me at laura.puaca@cnu.edu by Wednesday Feb. 17 letting me know if you would be willing to serve as a chair, discussant, or panelist. Please include a short cv and, for the case of panelists, a 250 word paper abstract. The deadline for final submissions is March 1.

Laura Micheletti Puaca
Assistant Professor of History
Christopher Newport University
1 University Place
Newport News, VA 23606

– –

CF Participants: Berks 2011: Women and Labor in Early America

Good Afternoon,

I realize I am making a rather late start at this,I am quite new to this after all, but I am looking for scholars to particpate on a panel on women and labor OR women and Indian captivity in early America, as my paper can fit in either place. My paper considers the political economy of female captives‘ labor in colonial New England. If you are interested, please respond to jahnk049@umn.edu. Thank you.

Joanne Jahnke-Wegner
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History

– –

Call for discussant for African American Gender & Sexuality

This call is for a discussant for a panel for the 2011 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The conference theme is „Generations: Exploring Race, Sexuality, and Labor across Time and Space“

We are seeking a relatively established scholar with an interest and speciality in the history of African American gender and sexuality to tie the panel papers together and engage the audience in the session.
The description of the panel is below.

The panel is a retrospective analysis of Dr. Darlene Clark Hine’s theory of dissemblance (now over twenty years old) and seeks papers that addresses dissemblance and its application to women’s gender and sexual identities across socieconomic class, age, time, place, etc. in the African Diaspora. Papers that attempt to examine the theory and its relevance to women of African descent across national boundaries are highly encouraged. Papers should approach this idea from a historical point of view but ones that are interdisciplinary based are welcomed also.

Please contact Kim Gallon at kgallon@sewanee.edu by February 24th if you are interested in serving in this capacity. Thank you.

Kim Gallon
Visiting Assistant Professor
History & Women’s Studies
Sewanee: University of the South
kgallon@sewanee.edu

– –

CfPanelists: Motherhood/Midwifery, 2011 Berks

We are currently searching for a third paper for a panel will propose for the 2011 meeting of the Berkshire Conference, to be held June 9-11 at UMass-Amherst. The two papers we currently have focus on childbirth in the Anglo-American world. Sam Thomas’s paper will use bastardy and infanticide depositions to examine the relationship between English midwives and single mothers, and the nature of childbirth for unwed women. Rebecca Tannenbaum will explore three main themes: the ways in which childbirth constructed genteel motherhood; the ties between gentility and the suffering female body; and the ways in which working class sexuality and reproduction challenged these conceptions .

If you would be interested in joining the panel, please contact Sam Thomas (Sam.Thomas@uah.edu) or Rebecca Tannenbaum (rebecca.tannenbaum@yale.edu). We would particularly welcome papers that take us out of the Atlantic world or early modern period.