The Ninth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
March 6-8, 2008
*Submission Deadline: November 1, 2007*
The Executive Committee of the Ninth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce a call for papers. The Symposium, which is the capstone event of the History Department’s Women’s History month celebration, is scheduled for March 6-8, 2008. To celebrate and encourage further work in the field of women’s and gender history, we invite submissions from graduate students from any institution and discipline. The Symposium organizers welcome individual papers on any topic in the field of women’s and gender history; papers submitted as a panel will be judged individually. Preference will be given to scholars who did not present at last year’s Symposium.
This year’s theme, “Contentious Voices,” incorporates a variety of trends shaping the field of women’s and gender history. We welcome paper or panel submissions that analyze the state of the field, particularly those that
problematize it or suggest new avenues of inquiry. We are especially interested in papers that engage with the intersections between women’s and gender history and sexuality studies, and address such themes as race,
religion, dissent, discipline and embodiment from a range of methodological vantage points, including queer theory, black feminist thought, transnational/post-colonial thought, the social sciences and humanities. We
also are interested in assembling a geographically and temporally diverse body of papers; exciting proposals could focus on, but would not be limited to, topics ranging from queer temporalities and identities, to gender and
sexuality in the Middle Ages or Non-West, as well as gendered analyzed through South-South comparisons.
For this year’s Symposium, we are delighted to announce two plenary speakers who engage many of these themes in their work:
– Saidiya Hartman (Professor of African American and American
Literature – Columbia University)
– Sara Ahmed (Professor in Race and Cultural Studies – Goldsmiths,
University of London)
The journal *Gender & History* will again sponsor a prize for the best
graduate student paper presented at the Symposium. Conference presenters
will also have the opportunity to publish their work in the on-line
proceedings volume.
We possess limited resources to subsidize travel expenses for presenters. Giving priority to presenters with limited conference experience, we will allocate these funds based on the quality of presenters’ proposals and the
availability of funds.
All submissions must be received by November 1, 2007. To submit a paper or panel in a hard copy format (preferred method), please send five (5) copies of a 250-word abstract AND a one-page curriculum vitae for EACH paper presenter, commentator, or panel chair to:
Programming Committee
Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History
309 Gregory Hall, MC 466
810 South Wright Street
Urbana, Illinois 61801
To submit a paper or panel by email, please send ONLY ONE attachment in Word format containing all abstracts and curriculum vitae. The subject line of the email must read “Attn: Programming Committee” and should be sent
gendersymp@gmail.com . We cannot be responsible for submissions that do not meet these conditions.
For more information, please contact Programming Committee Chairs, Carmen Thompson or Jacob Baum at gendersymp.at.gmail.com .