Concept: Mineke Bosch (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) with Christa Hämmerle (Wien), Regina Schulte (Bochum), Claudia Ulbrich (Berlin)
Time: Friday, 10 June 2011, 9.00 to 18.00
Venue: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Faculty of Arts, Department of Modern History
Groningen, The Netherlands
Programme
9.00–9.15 arrival and coffee/tea
9.15 Welcome and introduction key note speaker (Mineke Bosch, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
9.30–10.30 Keynote lecture: Liz Stanley (University of Edinburgh): Narrative, selves and life writing
Discussion

10.30–11.00 Break
11.00–12.30 Session 1: Biography and the gender politics of memory in specific cultural contexts
In this session the uses of auto/biographical memory in (professional) contexts such as science, politics, the medical profession are explored. Why is there such an elaborate culture of biographical memory in prestigious domains such as science and the humanities, politics and professions? What are the auto/biographical plots that can be discovered in these domains, in different times, and how are women in or excluded? How do auto/biographical plots relate to the politics of persona, or the presentation of self in the specific context?
11.00–11.20 Kaat Wils (University Leuven): Laboratory life remembered. Portrayals of Marie Curie
11.20–11.40 Birgitte Possing (Danish National Archives): On the breaking of the skewed gender balance in the historical biographical tradition, and an introduction of the biographical triangle
11.40–12.10 Comment: Krassimira Dashkalova (St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia)
Discussion
12.30–13.30 Lunch
13.30–15.00 Session 2: Collective biography and the politics of group memory
In this session two projects are reviewed and discussed in which the first generation of women’s studies professors in Sweden and in Germany have been interviewed with the intention of preserving their memory for future feminism and feminists. What were the conceptual starting points for the projects, what were the outcomes and new analytical insights for such politics of group memory? How does this collective biography differ from group biography such as family biography?
13.30–13.50: Kirsti Niskanen & Christina Florin (Stockholm University): Female Professors and the Power of Memory
13.50–14.10: Ulrike Vogel (Emeritus, Technical University Braunschweig): The first generation of professors of Womens’s and Gender Studies in Germany: the possible relevance of their auto-biographies to feminism
14.10–14.30 Comment: Hana Havelková (Charles University, Prague)
Discussion
15.00–15.20 Break
15.20–17.00 Session 3: Politics and culture of auto/biographical collections and publications
In this session the politics and histories of collecting and publishing women’s autobiographical texts today are discussed and compared with nineteenth-century interests in publishing women’s personal narratives. What was/is the role of different interest groups: women (readers), historians, the booktrade? What is the meaning of collecting, inventorising women’s autobiographucal memory. What is a good publishing strategy and how should it be done?
15.20–15.40 Li Gerhalter & Christa Hämmerle (University of Vienna): Counter-narratives of Memory? The Example of the Viennese „Sammlung Frauennachlässe“
15.40–16.00 Gudrun Wedel (Free University of Berlin): Published autobiographies of German-speaking women: Collection Reference Book Digital Future
16.00–16.20 Comment: Arianne Baggerman (University of Amsterdam)
Discussion
16.30–16.45 Break
16.45–17.45 Round table: Summary, questions for the future; publication
Barbara Henkes (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Regina Schulte (Ruhr University of Bochum), Claudia Ulbrich (Free University of Berlin), Mineke Bosch (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) (chair)