The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians is holding its next conference at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on June 9-12, 2011. 2011 marks the 15th Berkshire Conference on Women’s History and the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, which was first celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland and is now honored by more than sixty countries around the globe. The choice of “Generations” reflects this transnational intellectual, political, and organizational heritage as well as a desire to explore related questions such as:
* How have women’s generative experiences – from production and reproduction to creativity and alliance building – varied across time and space? How have these been appropriated and represented by contemporaries and scholars alike?
* What are the politics of “generation”? Who is encouraged? Who is condemned or discouraged? How has this changed over time?
* Is a global perspective compatible with generational (in the genealogical sense) approaches to the past that tend to reinscribe national/regional/racial boundaries?
* What challenges do historians of women, gender, and sexuality face as these fields and their practitioners mature?
To engender further, open-ended engagement with these and other issues, the 2011 conference will include workshops dedicated to discussing precirculated papers on questions and problems (epistemological, methodological, substantive) provoked by the notion of “Generations.”
The process for submitting and vetting papers and panels has changed substantially from previous years, so please read the instructions carefully. To encourage transnational discussions, panels will be principally organized along thematic rather than national lines and therefore proposals will be vetted by a transnational group of scholars with expertise in a particular thematic, rather than geographic, field.
All proposals must be directed to ONE of the following subcommittees (listed below) and should be submitted electronically. Please list a second choice for the subcommittee to vet your proposal but do not submit to more than one subcommittee. Instructions for submission will be posted on the Berkshire Conference website (www.berksconference.org) by November 1, 2009.
Preference will be given to discussions of any topic across national boundaries and to work that addresses sexuality, race, and labor in any context, with special consideration for pre-modern (ancient, medieval, early modern) periods. However, unattached papers and proposals that fall within a single nation/region will also be given full consideration.
As a forum dedicated to encouraging innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship and transnational conversation, the Berkshire conference continues to encourage submissions from graduate students, international scholars, independent scholars, filmmakers, and to welcome a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
Paper abstracts should be no longer than 250 words- panel (2-3 papers and a comment), roundtable (3 or more short papers) and workshop (1-2 precirculated papers) proposals should also include a summary abstract of no more than 500 words. Each submission must include the cover form and a short cv for each presenter. If you have questions about the most appropriate subcommittee for your proposal or problems with electronic submission, please direct them to Jennifer Spear ([email protected]).
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: March 1, 2010.
SUBCOMMITTEES:
* Beauty and the Body, Stephanie Camp
* Migrations: Race, Gender and Activism, Annelise Orleck
* Economies, Labors, and Consumption, Tracey Deutsch
* War, Violence, and Terror, Madhavi Kale
* Youth and Aging, Jennifer Spear
* Race in Global Perspective, Marilyn Lake
* Health and Medicine, Julie Livingston
* Sexuality, Kathy Brown
* Religion: Belief, Practice, Communities, Madhavi Kale
* Politics and the State, Margot Canaday