Call for Papers
When Did Women's Writing Get Serious?
Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW)
First International Conference
San Antonio, Texas
February 14-18, 2001
I invite abstracts for short papers (8 minutes) for a proposed
roundtable discussion that will examine value judgments about the
quality of women's fiction before the height of regionalism and realism
and will focus more attention on less-studied women who wrote
impressive fiction in and around the 1860s--between the best-selling
literary domestics and the well-known regionalists.
Proposals might, for example, consider this question: Did American
women's writing get "serious"--that is, did it become more consciously
artistic, more aesthetically complex and experimental, more
"sophisticated"--in or around the 1860s, before the maturity of
respected regionalists such as Sarah Orne Jewett and twentieth-century
authors such as Edith Wharton and Willa Cather? Alfred Habegger claims
that in the 1860s "Women's fiction was beginning to grow up.... a
younger generation of women writers was taking a more unflinching look
at women's lives than ever before" (_Henry James and the "Woman
Business"_, 22). Nina Baym suggests that "after the Civil War, a group
of women who were literary artists developed" (_Woman's Fiction_, 298).
And David S. Reynolds identifies an "American Women's Renaissance"
characterized by "self-conscious artistry," experimentalism,
complexity, and the "rise of sophisticated American women's literature"
between 1858 and 1866--possibly "the richest moment in the literary
history of women" (_Beneath the American Renaissance_, 397, 395, 396,
413).
I invite proposals that deal with women writers who thought of
themselves as literary artists, worked with largely aesthetic aims,
aspired to be artistic geniuses, and/or appealed to high cultural
audiences around the 1860s. Also welcome are explorations of social,
political, and economic barriers that tended to restrict this group to
white, Anglo-Saxon, middle- or upper-class women. I would be
particularly interested in considerations of immigrants, working-class
women, women of color, and others who broke through such barriers with
aesthetic successes (by any specific definition). Clearly, the
definitions of "serious," "high-cultural," "literary," or "artistic"
writing--and the problematic nature of value judgments that accompany
such definitions--should also be explored by this roundtable. I
welcome proposals for case studies of individual authors; comments on
several authors; observations on possible trends; considerations of the
value or problematic nature of the questions I am asking; and responses
to such scholars as Nina Baym, David Reynolds, Richard Brodhead, Alfred
Habegger, and others who either see the 1860s as a significant decade
or else locate "serious," "artistic" women's writing later in the
century. A few of the authors who might be explored are Anne Moncure
Crane, Rebecca Harding Davis, Adeline Whitney, Alice Cary, Lillie
Devereux Blake, and Harriet Prescott Spofford.
Please send or e-mail 250-500 word proposals, 1-page CVs, and summer
and winter contact information to reach me by July 15. If e-mailing,
please copy your text into the body of the e-mail and do not send
attachments. Please type in the subject line "Proposal for SSAWW
panel." Short papers will be due by January 30 so that roundtable
presenters may consider each other's work ahead of time in preparation
for a rich discussion with each other and our audience.
Lisa Radinovsky
506 N. Buchanan Blvd., Apt. 12
Durham, NC 27701
lisa.radinovsky@duke.edu
===============================================
From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
CFP@english.upenn.edu
Full Information at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
===============================================
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 15 2000 - 15:22:04 EDT