Proposals are still being accepted for the following Women in French sessions at the 2021 South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) annual conference which will be held this year in Atlanta, Georgia from November 4-6. At this time SAMLA is proceeding optimistically with its plan to return to its traditional in-person format but is prepared to transition to an online forum in the event of updated travel and/or social gathering restrictions.
Please consider sending a proposal in French or English to one of the panel chairs listed below by June 30, 2021.
For more information on SAMLA and the annual conference, please visit the conference website: https://samla.memberclicks.net/
In addition to registering as a member of SAMLA and also for the SAMLA conference, presenters must also be current on their membership in Women in French.
1. Francophone Womxn Creating Apart and Connecting Together
The theme of this year’s SAMLA conference, “Social Networks, Social Distances,” invites us to reflect on the contradictory challenges that we have faced in these pandemic times. How do we connect with others in solitude? How might isolation foster a sense of connection or community? As a Women in French panel, this session will explore these questions in the context of French and Francophone womxn artists and writers. Proposals on examples of womxn who create apart and connect together in literature, film, theatre, and other modes of creation from all time periods and all areas of Francophone culture are welcome. Possible topics might include but are not limited to illness, disability, incarceration, injustice, difference, trauma, family, and exile. Please send 250-word proposals in English or French along with presenter’s name, academic affiliation, and email to Adrienne Angelo (ama0002@auburn.edu) by June 30, 2021.
Chair: Adrienne Angelo, Auburn University, <ama0002@auburn.edu>
2.Women/Mapping/Other: Womanist/Feminist Map-making and Cartographies of Change
The aim of the session is to explore women’s and/or feminist map-making and its effects on social networks through various facets including, but not limited to, the geographic, literary, philosophical, political, artistic, pedagogical, architectural, and the every-day. Possible questions of interrogation could be the following: What do feminist or woman-made maps look like? In what spaces do they emerge? How do women’s or feminist perspectives in mapping “intersect, parallel, or diverge,” as cartographers Meghan Kelly and Britta Ricker hypothesize, from conventional cartographic practices? What risks do they entail? What is seen and what is not seen, and why? What are their effects on social networks, social distances, and society at large? Since this session is part of the Women in French panels, papers that focus on French-speaking peoples and spaces (i.e., cities, texts, artworks, classrooms, etc.) are invited; those from diverse approaches, perspectives and disciplines are especially welcome. Please send an abstract of approximately 150 words in either French or English and a brief bio to Jodie Barker (jodiebarker@unr.edu) by 30 June 2021.
Chair: Jodie Barker, University of Nevada, Reno, <jodiebarker@unr.edu>
3. Complicated French and Francophone Women
This panel welcomes papers focused on the exploration of the ways in which French and Francophone women’s writing, film, and other art forms initiate, navigate, and complicate notions of distance and network. How do these women create new understandings of social order and contest inequities? Examinations of the liminal spaces between tradition and new order and the ways in which these texts challenge perceptions of identity, privilege, nationality, class, race, sex, gender, and language are particularly welcome. Papers may be in French or English and may not exceed 20 minutes. Please send a 250-word abstract, brief bio and A/V requests to Susan Crampton-Frenchik, scramptonfrenchik@washjeff.edu, by June 30, 2021.
Chair: Susan Crampton-Frenchik, Washington & Jefferson College, <scramptonfrenchik@washjeff.edu>
4. From Socially Marginalized Women to Thriving Writers: Overcoming Class- and Gender Barriers through Literary Networking-Success Stories from Nineteenth-Century French Actresses
Zola’s novel Nana presents in typical naturalist manner a rather misogynist portrayal of a nineteenth-century variété theatre actress, who ascends from streetwalker to high-class courtesan, yet, remains destined to fail, because of hereditary and social determinants. The novel mirrors, to an extent, late nineteenth-century French society’s perception of actresses, whose amorous affairs were seen as a professional attribute that enabled these women to support their lifestyle, providing them with financial support and beneficial social relationships. Several contemporary actresses, who eventually embraced a journalistic or literary career, played with this cliché and used it for their own benefit, and that of other female stage performers, artists and writers. They parodied the existing gender-bias, frequently pursued a feminist agenda, all the while drawing on their seduction techniques acquired on and off stage. Roberts illustrated this convincingly in Disruptive Acts, her book about the former actress and future journalist Marguerite Durand, founder of the feminist newspaper La Fronde. Other examples might be Séverine or Marie Colombier; but they certainly were not the only ones. This panel seeks to look at (former) nineteenth-century actresses turned journalist/writers who were able to network successfully with female colleagues to strengthen each other’s careers, preventing a naturalist “fail.” Please send your 150-200 words paper proposal, contact information, and a 50-word biographical statement to Elisabeth-Christine Muelsch (emuelsch@angelo.edu) by June 30, 2021.
Chair: Elisabeth-Christine Muelsch, Angelo State University emuelsch@angelo.edu
5. Revisioning Narrative (Identities) and Space
The current pandemic offers us the possibility of (re)viewing identity, disidentification, and, most importantly, new ways of articulating becoming. As we physically distance and redefine ourselves as well as our relationships with others, we discover new angles. Social distancing risks dislocation. It may, however, bring intimacy within ourselves as well as connection to others in new ways. We seek to explore how this plays out. No limits apply. These questions resonate through narrative (literary, film, etc.) and in our classrooms. We welcome examining identity, disidentity, or other positionings within and through everyday life and narrative in the broadest sense. Like our experience of time during the pandemic, such concepts expand, contract, in a continual (de)centering of text and existence. Perhaps this means the current actuality of a Zoomified world that ruptures our contact with the physical object, such as book and paper, as we engage with the keyboard and bright light of the screen. How is the contemporary moment represented in text or classroom, past or present? We look forward to adding your voice to the discussion. By June 30, 2021 please send an abstract of 200-250 words to both E. Nicole Meyer nimeyer@augusta.edu and Kiki Kosnick kikikosnick@augustana.edu.
Co-Chairs: E. Nicole Meyer, Augusta University, <nimeyer@augusta.edu>, and Kiki Kosnick, Augustana College, <kikikosnick@augustana.edu>
