Call for Papers for an upcoming conference at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul Turkey June 7-9, 2013.

The conference is entitled:  “Changing Feminist Paradigms and Cultural Encounters: Women’s Experiences in Eastern Mediterranean History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.”

“Changing feminist paradigms” refers to a shift from a Turkish-oriented
historiography of women’s experiences to an emphasis on diversity in both
the late Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East.  Scholarship has come a
long way in producing “women’s histories,” but feminist critiques of
national historiography and challenges to the conventional periodization of
Ottoman-Turkish historical narrative are tasks yet to be undertaken.
Tackling this challenging project requires that we reconsider and
reformulate key terms and concepts introduced by feminist scholars in North
America.  In addition, this conference aims to rethink the interaction
between feminist activism and scholarship with the purpose of bringing new
perspectives to women’s and gender history in the Middle East and around
the world.

We welcome papers on such topics as:
–      efforts to canonize the field
–      challenges to existing chronologies of nationalist historiographies
–      links between and legacies of the Ottoman and post-Ottoman worlds
–      sources for researching women’s and gender history
–      the impact of emergent nation-states on diverse women’s
experiences in the region
–   binaries between public and private, state and society, tradition and
modern, etc., and the ways these binaries are reproduced or challenged by
“emancipatory projects”
–      the interaction between women’s activism and scholarship on
women’s history
–      historical patterns of women’s activism in the region
–      the potential of activism to  bring new perspectives to women’s
studies and vice versa
–      different forms of feminism in the history of the modern Middle East
–      rethinking women’s “agency” in the realms of crime, health,
sexuality, and urban life

Because we are planning for discussions on the relationship between
scholarship and activism, we also look forward to submissions from feminist
activists in the wider region of the Middle East.

If you would like to present at this conference, we ask that you submit a
short summary of your proposed paper, or contribution, of around 1,000
words, along with an updated curriculum vitae by January 15, 2013.
Submissions should be sent to the conference coordinator, Professor Gulhan
Balsoy, via email at gerkaya@gmail.com.

We will be able to defray some travel and hotel expenses for conference
participants but ask that each person chosen to participate seeks other
funding, from his or her host institution for example.

We hope to publish select papers in a Special Issue of the *Journal of
Women’s History*.

The conference and Special Issue represent a unique and pioneering
collaboration between an American-based journal (one devoted to publishing
the best work in the international field of women’s history) and women’s
historians in Istanbul, Turkey.

We look forward to reading your proposals!

Gulhan Balsoy, Independent Scholar

Elisa Camiscioli, Binghamton University, New York, Book Review Editor, *JWH*

Arzu Ozturkmen, Boğaziçi University

Jean Quataert, Binghamton University, New York, co-editor, *JWH*

Benita Roth, Binghamton University, New York, Associate Editor, *JWH*

Basak Tug, Istanbul Bilgi University

Leigh Ann Wheeler, Binghamton University, New York, co-editor, *JWH*