In most societies the heroic is in many ways gendered. When considering the heroic, attributes of masculinity might first come to mind. Yet, from a historical perspective it becomes apparent that heroizations often also have feminine connotations. The social and cultural production of the heroic cannot be analyzed exclusively in terms of masculinity (and masculinity-studies), nor can we regard women or femininity simply as exceptions in this field. Rather, the relational character of the category gender needs to be taken seriously.

The fundamental relationality, the ‘constructedness’, and the historicity of gender are among the core assumptions in gender studies today. Based on this and by interdisciplinary cooperation the conference will examine forms, mediums and processes of heroization as well as discourses of heroic transgression, exceptionality or veneration for certain periods in time.

In order to give adequate consideration to the complexities of the historical entanglement between gender and heroization, we would like to use gender as an analytical tool in a new way. Speaking metaphorically, one might understand gender as a ‘tracer’ that ‘leads’ us, which way we may uncover new aspects of heroic ideas and concepts. In today’s natural sciences, a tracer is a substance that helps with the exploration of certain organisms or environments. In experiments, the tracer passes through these environments and reacts to each of them in a different way. Hence, the tracer itself is not the object of study; rather a third element distinguishable from the tracer is explored. Therefore we propose to use gender systematically to ‘trace’ various historical ‘environments’ of the heroic. We are interested in gender relations, men and women as heroes or heroines and their (intersectionally differentiated) construction. Primarily, however, we are interested in

(a) the heroic itself,
(b) the  historical contexts which shape the heroic,
(c) its medial and performative manifestations and
(d) its spatiotemporal trends and transformations.

We welcome scholars from all fields of the humanities and social sciences. The conference focusses on areas of European culture at three different points in time –1650, 1750 and 1850 – which are to be discussed from the viewpoints of different disciplines. Proposals including an abstract of max. 2000 characters and a one-page CV should be submitted by March 28, 2014 to gender@sfb948.uni-freiburg.de. The conference will be held in English. A collection of essays based on selected presentations from the conference is to be published.

An extended version of the call for papers with further conceptual research questions can be found at: www.sfb948.uni-freiburg.de/gender_en

WISC is seeking applicants for residential fellowships at Acequia madre House. These fellowships are intended as professional development opportunities for women and men who wish to pursue work in the four areas of WISC focus: women in the arts, sciences, cultural preservation and business. Fellows will live on-site alongside one another and may find their interactions contribute to their understandings of these linked fields. There is a $1000 stipend to off set the cost of living while in residence.

Applications are welcome from individuals needing a place to work on a publication or creative work, scholars with research interests in a local archive or collection, project developers seeking a space to develop a program or proposal, or others whose work relates to advancing scholarship and awareness of the achievements of women in one of the four areas of central concern to WISC.

Email: residency@wisc-amh.org
Visit the website at http://wisc-amh.org/programs/residency-program/

The Iowa Women’s Archives (University of Iowa Libraries) announces a grant
of $1000 to fund travel to Iowa City, Iowa, to conduct research in the Iowa
Women’s Archives.  The collections of the Iowa Women’s Archives are global
in scope and include rich sources on the history of the women’s movement,
political activism, African Americans, rural women, and Latinas, especially
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Proposals must be
postmarked by April 15, 2014.

Additional information can be found on the Iowa Women’s Archives
webpage:  http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/iwa/kerber/

Anna Flaming (PhD, History, University of Iowa, 2013) for the Iowa Women’s
Archives
annaleighflaming@gmail.com

We would like to invite proposals for the conference ‘Gender, History and Society’ to be held at the University of Winchester on 4-5 September 2014. This conference aims to draw together scholars and postgraduate students from different disciplines who share a common interest in the study of gender to explore the impact and interaction of gender with both history and society. This includes, but is not limited to, history, religious studies, theology, psychology, sociology, literature studies, archaeology and the Arts. We are also willing to accommodate both paper and poster formats for presenting your research and would also consider alternative forms of presentation. We would also be keen to hear from students and academics who were willing to participate in a roundtable session on pedagogy-please contact us if you are interested in taking part.

Please send a proposal of approximately 250 words for a paper or poster and approximately 500 words for a complete 3-paper panel to CGSevents@winchester.ac.uk by 1 May 2014.

More at H-NET: http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=212014

Finding Women in the Archives: Experiences and Stories
from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe

Deadline September 15, 2014

In the early decades of women’s and gender history as an academic
discipline, feminist historians devoted a lot of time and effort to
finding historical sources by and about women and making those sources
available to a wider audience. It turned out that women’s absence in the
historiography was not primarily due to a lack of sources but was
rather a consequence of (mostly male) historians’ conceptual frameworks
and assumptions about what counted as “history.” There is currently a
strong interest in rethinking archives, both as official institutions
and repositories of documents and in the broader sense of collections
holding “traces of the past,” sometimes put together with the help of
new technologies.[1] Recent publications challenge the older assumption
that archives are neutral and fixed repositories of
information and instead reconceptualize them as “artifacts of history”
(in Antoinette Burton’s words), shaped by material circumstances, state
interests, war and politics, the decisions of those who deposit
materials and of archivists, and much more. In addition to historians
rethinking archives, the on-going digital revolution has a huge impact
in the archival world. More and more archival descriptions and primary
sources are becoming available on-line.

We invite historians of women and gender in the region of Central,
Eastern and Southeastern Europe to reflect on their archival experiences
and the issues mentioned above. Questions we are interested in include,
but are not limited to:

–          What is the state of the archives in the country you are
working on and how has this influenced the questions historians ask, the
kind of narratives they can tell and, in general, what counts as proper
history? How has the archival landscape shaped research on women’s and
gender history?
–          How and to what extent has the specific nineteenth- and
twentieth-century history of the region influenced the state and
availability of archives, both more generally and specifically with
respect to the history of women?
–          Have efforts been made to make women’s records visible and
available?
–          Have you developed specific research strategies to find
traces of women or to work around the limited sources available?
–          Did you make exciting discoveries when looking for women in
the archives? Sometimes a single document is enough to change our
historical understanding of women’s presence and agency; are there
examples of such findings in CESEE and their impact on our
interpretations?
–          What is the role of oral history research and the creation
of oral history archives in developing women’s and gender history in the
region?
–          What counts as an archive, what do historians regard as
“reliable sources,” and how do they deal with different forms of
“evidence”?
–          Are efforts being made to create and maintain archives of
other previously marginalized groups?
–          Does the digital revolution lead to a greater availability
and visibility of women’s archives/sources relevant for women’s and
gender history?

In addition to the specific theme of Finding Women in the Archives, we
welcome submissions on all topics related to women’s and gender history
in CESEE on an on-going basis.

Submissions of up to 8,000 words (including notes) can be sent to
Francisca de Haan (Aspasia Editor-in-Chief) at dehaanf@ceu.hu or to
Melissa Feinberg at mfeinberg@history.rutgers.edu

For more information, please write to one of the editors or visit
http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/asp/, where you can also download the
Aspasia Guidelines for Authors.

[1]See for example A. Burton, ed.,Archive
Stories (2005); N. Chaudhuri et al, eds., Contesting Archives (2010);
and T. Zanish-Belcher and A. Voss, eds., Perspectives on Women’s
Archives (2013).

Francisca de Haan
Central European University
dehaanf@ceu.hu

CFP: , Edited Collection & Book Launch

Queer Youth Histories Workshop, 19 June 2014

Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, London South Bank University, http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/contact-us/maps-and-travel

Workshop: Keyworth K407 10am-5pm

Book launch & wine reception: Keyworth Mezzanine 5pm-7pm (the Workshop will be followed by the launch of Queering Religion, Religious Queers [Routledge], ed. Yvette Taylor & Ria Snowdon).

The heightened profile of queer youth cultures across an array of contexts has given rise to questions about variations in such practices, identifications, politics, experiences and manifestations at different points in time.  Despite significant expansion of LGBT historical scholarship in some areas, research focusing specifically on histories of youth and sexual and gender insubordination remains a fledgling field requiring nurture and growth.  To such ends, this workshop seeks to bring together scholars researching and writing on queer youth histories.

This research might include:

•   national or transnational historical research focusing on intersections of youth and non-normative or LGBTI sexualities and genders;

•   case-based analyses of particular examples of LGBTIQ youth organizing (such as youth groups, activist work, school cultures);

•   critical engagements with cultural texts (e.g. books, films, music) or events (e.g. concerts, demonstrations, conferences) with significance for queer youth histories;

•   historical examples of young people’s involvement in media and cultural production (e.g. community press, radio broadcasting or fan literatures) connected to non-normative or LGBTI sexualities and genders; and

•   historicizing analyses of cultural representations of queer youth histories (e.g. film, television, published fiction).

This workshop is also interested in work that reflects on:

•   methodological implications for doing queer youth history;

•   relationships and tensions between queer youth history and the larger field of LGBT/queer historical research; and

•   theoretical reflections on intersections of ideas about youth, history and non-normative/LGBTI sexualities and genders.

Presentations will be for 20 minutes each.

The Workshop is organized by Daniel Marshall (Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) who in 2014 is a Visiting Scholar at CLAGS (CUNY, New York) and the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research (LSBU, London).  The Workshop will feature Professor Jeffrey Weeks as the closing Respondent.

There are plans to publish papers on this topic as part of an edited collection with an academic press. When submitting your paper proposal, please indicate if you would be happy for me to include your abstract in the proposal for the edited collection.

If you are unable to attend the Weeks Centre workshop but are interested in having your work included in the edited collection please include this notice in your email.

Please submit a 250-word abstract of your proposed paper plus a 100-word bio to daniel.marshall@deakin.edu.au by 7 April 2014.

Call for papers CIT:
Female bodies, Image and Time. An Interdisciplinary History of Looking
University of Granada, 26-28th of June 2014

We welcome you at the University of Granada you from 26 to 28 June 2014 to the CIT (Female bodies, Image and Time. An Interdisciplinary History of Looking) International Congress. This conference will focus on works that tackle the looking at the female body from an interdisciplinary perspective as suggested by the following examples:
Female bodies and literature: the body as a text or a literary theme The translated body and the linguistic body: the female body as linguistic, ideological, cultural-national unity
Female bodies and translations
Female bodies: culture and anthropology: rituals, rites, customs, mode, popular culture, diseases
Female bodies and social culture: theology, socio-political sciences, gender studies looks and vision
Female bodies and norm. Deviance from the regulated body: transsexualism, transgenderism, the limited body, monstrosity
Female bodies and technology: recovering corporal perfection; nutrition, corporal artificiality, construction of the body (bodybuilding, cyberbody, cosmetic surgery)
Female bodies in East European countries.
The female bodies and visual arts
The female bodies in Medicine

CONGRESS LANGUAGES: Spanish, Romanian, English, French
PARRALEL AREAS: Linguistics, Literature, Cultural Antropology
SCHEDULE AND IMPORTANT DATES :
Deadline for submission of abstracts: March 20, 2014
Deadline for the evaluation of abstracts: March 25, 2014
Publication of the accepted abstracts: March 28, 2014
Registration deadline for the selected authors: April 30, 2014

For any further information please read carefully the congress description or contact the secretary of the congress to the following e-mail address:
cuerpo.imagen.tiempo@gmail.com

http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=211161

New Directions – Gender, Sex and Sexuality in 20th Century British History

Tuesday 8 April 2014, University College London

With a keynote address by Professor Laura Doan, University of Manchester

This one day workshop brings together scholars, at any stage of their career and working on any aspect of gender, sex and sexuality in 20th century Britain, for the presentation of new work and the beginning of a dialogue about the past, present and future of the field.

The workshop programme includes a keynote address from Professor Laura Doan, followed by four panels of three papers, with time for discussion: ‘Rethinking religion, rethinking conservatism’; ‘Gender, sex and sexuality in space’; ‘Material and public cultures’; ‘National, imperial and transnational frames’.

Registration for this workshop is now open. If you would like to attend please email newdirections2014@gmail.com. There is no registration fee. Please note that due to the size of the venue, space is limited and places will therefore generally be reserved on a first-come-first-served basis. However, we would particularly like to encourage registrations from postgraduate and early career scholars.

Find more details and full programme at the conference site: http://newdirections2014.wordpress.com/