CfP: A Room of Her Own: Writing Women's Independence around the Globe

CFP: A Room of Her Own: Writing Women’s Independence around the Globe

The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.
Virginia Woolf, Room of One’s Own

Day: Friday 20th May 2016

Venue: University of Leeds (Blenheim Terrace House, 11-14, Room G.02), between 10.00 am until 5/6.00 pm
Abstracts submission deadline: Monday 4th April 2016 (see information below)
Keynote speaker: Professor Jane Plastow (University of Leeds)
Subject Fields: Literature, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Fine Arts, Media Studies, History and Philosophy

The Women’s Paths Research Group is pleased to invite PhD students and early career researchers to its final symposium A Room of Her Own: Writing Women’s Independence around the Globe, which will be held in Leeds on 20th May 2016. The symposium will provide a space to continue the conversation initiated at our LHRI (Leeds Humanities Research Institute) sponsored seminars and reading group sessions organized at the University of Leeds.
Inspired by Woolf’s quotation, we aim to investigate the ways in which visual culture, media studies and literary creation can interrogate both meanings and representations of modern/contemporary social movements for women’s independence in a global context. Furthermore, the symposium intends to develop a critical perspective regarding gender issues and the value of space and money as qualifiers of such independence.

Papers are invited on any aspect of this debate. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

- Challenging Eurocentric perspectives on global movements for women’s independence
- Postcolonial and Third World Feminisms
- The Arab Spring: outcomes and representations
- The role of media and nationalism in reading third world lived experiences
- Social media/literary creation and their role in the context of war (e.g. blogs writings, personal websites)
- Issues, perspectives, representations in defining a ‘feminine’ perspective
- Queer and Transgender Studies and redefining given gendered categories
- Critical approaches to the ‘androgynous mind’ and creativity
- Money and space as qualifiers of individual independence (e.g. material aspects of such independence and identity)
- Space as personal and social category (e.g. the ‘role play’ inside the family unit and workplace)
- Financial independence/legal aspects in terms of inheritance laws, sexism in workplace
- Ethnic/Class stakes of feminist protest movements

Each presentation will last 15 minutes. PhD students and early career researchers interested in taking part in the workshop are invited to send their abstracts (300 words maximum) by Wednesday 20 April, together with a short biography (50 words) specifying name, email address and affiliation to womenspathsleeds@gmail.com

For further information, do not hesitate to contact the organizers at the aforementioned email address.

The organizing committee

Arunima Bhattacharya
Alexandra Gruian
Lourdes Parra
Clara Stella

About the keynote speaker:
Jane Plastow is Professor of African Theatre at the University of Leeds and was for 10 years till 2015 director of the Leeds University Centre for African Studies. She makes theatre predominantly with disadvantaged communities in the UK, Africa and India, and has special interests in issues of the empowerment of women and young people. She is currently working with poor communities in Jinja, Uganda and will be working in China in May. She has written extensively on community-based theatre and African theatre and is currently writing a history of East African theatre