Contemporary Women's Writing: New Texts, Approaches, and Technologies

Contemporary Women's Writing: New Texts, Approaches, and Technologies

The Third Biennial International Conference of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Network

In Collaboration with San Diego State University

7-9 July 2010

Organizers: Edith Frampton, Department of English and Comparative Literature, SDSU

Anne Donadey, Departments of European Studies and Women’s Studies, SDSU

Call for Papers

Deadline for abstracts: 15 August 2009

How are women writers adapting to the twenty-first century? What new varieties of novels, poetry, plays, short stories, non-fiction, and other genres are emerging? What new topics, styles, and technologies are women adopting and transforming? What time-honored forms and techniques continue to be fruitful? How is the Internet, with blogging, e-books, ezines, and other possibilities, providing new opportunities for women’s writing, publishing, and reading? Are scholars of women’s writing adapting new critical and theoretical approaches to the study of texts and technologies that have appeared since the 1970s? Through which traditional or progressive modes is contemporary women’s writing being taught by instructors and understood by students now?

Panels and papers in English are sought on all genres of literary and popular writing since the 1970s, including fiction, poetry, plays, autobiography, travel writing, graphic novels, blogging, etc., in any language. Panels and papers are also sought on the relation of this writing to new technologies, to teaching, and to theory and criticism.

Authors and key note speakers to be announced by 1 August 2009. Registration available beginning 1 Sept. 2009.

If you would like to propose a 20-minute paper or a panel of three papers, please send:

· email message with subject heading: “CWWN conference abstract,” including:

· 250-word abstract for papers

· name, postal address, and phone number

· brief bio, including any institutional affiliation

· audiovisual needs, if any

· for panels, a list of contributors and papers, with a 250-word abstract and a brief bio for each

to: eframpto@mail.sdsu.edu, or

Dr. Edith Frampton

Department of English and Comparative Literature

San Diego State University

5500 Campanile Drive

San Diego, California 92182 USA

Submitters will be notified about whether their proposed papers and panels have been accepted on 1 September 2009.

For more information, please go to: cwwn.sdsu.edu 

Possible Topics:

New texts by women writers: how these address issues of technology; the twentieth and twenty-first-century world; new genres and new literary media; ecology and global climate change; feminism; gender, race, and sexuality; labor, social class, and agency; disability, aging, and technology; migration and migratory subjectivity, language and culture; settlers and settlements; location and relocation; the politics of place, home, and exile; racism, colonialism, imperialism, globalization, and the digital divide; nation and national identity; hybridity, transnationalism, and minor-to-minor networks; multiculturalism; human trafficking; asylum; war, militarism, and trauma; north and south; East and West; South Asian diaspora; African diaspora; Caribbean diaspora; Chinese diaspora; Irish diaspora; Scottish diaspora; Jewish diaspora; queering diaspora; children’s literature; travel writing and cultural encounter;

New technologies: blogs, BlogHer, e-book publishing, e-book readers, Facebook and other social networking tools; how these interact with and affect contemporary women’s writing;

New teaching modes: Webquests, wikis, student publishing, social networks; how these can facilitate the understanding of contemporary women’s writing;

New critical and theoretical approaches: to literature that has recently appeared and texts from as far back as the 1970s.

Authors such as: Leila Aboulela, Kathy Acker, Chimananda Ngozi Adichi, Patience Agbabi, Rukhsana Ahmad, Ama Ata Aidoo, Monica Ali, Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, Moniza Alvi, Gloria Anzaldúa, Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker, Eavan Boland, Yvonne Brewster, Erna Brodber, Octavia Butler, Paulo Capriolo, Ana Castillo, Jung Chang, Sandra Cisneros, Michelle Cliff, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Edwidge Danticat, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Mahasweta Devi, Imtiaz Dharker, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Assia Djebar, Rita Dove, Carol Ann Duffy, Buchi Emecheta, Louis Erdrich, Laura Esquivel, Bernadine Evaristo, Tess Gallagher, Allegra Goodman, Linda Grant, Faiza Guene, Jackie Kay, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri, Doris Lessing, Andrea Levy, Audre Lorde, Angeles Mastretta, Fatima Mernissi, Catherine Merriman, Anne Michaels, Ana María Moix, Rosa Montero, Shani Mootoo, Toni Morrison, Bharati Mukherjee, Marisela Norte, Grace Nichols, Joyce Carol Oates, Winsome Pinnock, E. Annie Proulx, Adrienne Rich, Denise Riley, Joan Riley, Michèle Roberts, Kay Ryan, Esmeraldo Santiago, Ahdaf Soueif, Leïla Sebbar, Sun Shuyun, Zadie Smith, Meera Syal, Amy Tan, Helena María Viramontes, Alice Walker, Sarah Waters, Sherley Anne Williams, Jeanette Winterson, Xinran Xue, Hong Ying, and others.