Women in Motion: An Interdisciplinary Conference,
Mount Allison
University
Sackville, New Brunswick, CANADA
May 23-25,
2003
International travel and urban 'flânerie', and in certain
traditions, all
forms of geographic movement, have long been represented as
'uniquely
masculine privilege(s) [or burden(s)]' (Jacqui Smyth 1995). One
need only
consider the nineteenth-century trope of woman as (stationary)
flower and
man as (mobile) bee, or the classical pairing of Ulysses and
Penelope, to
realize that masculine models of movement have, in the past,
opposed
feminine models of stasis. There are significant exceptions to such
models
of feminine immobility, as represented, for example, by the
female
pilgrim, the female migrant, the woman accompanying her traveling
husband,
father or son and the abandoned or "fallen" woman.
The Mount
Allison University faculties of Arts and Social Sciences invite
participation
in an interdisciplinary conference investigating cultural
representation of
women in motion and the material outcomes of models of
feminine mobility and
immobility.
We encourage submission of papers that deal with the
following issues and
questions:
What are the notable exceptions to the
literary or cultural conventions of
female immobility through the centuries
and across cultures?
How do representations of mobile women differ from
those of more stationary
women? From those of mobile men?
What
issues, questions or meanings are evoked when women move in contexts
in which
movement is understood to be 'a uniquely masculine privilege
[or
burden]'?
Are certain kinds of spaces appropriated by women in
motion?
What connections persist between particular literary or
cultural
representations of mobile or immobile women and historical
and
contemporary barriers to women's mobility?
Can we detect any
change in the representation of women in discussions of
pilgrimage,
exile, migrancy/migration and cosmopolitanism?
A selection
of guiding quotes:
"Throughout the 18th-Century, European society
remains extremely wary of
those who wander, and in particular, of women who
wander. Wandering is
sanctioned as vagrancy a crime punishable by
flogging. If prostitution is
not at that time a crime in itself, it is
likened to vagrancy. That is to
say how much feminine movement is
deemed socially and morally suspect. For
an honest woman remains in the
home (of the father or husband). If
absolutely necessary, she may enter into
the home of the person to whom the
father delegates his authority."
--Françoise du Sorbier (1991) on Daniel
Defoe's wandering heroines (our
translation).
"In 19th-Century Europe, feminine 'flânerie' in
public spaces is seen as
being "very contrary to the true nature of women
women are naturally
unadventurous and conservative" Bénédicte Monicat
(1996) on the
perception of women in public spaces (our translation).
"In part the notion of a flâneuse is impossible precisely because of
the
one-way-ness and the directionality of the gaze. Flâneurs observed
others;
they were not observed themselves. And for reasons which link
together the
debate on perspective and spatial organization of painting, and
most
women's exclusion from the public sphere, the modern gaze
belonged
(belongs?) to men". - Doreen Massey (1994) discussing Janet
Wolff's
"Invisible Flâneuse".
"[U]nless economical necessity forces
[the woman subject] to leave the home
on a daily basis, she is likely to be
restrained in her mobility -- a
transcultural, class- and gender-specific
practice that for centuries has
not only made travelling quasi impossible
for women, but has also compelled
every 'travelling' female creature to
become a stranger to her own family,
society and gender." (Trinh T. Minh-ha,
"Other than myself/ my other self",
in _Travellers' tales: narratives of home
and displacement_, ed. by George
Robertson et al., Routledge,
1994.)
Mount Allison University <
http://www.mta.ca/> is located near the
Nova
Scotia border of New Brunswick, 30 minutes from the Moncton airport and
2
hours from the Halifax airport. Information on accommodation
and
registration will be available in early 2003. Our conference is
scheduled
May 23-25, 2003 for the convenience of those who may also wish to
attend
the Congress of Learned Societies in Halifax, May 28-June 5, 2003.
Proposals in English or in French are invited for papers (20
minutes
reading time) or panels (two or three papers). Proposals (300-500
words)
should be sent by email or paper by November 30, 2002. Email
submissions
should be sent within the body of an email letter: NO
ATTACHMENTS, PLEASE.
Mail two copies of paper submissions to:
Dr. Karin Schwerdtner
Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures
Mount Allison University
49A York Street
Sackville, NB, CANADA
E4L 1C7
Send electronic submissions to both:
[log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] Karen
Bamford
Associate Professor
Dept. of English, Mount Allison
University
63D York St., Sackville, NB, Canada, E4L 1G9
phone:
506-364-2550; fax:506-364-2524
e-mail:
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