Location! Location! Location!

[click image for larger image]

[© Jorge Cham, PhD Comics]

I was unhappy with my paper proposal, so I asked Dr. Logan if I could meet with her to go over it (on October 25).  After a productive brainstorming session, she mentioned that my proposal would be a good fit for a conference presentation, specifically the Florida Consortium for Women’s and Gender Studies Conference at Florida Atlantic University.  


So, I’m excited to announce that I will, after revisions, submit my abstract/paper proposal for the conference in April 2011.  My previous conference experience is limited to Sigma Tau Delta’s International Convention in 2004 (“A Pleasant Walk, A Pleasant Talk”) – I did not submit a paper.  I attended with another officer of our chapter for the workshops and paper presentations, which were amazing, and I greatly enjoyed our guest speaker Sarah Vowell.  To be honest, at the time, I didn’t even know that undergraduates could do such a thing – submit papers for conferences.  I plan on rectifying that misunderstanding during my graduate study career.


Below is the call for papers for the conference, courtesy of Dr. Logan.  I hope that some of my classmates will submit their proposals too.


CALL FOR PAPERS


Florida Consortium for Women’s and Gender Studies Conference
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, Florida
April 1-2, 2011

Gendered and Racialized Technologies of Change: 

Moving Discredited Knowledge from the Margins to the Center

We understand “gendered and racialized technologies of change” to comprise the techniques and practices through which feminists and queer activists generate change in the organization of social, political, and economic relations. The purpose of this conference is to cross disciplinary boundaries and bring together feminist and queer discourses regarding these technologies. 


We welcome individual papers, panels and roundtables or workshops as well as innovative presentational formats from scholars, activists, and graduate students addressing, but not limited to, the following issues:

• Activist Strategies
• Civil and Human Rights
• Sexual Bodies, Sexualized Bodies, and Body Politics
• The Military Industrial Complex
• Corporate Culture
• The Feminization of Poverty
• Migration and Globalization
• The Changing (and Same Old) Faces of Oppression
• Intersections of the Local and the Global
• Environment
• Health and/or Women Healers
• New Media
• Popular Culture
• The Sacred and the Spiritual
• Visual and Performing Arts
• Science and Technology
• Pedagogy

Selected conference papers may be included in the Consortium anthology published by Cambridge Scholars Press. Past anthologies of conference papers include: Many Floridas: Women Envisioning Change (2007), Florida without Borders: Women at the Intersections of the Local and Global (2008), and Femininities and Masculinities in a Global Context (currently in press).


To apply, please submit a 250-500 words double-spaced abstract. Abstracts should include the presenter’s contact information and brief vita. Deadline for submissions is January 15th, 2011. 

• Graduate Student abstracts should be sent via e-mail to Megan Halena at mhalena@fau.edu . 
• All other abstracts should be sent via e-mail to Josephine Beoku-Betts at wsc@fau.edu. 
• Final decisions on submitted abstracts will be sent by February 28th, 2011

For more information on the FAU Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies M.A. degree program, please visit our website: http://www.fau.edu/WomensStudies/




Works Cited:
Cham, Jorge. "Call for Papers!" Comic strip. PhD: Piled Higher & Deeper. 25 June 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2010. <http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1335>.

You Are Not Alone

Remember the Cosmo PostSecret card I posted about in October?  Apparently, it gets a lot of mileage.  This article at Bitch Magazine made me smile - I hope you enjoy it too.

• From Bitch Magazine: “I <3 Bitch For Creating a Community” by Sara Stroo

Bits and Pieces

Articles:

• From The New York Times Review of Books: “Toward ‘the Digital Public Library of America’: An Exchange” by Tony Simpson and Robert Darnton [original “Can We Create a National Digital Library”] 

• First of all, I love that Jessica saw this article and thought of me.  

• Second, yes, we can and MUST create a national digital library.  One thing that stood out to me, and maybe this is because I’m so incredibly immersed in women’s writing, the female homosocial, and the lesbian continuum because of this project, is that Robert Darnton only quotes MEN in his original article – Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams.  And to that, I call shenanigans.  Last time I looked, plenty of women in our past wrote about the link between shared knowledge, literacy, education, and the democracy (and we continue to do so to this day!).  And in fact, women are completely absent from his article, unless we are counted under the gender-neutral umbrella of “citizenship.”  

• Despite my anger at the distinct lack of women, past and present, from Darnton’s article, yes, I agree – a national digital library, connected to a larger international library (an index of ALL digital libraries) needs to happen, as soon as possible.  Cooperation is needed on all levels – state, federal, private corporations, universities, colleges, the government – I think you get the picture.  And obviously, copyright is one of the biggest hurdles we face, so why not start with texts with expired copyrights, or texts that reside in special collections?  You can see that Darnton has the same idea in his reply to Simpson.  Anyways, read the articles and tell me what you think.   

• From Gizmodo: “Attention: The Web Is Not Public Domain” by Brian Barrett

• From Mashable / Social Media: “7 Fantastic Free Social Media Tools for Teachers” by Sarah Kessler

• From Jezebel: “What Facebook Does to Teenage Girls” by Irin Carmon
• Remember the articles about the Facebook movie, The Social Network, as a male homosocial network?  I thought this article was an interesting contrast.

• From The Frisky: “’I Am A Girl’ Documentary Looks Like A Sobfest” by Jessica Wakeman

• From Slate: “Who Gets To Be a Feminist?” by DoubleX Staff

Cool sites:

• The University of Michigan: Eighteenth Century England: A Site Created by and for Literature Students at the University of Michigan

• I found this site by accident the night my contextual documents assignment was due, Friday the 5th.  I Googled something like “essays on female friendship by women” and this popped up in the results.  It’s amazing!  I already posted the link to our WebCourses discussion board so my classmates and Dr. Logan could see it.  I’m hoping that Dr. Logan and our English Department will grant us permission to create a shell page on the UCF server that will link to all of our projects, as well as Dr. Logan’s students’ previous digital projects (whew, that was a mouthful). 

• The University of Michigan site is cumulative – so far, 143 students have contributed 54 projects, working in groups from 1999 through the present.  It’s quite impressive, especially when you see the levels of cooperation – professors, undergraduate students, graduate students, and doctoral students, as well as interdisciplinary cooperation (different departments).  

• What I love most about this site is that it is student driven and created – these are our peers, our equals.  I think sometimes that scholarship can seem intimidating because of the author, or difficult to understand (or unpack as Dr. Jones says) because of all the jargon most of which as students we’re still learning about.  These pages, on the other hand, are written in the same language and style that we are familiar with because it is our own.  So please, take a couple of minutes to explore their site and let me know what you think.

• Beeskep: 18th-century American Women

• This site also popped up in my Google results for “essays on female friendship by women” and I thought my classmates would enjoy looking through it.  The author, Beeskep, has three other sites that straddle the time periods of our class, which I’ve listed below.

• Beeskep: Early American Gardens

• Beeskep: 17th-century American Women

• Beeskep: 19th-century American Women

Contextual Documents

The assignment from Dr. Logan:
By 11/5/10 submit a list of contextual documents and information to me with explanations or rationale.  Post links or documents to your blog.  Think about this assignment as creating an online space for understanding your text fully and as preparation for your Undergraduate Study Guide.



[Submitted 5 November 2010]

Primary Sources 
Please note that some of the biographical, historical, and cultural sources will overlap the boundary between primary and secondary sources.  Also, some of the sources blur the line between historical and cultural studies.  Lastly, the sources listed below would not be reprinted in their entirety – passage length would be determined by its importance and contribution to the overall theme of female friendship.

Images:
Blecki, Catherine L., and Karin A. Wulf, eds.  Milcah Martha Moore's Book: a Commonplace 
Book from Revolutionary America.  University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997.  Print.

• Since Blecki and Wulf could only include three images of Moore’s commonplace book, I have to assume the text is too fragile for photographic reproduction, which is a shame.  These three images – the title page, and entries 81 and 82 – would be included as part of my contextual documents.

Howland, Gulielma M.  Papers, 1700-1867 (bulk 1750-1840).  MS 1000.  Haverford 
College.  Tripod.  Web.  5 Nov. 2010  <http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/record=b2132024~S12>.

• Photographs of Hannah Griffitts’s letters to her friends and family on the subjects of friendship and family serve to expand upon themes in her poem and prose entries in MMMB.  Both photographs and transcriptions of the letters would be included. 

Male authors:
Lockridge, Kenneth.  The Sources of Patriarchal Rage: The Commonplace Books of William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson and the Gendering of Power in the Eighteenth Century.  NY: NY UP, 1992.  Print.

• Short excerpts from William Byrd’s commonplace book are helpful because it too is “unruly” – instead of presenting a variety of topics, as dictated by tradition, it goes “on at great length, almost obsessively, about a single, emotionally laden subject” (5).  Unlike MMMB which focuses on female friendship and supportive connections, Byrd’s commonplace book is a prime example of “private patriarchal rage and public and private misogyny” (x).

Biographical:
Ousterhout, Anne M., Joseleyne A. Slade, and Susan M. Stabile.  The Most Learned Woman in America: A Life of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson.  University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2004.  MLA International Bibliography.  Web.  23 Sept. 2010.

• The life of Graeme Fergusson directly contradicts the gendered standards of behavior for single and married women of her culture.  By choosing selections from her biography, I can consider her strategies of resistance and non-compliance and extend these real life examples to her prose entries in MMMB.

Blecki, Catherine L., and Karin A. Wulf.  "Preface."  Milcah Martha Moore's Book: a Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America.  University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997.  xi-xviii. Print.

• Blecki and Wulf provide short, succinct biographies of Moore, Wright, Griffitts and Graeme Fergusson that shed light on the experiences that shaped these women’s lives.  Because the commonplace book is intensely personal, biography cannot be ignored or excluded from the discussion of the text.  

Historical:
Hayes, Kevin J.  “Preface.”  A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf.  Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1996.  ix-xv.  Print.


Hayes, Kevin J.  “Reading Women.”  A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf.  Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1996.  1-27.  Print.

• A combination of history of the book and biographical approach allows Hayes to fill in the blank spaces of colonial women’s reading habits – how they read, what they read, why they read.  Hayes provides both the norms and deviations of reading practices, allowing the reader to differentiate between the fantasy of idealized feminine readers presented by men in literature and historical reality. 

Cultural:
Stabile, Susan M.  “Pen, Ink, and Memory.”  Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America.  NY: Cornell UP, 2004.  74-125.  Print.

• The descriptions of Deborah Logan’s writing process are not only beautiful, they are highly descriptive and provide an accurate picture of how women approached writing in their daily lives.  Namely, the hurdles they faced in finding enough time, a space of their own, proper paper, quill pens, and ink are provided for the reader.  These obstructions were also possibly faced by Moore, Griffitts, Wright, and Graeme Fergusson.

Ya-Ya Sisterhood

I voted today.  Not because I’m a woman.  Not because my feminist sisters of the past fought for the Nineteenth Amendment.  I voted because it’s my civic duty.


And while I will forever be grateful for those women (and men) who demanded equality for the right to vote, I think the emotional blackmail and guilt-tripping about “women have to vote or they’re a traitor to their sisters-in-arms” needs to stop.  Nothing angers me more than someone telling me I have to do something, or not do something, because of my gender.  


Instead, tell me I should vote because it’s my civic and patriotic duty.  Remind me that when I vote, I am participating in the checks and balances placed in the system by our founding fathers (who were often advised by their wives, sisters and daughters – Abigail Adams ring any bells for you?).  If I don’t vote, you should tell me, I am not exercising my constitutional rights.  Don’t vote and give up your voice, you should chide me.  Voting is empowering, you should advise me, no matter your gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, or race.


I think you get the point.  


And in case you think I’m being ungrateful to the sacrifices made by women who fought for my voting right, I’m not.  I cried while watching Iron Jawed Angels (HBO), especially during the force-feeding scene.  But I think that even these women would agree – stop holding gender hostage when it comes to the right to vote.

Feminine American Myth-Making

During our class discussion on The Female American (10/12/10), Dr. Logan asked us if American myth-making can ever be independent of colonization, decimation, and eradication.  My answer was an emphatic “no.”  Despite the blood-free colonization that Unca Eliza Winkfield enacts upon the natives of the island, she still decimates their religious way of life, destroying their sun idol and converting them to Christianity.  Even the idealized female utopia portrayed in The Female American involves colonization, decimation, and eradication.  

What does occur, in American literature, is the pretense of emptiness, an imaginary lack of native people already occupying the Americas.  This, of course, is one of the strategies of American myth-making – pretend that the land was un-occupied when in reality it was occupied by a large amount of Native peoples.  Reality (historical fact) vs. fantasy (what authors wrote) in American literature is incredibly fascinating and requires careful reading to know when you’re being duped by the author.  Another strategy is religious justification.  Edward J. Gallagher has a digital archive dedicated to the literature of justification, aptly titled The Literature of Justification.

Imagine my surprise when I found an example of (feminine) American myth-making by Hannah Griffitts in MMMB, signed with her pen name Fidelia.  And by feminine, I mean written by a woman.  The entry is “The Review of past & present Times in Pennsylvania.  June 1776,” MMMB # 91 (not available in the GoogleBooks preview).  

Rather than retype the entire entry, I’m going to post small sections that I belief best represent American myth-making.

Housekeeping

Despite not having enough free time to post, I have updated and fussed with the site these past two weeks.  Because some of these changes are small, or only noticeable to me, I’m going to list the “behind the scenes” work that has occupied my time.

Blog Blurb:
I met with Dr. Logan last week to talk about my paper proposal and I brought up my uneasiness of using Queer Theory when I still knew next to nothing about it other than the concepts of the female homosocial and lesbian continuum.  That’s when Dr. Logan reminded me that Adrienne Rich is not a Queer theorist but a feminist theorist, and she suggested that I use feminist theory informed by these two concepts.  I can’t tell you how relieved I felt and happy that I was indeed on the right track for my paper.  To reflect this refocus, I’ve updated my blog blurb.    


Old: 
This blog is part of my current research project for Dr. Lisa Logan's "Issues in Literary Study: Unruly Women in Early American Literature" course at the University of Central Florida, Fall 2010 semester. Research will focus on Milcah Martha Moore's Book, an unpublished commonplace book, through the lens of Queer Theory, specifically the ideas of the female homosocial and lesbian continuum.


New:
This blog is part of my current research project for Dr. Lisa Logan's "Issues in Literary Study: Unruly Women in Early American Literature" course at the University of Central Florida, Fall 2010 semester.  Research will focus on Milcah Martha Moore’s Book, an unpublished commonplace book, through the lens of Feminist Theory informed by the female homosocial and lesbian continuum.