Tuesday 28 September 2010

Emails in French

 Bonjour,
J'ai le plaisir de vous annoncer que mon second livre vient de paraître. C'est le deuxième volume de mon autobiographie, intitulé
La Vie dure, éducation sentimentale d'une lesbienne.
 Paula Dumont

Mauvais Genre et La Vie dure constituent la seule autobiographie de lesbienne en

langue française. En effet ces deux volumes racontent les quarante premières

années d'une femme homosexuelle.



Catherine et Pascale se sont aimées quand elles étaient en terminale, mais Catherine, qui n’arrivait pas à accepter son homosexualité, a très vite rompu avec Pascale. Vingt ans plus tard, elle renoue avec son amie. Mais elle est mariée et elle a des enfants. Quant à Pascale, elle vit depuis douze ans avec Martine qui voit d’un mauvais oeil ces retrouvailles…
Après Mauvais genre, récit d’enfance et d’adolescence, Paula Dumont raconte avec distance et humour dans La Vie dure les joies et les peines de Pascale, Catherine et Martine, ces femmes qui aiment les femmes, ainsi que les difficultés auxquelles elles sont confrontées au même titre que la majorité de leurs semblables. Ce second livre autobiographique veut être un témoignage sur la situation des homosexuelles dans un monde lesbophobe.


LA VIE DURE

Education sentimentale d’une lesbienne

PAULA DUMONT

L'Harmattan
ISBN : 978-2-296-11335-0; 262pages Prix éditeur : 25 €
       

Extrait :
       
Nous étions attablées dans un lieu public et nous devions chuchoter pour que les autres clients du restaurant n’entendent pas ce que nous disions. J’ai donc réfréné l’envie de caresser sa main qui n’était qu’à vingt centimètres de la mienne. J’avais l’impression qu’elle était aussi aimante qu’à notre dernière rencontre. Elle semblait tout émue de me retrouver, son regard se posait sans cesse tendrement sur moi, elle atten-dait et buvait chacune de mes paroles, bref elle était avec moi comme au cours de nos autres entrevues, ce qui me paraissait de bon augure. Le déjeuner terminé, elle m’a proposé de m’emmener au jardin public qui se trouve près de la bibliothèque municipale. Il faisait un temps magni-fique et j’ai accepté. Dans la voiture, je lui ai pris la main si bien que pendant un instant, elle a perdu le calme dont elle faisait constamment preuve au volant et nous avons fait une embardée. Je lui ai demandé de dire en ma présence qu’elle ne me désirait plus. Elle a soupiré :
— Bien sûr, je suis toute troublée, comme chaque fois qu’on se voit. Mais j’ai besoin de calme, en ce moment, essaie de comprendre !
Essayer de comprendre ! Voilà quatre mois que je ne faisais que ça, mais j’y perdais mon latin. J’ai répondu que je faisais ce qu’elle me demandait puisque j’acceptais une promenade en sa compagnie alors que j’aurais pu rester à Grenoble jusqu’au lendemain pour passer la nuit avec elle. Mais je ne voulais pas la contraindre ni user avec elle d’un quelconque chantage. Ce qui m’avait plu, dans nos retrouvailles, c’est qu’elle revienne d’elle-même, que je sente son désir et son amour avant les miens puisque c’étaient eux qui leur avaient redonné vie. J’aimais qu’elle vienne à moi en toute liberté, mue par son seul désir et je saurais attendre le temps qu’il faudrait pour la retrouver telle que je la souhaitais. Ainsi elle pourrait faire d’utiles comparaisons entre la “servitude sexuelle” qu’elle avait mentionnée dans sa dernière lettre et ce dont je rêvais pour nous.
— Mais enfin, ai-je murmuré, cette curiosité que nous avons l’une de l’autre, ce besoin toujours recommencé de communication auquel tu faisais allusion pendant le déjeuner, tout cela ajouté au désir que nous avons l’une de l’autre, à ce trouble comme tu  dis, tu ne l’appelles pas de l’amour ?
Elle m’a jeté un regard malheureux que je n’ai pas su comment in-terpréter. Mais elle m’avait souvent demandé de ne pas la ménager, aussi ai-je continué :
— Tu faisais moins d’histoires quand tu t’es jetée tête baissée dans le mariage avec un type que tu connaissais à peine et pour qui tu n’éprouvais rien ! ai-je repris.
Je continuais à avoir le sentiment d’une immense injustice. Pour-quoi me faisait-elle subir tous ces examens, pourquoi refusait-elle l’évi-dence quand il s’agissait de moi alors qu’elle ménageait tant le sombre crétin à qui elle était attelée ? Avait-elle besoin de tant se dévorer de culpabilité à son endroit ? Après tout, si elle n’était pas heureuse, elle n’avait qu’à le dire à ce jocrisse qui s’obstinait à ne rien voir.
— Tu sais très bien, ai-je repris, que si nous étions seules, nous serions déjà dans les bras l’une de l’autre.
J’ai regardé avec envie les couples de jeunes gens qui s’embras-saient sur les bancs. Cela non plus, ce n’était pas pour nous. Et non seulement il fallait subir les pressions extérieures, le rejet de la meute hétérosexuelle, mais il fallait en plus que la femme qui me redonnait vie depuis quatre mois s’obstine, elle aussi, à me persécuter. Elle m’a redit une fois de plus sa peur de l’amour et son épouvante devant le plaisir qu’elle pouvait trouver auprès d’une femme. C’était la première fois que nous avions une véritable conversation. Elle m’avait dit qu’elle m’aimait en février, sous les fenêtres de mon directeur, pour que je lui dise la même chose, quitte à s’effrayer ensuite des conséquences possibles d’un tel aveu. Elle exigeait sans cesse de moi une ligne de conduite sérieuse et réfléchie alors qu’elle se laissait perpétuellement mener par ses pulsions du moment. Quant à nos rencontres passion-nées, elles nous avaient surtout permis d’éviter de penser au lendemain en savourant l’instant présent. Dans mes premières lettres et nos pre-mières conversations, j’avais sans cesse censuré ce qui pouvait l’effrayer, de crainte de la faire fuir, et j’avais cherché seulement à entre-tenir ce qui nous réunissait et qui me faisait revivre. Seule ma dernière lettre avait été plus explicite parce que Catherine souhaitait voir évoluer notre amour en tendre amitié, ce qui me semblait  prématuré.
Je suis sortie de la prudente réserve que j’observais depuis nos retrouvailles et je lui ai enfin dit la vérité, combien je l’aimais, combien elle m’était essentielle et combien je me sentais sûre et forte grâce à elle. Elle était visiblement bouleversée. Elle m’a dit qu’elle se sentait parta-gée, déchirée et qu’elle ne voulait pas pour moi d’une solitude d’encore quatre ans au moins. Si, à cause de nos errements d’adolescentes, ma vie adulte avait été une vie d’infirme ou plus exactement une survie, il était temps, à trente-huit ans, que je me mette à vivre.
— Mais je suis heureuse avec toi, ai-je murmuré. Jamais encore je ne m’étais sentie autant aimée.
Je crevais littéralement d’amour et je la mangeais des yeux à défaut de pouvoir la consommer d’une manière plus agréable. Elle a murmuré :
— Ne me regarde pas comme ça. Je ne peux pas supporter ton regard, baisse les yeux. Je suis tellement perméable à ton amour...
J’ai détourné les yeux pour ne pas lui déplaire. Nous avons marché un moment en silence. J’ai pensé qu’il était temps d’aborder l’essentiel du sujet et je me suis aventurée encore un peu plus loin :
— Quand tu as éprouvé le besoin de me retrouver, tu voulais effacer le crime que tu pensais (à juste titre, ai-je souri) avoir commis il y a vingt ans. Mais tu veux aussi autre chose. Ta famille te dit : “Pense à ton mari, à ta position sociale, à tes enfants”. Tu attends que je te dise : “Pense à toi, sois vraie, une bonne fois pour toutes !” C’est ça ?


Thursday 23 September 2010

CFP: Women in Contemporary French & Francophone Theatre

Women in Contemporary French and Francophone Theatre

42nd Annual NeMLA Convention
April 7-10, 2011
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Areas: French Theatre, Women’s and Gender Studies

Since the post-war period, female voices in French and Francophone theatre have begun to develop and mature. Earlier intentions of female dramatists frequently challenged voyeuristic traditions and freed female subjects from patriarchal representations and masculine structures. However, mapping the feminine voice within recent decades of French language theatre, contemporary female authors disrupt theatre’s hegemony, stimulating investigation of cultural and social constructions that dictate the ideologies affecting both genders.
This panel hopes to address the new theatrical forms created by French and Francophone female playwrights. These women have begun addressing crucial questions of theatre’s coercive nature of conventional representations and their implications for subjectivityRupturing theatre’s immutable truths and ideologies, their theatre complicates relations between language and character, audience and actor, self and other. Across a plurality of writing styles and of socio-cultural contexts of contemporary society, how do these French and Francophone female playwrights signal a range of new possibilities for the voice of women on stage? 
Possible female playwrights or directors this panel might investigate (but are not limited to) are as follows: 
Simone Benmussa, Ariane Mnouchkine,  Carole Fréchette, Catherine Anne, Suzanne Lebeau, Nathalie Sarraute, Noëlle Renaude, Denise Bonal, Yasmina Reza, Marguerite Duras, Fatima Gallaire, Fanny Mentré, Hélène Cixous, Denise Chalem, Louise Doutreligne, Lorraine Lévy, Marie NDiaye.


Please submit a 300-word abstract in English or French to Elizabeth Lindley, el261@cam.ac.ukby October 1st, 2010.
Conference proceedings may lead to publications.
Dr. Elizabeth Lindley, el261@cam.ac.uk, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 9BB

CFP: Genealogies: Graduate Symposium on the History of Women & Gender

Genealogies: Graduate Symposium on the History of Women & Gender
 
contact email: gendersymp@gmail.com
 
The Executive Committee of the Twelfth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce a call for papers. The Symposium, which is the capstone event of the History Department’s Women’s History month celebration, is scheduled for March 3-5, 2011. To celebrate and encourage further work in the field of women’s and gender history, we invite submissions from graduate students from any institution and discipline. The Symposium organizers welcome individual papers on any topic in the field of women’s and gender history. Papers submitted as a panel will be judged individually. Preference will be given to scholars who did not present at last year’s Symposium.
 
This year’s theme, “Genealogies,” references two trends in the field the emergence of kinship and the family as tools for interpreting the past, on the one hand, and the continuing importance of the method Foucault called “genealogy,” on the other and seeks to ask a question about the connections (and contentions) that might unite them. How might a history of the family be affected by Foucault’s insistence on refusing origin stories, and how might the new scholarship on intimacy-kinship influence an understanding of the instability and discontinuity of history? Is it possible, in other words, to construct a genealogy of genealogy?
 
Papers need not take up these questions directly, but they should enthusiastically and intriguingly address some aspect of these concerns. In gathering together what we hope will be a geographically, temporally, and disciplinarily diverse body of papers, the conference will create opportunities for dialogue and discussion across these different fields. To that end, successful proposals could focus on, but would not be limited to, studies of whether and to what extent kinship relationships and claims of belonging might be said to have a history. Of related interest would be proposals that engage the idea of intimacy, particularly in relation to familial or social networks and their surrounding histories. When thinking of the idea of ‘family’, we challenge potential paper authors to critically examine the concept of ‘family’ and how the term is defined, utilized and deployed in a variety of contexts. Additionally, we encourage panelists to focus on the kinship-related facets of the concept, including but not limited to: personal family histories, borderlands histories, architectural manifestations of gendered space, changing conceptions of the ‘traditional’ family, and family as viewed through the lens of modernity . In keeping with this year's focus on gender, genealogy and kinship, we also hope to assemble a specifically historiographic panel addressing the state of the field. We are, then, particularly interested in paper proposals that problematize the history of genealogies or the genealogies of history–or suggest new historiographic avenues of inquiry.
 
For the Twelfth Annual Symposium, we are delighted to announce a keynote speaker who engages many of these themes in her work:
 
• Tiya Miles, Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan, author of Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom (University of California Press, 2005)
 
The journal Gender & History will again sponsor a prize for the best graduate student paper presented at the Symposium. Conference presenters will also have the opportunity to publish their work in the on-line proceedings volume. We possess limited resources to subsidize travel expenses for presenters. Giving priority to presenters with limited conference experience, we will allocate these funds based on the quality of presenters’ proposals and the availability of funds.
 
To submit a paper or panel by email (preferred method): please send only one attachment in Word or PDF format containing a 250-word abstract and a one-page curriculum vitae for each paper presenter, commentator, or panel chair to gendersymp@gmail.com.
 
To submit a paper or panel in a hard copy format, please send five (5) copies of all abstracts and curriculum vitae to: Programming Committee, Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History 309 Gregory Hall, MC 466, 810 S. Wright Street Urbana, Illinois 61801.
 
For more information, please contact gendersymp@gmail.com

Five College Dissertation Fellowship

A great opportunity for those wanting support while they write up:


Five College Fellowship Program 2011-12
Five Colleges is pleased to announce its search for Fellows for the 2011-2012 academic year.
Five College Fellowships offer year-long residencies for doctoral students completing dissertations. The program supports scholars from under-represented groups and/or scholars with unique interests and histories whose engagement in the Academy will enrich scholarship and teaching. Normally, four fellowships are awarded each year.
Each Fellow is hosted within an appropriate department or program at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College or Smith College. (At Smith, recipients hold a Mendenhall Fellowship.) This is a residential fellowship. Fellows are provided research and teaching mentors and connected through the consortial office to resources and scholars across the five campuses, which include UMass Amherst. The office also supports meetings of the Fellows throughout the year.
The fellowship includes a stipend of $30,000, a research grant, health benefits, office space, housing or housing assistance, and library privileges at all five campuses belonging to the consortium.
While the award places primary emphasis on completion of the dissertation, most fellows teach at their hosting institution, but never more than a single one-semester course.
Date of Fellowship: August 31, 2011 to May 31, 2012 (non-renewable)
Stipend: $30,000
Review of Applications Begins: January 3, 2011
Awards Announced: March 2011
For application instructions, go to: 

---

Dundee Research Seminar Series

I've said it once, and I'll say it again, I dig the Dundee philosophy department.




University of Dundee
Philosophy Research Seminar Series

Semester 1, 2010-11

All seminars Wednesdays 4-6 PM in Dalhousie Building room 2F15
(exception: Wednesday Sept. 29 is in Dalhousie room 1G05)
Dundee, Scotland

All welcome! Travel directions and campus map available here:
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/general/travel/


Sept. 22
Eileen John (Warwick), “Beauty, Interest, and Autonomy”

Sept. 29
Lorenzo Chiesa (Kent), “Christianity or Communism? Zizek's Marxian
Hegelianism and Hegelian Marxism”

Oct. 27 - Dalhousie 2F15
Simon Glendinning (LSE), "The unity of the philosophical in question:
interference and opacity within philosophical communication today"

Nov. 3
Peg Rawes (UCL), “Relational Ecologies: sexed subjectivity, nature
and aesthetics”

Nov. 10
Martin Kusch (Vienna), “Picture and Disagreement in Wittgenstein's
‘Lectures on Religious Belief’”

Nov. 17
Lorens Holm (Dundee), “Capitalism and the Death Drive: the view from
suburbia”

Dec. 1
Dominic Smith (Dundee), “Beginning to Think: Thought as a Political
Act in the Age of the Internet”

Gender & Space - Newcastle - 29 October

Gender and Space
A Postgraduate Research Symposium
A Gender Research Group Event
Room 2.22 - Research Beehive
1-6pm, Friday 29 October 2010
The Gender Research Group: Postgraduate Steering Committee invites you to attend a postgraduate symposium showcasing the innovative and interdisciplinary critical interventions currently being made at the intersection of gender and space. Please see the attached poster for further details.
Attendance at this event is free, but spaces are limited. Please contact: emma.short@ncl.ac.ukemma.short@ncl.ac.uk> to confirm a space.
On behalf of the Gender Research Group: Postgraduate Steering Committee – Emma Short (SELLL), Ashleigh Sawyer (MACS), Anne Graefer (MACS) and Rosalie Tuplin (SELLL).

Reminder: CFP: (Re)branding Feminism

(RE)BRANDING FEMINISM
A conference hosted by the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies (IGRS), Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5ND.
1st -2nd March 2011.
Call for Papers:
There has been a general recognition, if not acceptance, of many of feminism’s key concepts. But does this mean that it has ceased to assert itself as a unique movement? Indeed, should feminism be (re)branded in an age when all ideologies are subject to market forces? And what should this rebranding consist of?
Two years on from the stimulating ‘Where are we now? A workshop on women and heterosexuality’ hosted by the IGRS, this conference will address some of the issues raised then to question the place of feminism in the twenty-first century. While there has been ambivalent press and general apathy towards those issues that once encouraged women to put the political into the personal, it is increasingly women themselves who think there is nothing more to discuss. Why has there been a decline in the link between the personal and the ideological? Do we need a different kind of feminism to meet the cultural, political and academic needs of a younger generation?
Topics might include but are not limited to:
• Are sisters doing it for themselves?
• Feminism on the frontline
• I can be a real bitch
• Family romances
• Home-makers and career women
• God was/is a woman
• Feminism and the sex industry
• Feminist renaissance
• Feminism is bollocks
• Rebranding feminism
• Pub talk
Abstracts between 200-300 words that explore any aspect of (re)branding feminism are sought as are poster submissions of 200 - 300 words on any topic related to rebranding feminism. Submit poster ideas and abstracts in a word document or .pdf.
Please send abstracts and poster ideas to both Jean Owen (ojean27@yahoo.com) and Elisha Foust (elishafoust@googlemail.com) by 5pm 1 October 2010.

Saturday 4 September 2010

JOB: Feminist Philosophy - Oklahoma

THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, Norman, OK.  Assistant Professor of Philosophy beginning fall semester, 2011.  AOS:  Ethics.  AOC:  Open.  Candidates with an AOC in feminist philosophy, philosophy of race or gender, or areas in the history of philosophy are especially encouraged to apply.  Ph.D. prior to appointment.  Four courses (undergraduate and graduate) per year.  Evidence of teaching ability and promise in research essential.  Salary competitive.  EO/AAE.  Send complete dossier (including vita, 3 letters of recommendation, and a sample of written work) to Reinaldo Elugardo, Philosophy Search Committee, Department of Philosophy, 455 W. Lindsey, Room 605, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019-2006.  Screening will begin December 1, 2010; applications will be accepted until position is filled.

Public Lecture - Gender and Political Theory - London

'It's my body and I'll do what I Like with it' Bodies as possessions and objects

Anne Phillips, Professor of Gender and Political Theory, LSE

A Gender Institute and Department of Government Public Lecture

*       Wednesday 29 September, 2010
*       6.30pm
*       Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
*       Chair: Professor Emily Jackson, Department of Law, LSE
*       Open to all - no booking required.  Followed by an informal drinks reception at the Gender Institute, 5th Floor, Columbia House.

Click here for more details: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/genderInstitute/events/eventsProfiles/bodiesAsPossessions.aspx

Abstract
We commonly use the language of body ownership as a way of claiming personal rights, though we do not normally mean it literally. Most people feel uneasy about markets in sexual or reproductive services, and though there is a substantial global trade in body tissues, the illicit trade in live human organs is widely condemned. But what, if any, is the problem with treating bodies as resources and/or possessions? Is there something about the body that makes it particularly inappropriate to apply to it the language of property, commodities, and things? Or is thinking the body special a kind of sentimentalism that blocks clear thinking about matters such as prostitution, surrogate motherhood, or the sale of spare kidneys?

The related question is whether there is something about feminism that makes it particularly resistant to the body as property. The critique of objectification suggests there is, but there is also an influential strand that defends the commodification of sexual and reproductive services and queries the idea of the body as special. In this lecture, Anne Phillips defends the idea that the body is special, but argues that debates about body ownership are best understood as debates about market relations, not simply claims about the body per se.

For speaker biographies and a list of all forthcoming Gender Institute events, visit http://www2.lse.ac.uk/genderInstitute/events/eventsSchedule10.aspx

For information on how to get to LSE, accessibility maps and how to get around campus, please visit http://www2.lse.ac.uk/mapsAndDirections/Home.aspx

The Gender Institute (LSE) was established in 1993 and brings together social sciences and humanities approaches in order to address key problems in gender studies transnationally. We provide a leading role internationally in combining innovative theory and epistemology with policy concerns. We provide a vibrant research environment and train the largest number of postgraduates qualifying in Gender Studies anywhere in Europe.


Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/planningAndCorporatePolicy/legalandComplianceTeam/legal/disclaimer.htm

Friday 3 September 2010

Special Issue - Informal Logic - feminist epistemology

We are pleased to announce that a special issue of *Informal Logic: Reasoning and Argumentation in Theory and Practice* that we co-edited, and titled, “Reasoning for Change,” is just out!   This journal is now open access, and this issue is available online at: http://informallogic.ca..    The Table of Contents is given below.

We hope that this special issue will contribute to the ongoing development of (in Lorraine Code’s words) a “rhetorical space” connecting work in informal logic, philosophy of argument, and argumentation theory, on the one hand, and feminist philosophy (especially feminist epistemology) on the other.  As we note in the introduction, “All of the papers in this special issue draw attention to significant advances in both informal logic and feminist epistemology that promise fruitful further development, and particularly when these two areas of philosophy more actively draw each from the other.”
Among the topics examined in this special issue are: adversarial argumentation (including in philosophy), gendered argumentation contexts, argumentative injustice (as a specific type of epistemic injustice), limitations of the fallacies approach to argument evaluation, and the implications for rhetorical argumentation of (feminist) epistemologies of situated knowledges. 

On a related note, the call for papers for the 2011 Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA) conference is at:
The deadline for abstracts/proposals is coming up: Sep 7, 2010.  We have found this conference to be a very supportive venue for the development of feminist work related to argumentation, critical thinking, and informal logic. 


Informal Logic, Vol 30, No 3 (2010):
Special Issue: Reasoning for Change

Table of Contents
Introduction: Reasoning for Change
-Phyllis Rooney, Catherine E. Hundleby

Philosophy, Adversarial Argumentation, and Embattled Reason
-Phyllis Rooney

Verbal Sparring and Apologetic Points: Politeness in Gendered Argumentation Contexts
-Sylvia Burrow

Argumentative Injustice
-Patrick Bondy

The Authority of the Fallacies Approach to Argument Evaluation
-Catherine Hundleby

Feminist Epistemologies of Situated Knowledges: Implications for Rhetorical Argumentation
-James C. Lang


Job: Feminist Philosophy - PA

WEST CHESTER UNIVERSITY, West Chester, PA.  Join a vibrant campus community
whose excellence is reflected in its diversity and student success.  West
Chester University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a tenure-track
Assistant Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, with demonstrated competency
in philosophical methodologies (graduate coursework in philosophy strongly
preferred), to begin in Fall 2011. We seek candidates with expertise in
interdisciplinary approaches to teaching women’s and gender studies which draw
on other fields in the arts and sciences. We also seek candidates with an
interest in the development of innovative policies, practices or programs, and
in participating in service and shared governance.  Applicants should be
prepared to teach introductory women’s and gender studies courses, undergraduate
courses in feminist theories, and courses in performance studies, sexuality
studies and queer theories. The Philosophy Department requires teaching
competency in a) Transgender or Queer Theory, b) Intro to Feminist Philosophy,
and c) one of our regularly scheduled lower division courses such as (but not
limited to) Intro to Philosophy, Intro to Existentialism, Philosophy in Film,
Intro to Ethics (emphasizing theories of oppression/social justice). A Ph.D. in
Women’s and/or Gender Studies, or a Ph.D. in another discipline with a record of
contributions in Women’s and/or Gender Studies, is required.

Applicants must have a record of successful teaching and evidence of
high-quality scholarship in Women’s/Gender Studies and/or Philosophy.

We currently offer both a major and minor in Women’s Studies with contributing
faculty from a wide variety of departments across the University. Since the
Women’s and Gender Studies Program is not a department, this hire will be housed
in the Philosophy Department, and will have a 25% teaching commitment there.
The teaching load is 4-4. Competitive Salary and Benefits. (http://www.wcupa.edu/womensstudies).


West Chester University, a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher
Education, continues to build a culturally diverse, broadly trained faculty
capable of fostering an inclusive environment. West Chester, located 25 miles
west of Philadelphia, is convenient to major cultural and commercial
institutions, recreational activities, and is within driving distance of
Wilmington, DE, NYC, and Washington, DC.  Developing and sustaining a diverse
faculty and staff advances WCU’s educational mission and strategic Plan for
Excellence.  The University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer
encouraging diversity.  Women and persons of color are particularly encouraged
to apply.

To Apply: Please send a letter of interest, CV, official graduate transcripts, 3
or more letters of reference, a statement of teaching philosophy, a writing
sample demonstrating philosophical competency, and two sample syllabi (1. A
course in Transgender or Queer Theory, or Gender Studies, and 2. A
lower-division philosophy course [see c. above]) to Dr. Jen Bacon, Director of
Women’s and Gender Studies, West Chester University, West Chester PA 19383. In
order to be considered a finalist, applicants must successfully complete an
on-campus interview, which includes both a teaching demonstration and a
scholarly presentation. Review of applications will begin October 15th, 2010 and
continue until the position is filled. The filling of this position is
contingent upon available funding. All offers of employment are subject to and
contingent upon satisfactory completion of all pre-employment background and
consumer reporting checks.

Thursday 2 September 2010

JOB: Feminist Philosophy - Connecticut

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT. Assistant Professor (tenure-track), teaching load 2 +
2. AOS: moral/social/political, or cognitive science, or history of western or
eastern philosophy. AOC: competence in teaching feminist philosophy highly
desirable. The person hired must contribute through research, teaching, and/or
public engagement to the diversity and excellence of the learning experience.
The University of Connecticut actively solicits applications from minorities,
women, and people with disabilities. Salary competitive. Applicants must be
qualified to teach in a strong PhD program and show evidence of excellence in
research, and must have completed all the requirements for a PhD by August 23,
2011. To be assured of full consideration, applications must be received by
November 1. Apply through Husky Hire by uploading your cover letter and CV,
evidence of teaching experience at http://jobs.uconn.edu. In addition, please
send by hard copy five (5) letters of recommendation to !
 Search Committee, Philosophy Department, University of Connecticut, U-2054, 344
Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT 06269-2054. The University of Connecticut is an
EEO/AA Employer.

FWSA student essay prize - deadline 1 November

To encourage a new generation of feminist scholars, the FWSA sponsors an annual student essay competition for work which is innovative, interdisciplinary and grounded in feminist theory and practice. The top six entries of each year are published in theJournal of International Women’s Studies and the winner will also receive free FWSA membership for one year.  Students at any stage of their studies at a British or Irish university are encouraged to submit previously unpublished work. Entries should be 5,000 to 7,000 words (including footnotes, excluding bibliography) and must be submitted electronically, including a completed competition coversheet. Please note that entries without this coversheet will not be considered. The deadline for this competition is   1st November of each year.

Please note that you must be an FWSA member in order to submit your entry. For detailed entry requirements, guidelines, the competition coversheet, and joining options please visit our website at www.fwsa.org.uk.
 

Wednesday 1 September 2010

A new (school) year

Hello blogland,

We were all doing so well during the summer - following each other, building things up.  I was learning from you and spending tons of time passing on your good bits of information to others.  And then it all came to an abrupt stop.  (or as Irigaray would say, it came to 'a pause'). Why?  Because my mother-in-law became deathly ill.  Everything stopped for 5 weeks.  She is doing better now, thank you - though she's still in ICU and each day is a struggle for her.  She's making good, but slow, progress and we are all learning lessons in patience after learning a big lesson about the fine line between life and death.

Sometime in the middle of that 5 weeks, my biological father died.  I haven't seen him since I was 12 and had long ago let go of those fantasies that come with absent fathers - of meeting up and having a great chat.    What I felt was sad for him.  Sad because he seemed so damned lonely.  Sad for me because I tend towards loneliness too.

It's the first of September and time to get on with a new school year.  I have proposals to write, a thesis to finish and three papers due in all before December.  All of it's interesting.  All of it's exactly what I want to do.  So, let's get on with it.

CFP - ReBranding Feminism - Deadline 1 October 2010

Send me your abstracts!!!!!



(RE)BRANDING FEMINISM

A conference hosted by the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies (IGRS), Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5ND.

1st -2nd March 2011.

There has been a general recognition, if not acceptance, of many of feminism’s key concepts. But does this mean that it has ceased to assert itself as a unique movement? Indeed, should feminism be (re)branded in an age when all ideologies are subject to market forces? And what should this rebranding consist of?

Two years on from the stimulating ‘Where are we now? A workshop on women and heterosexuality’ hosted by the IGRS, this conference will address some of the issues raised then to question the place of feminism in the twenty-first century. While there has been ambivalent press and general apathy towards those issues that once encouraged women to put the political into the personal, it is increasingly women themselves who think there is nothing more to discuss. Why has there been a decline in the link between the personal and the ideological? Do we need a different kind of feminism to meet the cultural, political and academic needs of a younger generation?

Topics might include but are not limited to:



· Are sisters doing it for themselves?

· Feminism on the frontline

· I can be a real bitch

· Family romances

· Home-makers and career women

· God was/is a woman

· Feminism and the sex industry

· Feminist renaissance

· Feminism is bollocks

· Rebranding feminism

· Pub talk


Please note that the conference is a women-only event.

Abstracts between 200-300 words that explore any aspect of (re)branding feminism are sought as are poster submissions of 200 - 300 words on any topic related to rebranding feminism. Submit poster ideas and abstracts in a word document or .pdf.

Please send abstracts and poster ideas to both Jean Owen (ojean27@yahoo.com) and Elisha Foust (elishafoust@googlemail.com) by 5pm 1 October 2010.