American Literature Association (ALA) 28th Annual Conference--May 24-28, 2018--San Francisco, California

"Embodiment and Charlotte Perkins Gilman"

Despite a career-spanning insistence on the spiritual value of collective humanity, the writings of Charlotte Perkins Gilman often take a turn toward the exploration of individual embodiment. In her autobiography, Gilman attests to a “life-long interest in physical culture” and recounts many of her life’s events through somatic experience. In another instance, she recalls a doctor’s praise for having depicted so thoroughly the physical experience of nervous breakdown in “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” This session invites papers that explore Gilman’s fascination with the physical body and her simultaneous investment in and resistance to individualized embodiment. This panel’s selected papers should contribute to a better understanding of themes of embodiment and corporeality in Gilman’s writings. They may also illuminate Gilman’s and/or other writers’ enmeshment in scientific, medical and popular treatments of the body in late nineteenth and early twentieth century culture. Additionally, this panel encourages pedagogical approaches to embodiment and similar themes in the works of Gilman and other contemporary authors. Submit 250 to 500-word abstracts and a CV, by December 31, 2017, to Hannah Huber, University of South Carolina, at hhuber@email.sc.edu.