Abstract

Rita Felski has famously argued in The Gender of Modernity that the great transformations of modern life have been theorized predominantly from a masculine standpoint, even though these changes have had a profound impact on women that remains largely overlooked. Silvia Federici, in Caliban and the Witch, notes the absence in Marx's work of any sustained attention to the transformations capitalism introduced in the reproduction of labor-power and the social position of women. Even in radical movements such as the New Left of the 1960s and '70s, critics such as Lydia Sargent have observed that the unglamorous, mundane care work behind the scenes remains understudied.

This panel investigates the epistemological loss produced by the exclusion of women as subjects of the modern across a range of cultural products — literature, music, criticism, the visual arts, film, and beyond. We are particularly interested in work addressing the exclusion of women from literary canons (especially that of literary modernism); the gendering of national imaginaries and their cultural representations (including in postcolonial contexts); and the presence of non-patriarchal models of behavior in mass culture. Together, these lines of inquiry ask what it means to reintroduce women's perspectives into received narratives of modernity, working toward a more layered understanding of the modern that contributes to empowering marginalized subjectivities today.

Format: In person only (no remote presentations).

Submission details:

• Abstract submission window: June 16 – September 30
• Each submission must include:
  
  • A title (max. 80 characters)
  • An abstract of 200–300 words
  • A brief bio
• Submit here: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22646
• Chairs will confirm acceptance by October 16. Once notified, please confirm your participation by accepting the chairs' invitation through the portal.

Chairs:

• Luca Abbattista (Columbia University)
• Alessandro Combina (University College Dublin)
• Caterina Begliorgio (University of Trento)