cfp.english.upenn.edu

Bringing the “Outsider” of Age into the Women’s Studies Classroom

National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA)
Denver, CO
November 11-14, 2010
For more conference details, see http://www.nwsa.org/conference/index.php

Abstract deadline: February 15, 2010

In addition to women’s studies’ “reluctance to engage with questions of race and class” as highlighted in the NWSA conference call for Difficult Dialogues II, women’s studies has a longstanding reluctance to engage with the issues, theory and politics of age. Aging feminists have felt themselves marginalized as “outsiders” within the feminist movement, and age studies has often been a theoretical outsider to not only women’s studies, but to black studies, ethnic studies, sexuality studies and many other areas of inquiry—despite the fact that age meaningfully intersects with the lived experiences that inspire all of these intellectual investigations.

In this panel, we are interested in exploring strategies for overcoming this reluctance to engage with age within the women’s studies classroom. We seek papers that address pedagogical approaches to and challenges with bringing the lens of age into discussions of gender, sexuality, race, class, disability, nation, etc. Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Strategies for bringing age into traditional women’s studies curricula, especially when such a focus may not be institutionally or disciplinarily recognized as valuable
• Techniques and exercises for challenging students to consider issues of age intersectionally with other categories of difference
• Ways that age theory can be used to productively challenge or extend pedagogical approaches to feminist theory, critical race theory, disability theory, etc.
• Including age when teaching feminist approaches in courses outside of women’s studies, in particular, how age theory and age issues productively intersect with public policy and women’s health
• How the teacher’s age impacts the students and the pedagogy
• How age diversity in students impacts the learning environment
• Active learning and service learning projects that focus students’ attention on age, among other categories

Send 250+ abstracts or full papers by February 15, 2010. Please include your full name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), mailing address, and email address in the proposal. Email submissions strongly preferred. (If you cannot submit via email for some reason, please contact the moderator below.)

Erin Gentry Lamb
lambeg@hiram.edu
Center for Literature, Medicine & the Biomedical Humanities
Hiram College
Mahan House
Box 67
Hiram, OH 44234
(330) 569-6139