Rebellious Women
The permanent section "Women in Literature" is seeking papers for the MMLA convention held 12-14 November 2026 in Chicago.
Archives are based upon categories, the fundamental one being what is and what is not worth remembering. In literature, rebellious women are also categorized and tend to become exemplars (and are memorialized) or are erased. This panel seeks to complicate what is worth remembering by examining the silences and gaps in what tends to be categorized as “rebellious.” Of particular interest are women in literature who engage in quotidian acts of rebellion, figures who may be rebellious in some ways but traditional in others, and other examples that problematize what might qualify as a “rebellious woman.”
