CFP: Nancy Mairs (collection)

Abstracts are requested for an edited collection of
new articles on the work of Nancy Mairs, tentatively
titled,

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW IN MY BONES: NEW AND SELECTED
ESSAYS ON NANCY MAIRS

Few academic treatments currently exist of this
prolific essayist and memoirist (an MLA Bibliography
search turns up only 7 entries, two of which are
dissertation abstracts), and her memoir, Remembering
the Bone House, has gone in and out of print over the
years since its publication in 1989. Yet the content
of her first-person narratives is quite revolutionary
in the contexts of feminist consciousness-raising,
critical autobiography studies, disability studies,
and feminist heterosexuality studies. Thus far,
disability studies has been the most consistently
represented field in articles on Nancy Mairs, and for
this reason the list below does not include this
topic, although abstracts from this angle are welcome.
 Likewise, treatments of her essay collections have
outweighed treatments of her memoir, so abstracts on
the memoir are especially encouraged.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the
following:

• female sexuality (challenges to traditional
mainstream and feminist discourses)
• representations of childhood
• representations of mental illness (her depression is
as significant as the MS she lives with, but has been
less thoroughly addressed)
• representations of motherhood
• voice, speech, politeness, rudeness
• her evolving sense of feminist spirituality
• connections to key theorists of feminist theology
• connections to Black feminism
• connections to French feminism
• connections to phenomenology
• connections to other contemporary memoirists and/or
essayists
o Elizabeth Wurtzel
o Brooke Shields
o Kay Redfield Jamison
o William Styron
o Susannah Kaysen
o bell hooks
o Audre Lorde
o etc.
• teaching Remembering the Bone House in the
undergraduate classroom
• aesthetic style in the memoir and essay collections

Send a 500-word abstract by March 30, 2007, detailing
the theoretical framework and key questions or thesis
for the proposed chapter, making clear how your
contribution will move the critical conversations
surrounding Nancy Mairs forward. Preliminary
inquiries are also invited.

Lisa Johnson
Director, Center for Women's and Gender Studies
USC Upstate
mjohnson_at_uscupstate.edu

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Received on Sat Mar 03 2007 - 17:53:46 EST