Guest editors

Nicole N. Aljoe (Northeastern University)

Mona Narain (Texas Christian University 

Francesca Savoia (University of Pittsburgh) 

This Eighteenth-Century Studies special issue will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the ASECS Women’s Caucus in 2025 and is scheduled to be published in January before the 2026 in-person conference in Oregon.  The Women’s Caucus has long served its members by bringing gender issues to the forefront in Eighteenth-Century Studies. Its historical and on-going advocacy for both the study of gender and sexuality as well as the professional challenges facing its members in the field is the inspiration for the special issue theme of “Re-Thinking ‘Women’ and Agency: Past, Present & Future.”  This special issue will include three to four longer scholarly essays (7,000-8,000 words) and several shorter essays (1500-2000 words) for two roundtables: one focused on pedagogies and the other on professional issues related to or in conversation with the theme.

We invite potential contributors to problematize the concept of “women” by re-examining it in connection to notions of agency.  What do we mean when we talk about “women” in the eighteenth century? What do we mean when we talk about “agency”? Is it decision-making, leadership, collective action, individual action? Does agency mean the same thing in cultural, moral, political, or other “realms”? Has agency meant the same thing over the past fifty years? Have notions of agency impacted how we think and teach about our disciplines and subfields within the umbrella of the long eighteenth century or the long early modern period? What might be the relationships between notions of “women” and “agency” in terms of the profession at large? How/Have the considerations of “women” and “agency” changed over the past fifty years in the profession? 

• 150-200-word proposals for either the longer scholarly essays or the two roundtables should be submitted at the below link by October 1, 2023.
• Submission link: https://forms.gle/hSjhYyxGDhw3P5nJ6

Final essays will be due May 15, 2024.