"Knowledge from the Cracks"
SAMLA 97: Knowledges
Atlanta, GA | November 6th - 8th, 2025 | Atlanta Buckhead Hotel & Conference Center
Knowledge from the cracks
Striving for the liberation of the feminist subject, feminist studies have uncovered various strata of society. However, the perpetuation of class and privilege has unfortunately resulted in the continued replication of the hegemonic structures that feminism strives to dismantle. This contradiction suggests that the dominant power structures within feminism may control and manipulate the marginalized layers of society. The Enlightenment presents Marie-Antoinette’s invention of an expensive lifestyle, Louise d'Épinay’s invention of taste and refinement of fashion, Olympe de Gouges’ social reform that challenges conventional views and conception of the role of women as citizens, Émilie du Châtelet’s engagement with episteme, Angélique du Coudray’s pioneering midwifery, etc. Taste, art, fashion, care, style, and savoir-vivre have been within the dictates of the privileged. While their achievements are laudable, they show creativity within a single stratum of society. How about the paysanne, the slave, the servant, the marginal, the minority? These live in the periphery with minimal visibility but full creative capacity, concealed by their social condition. This panel seeks abstracts on how minority women have contributed to knowledge in French and Francophone literature. How have minority women developed episteme and/or adapted the popular culture to their invisibility, scarcity, marginality, and language? How do/have French and Francophone minority women writers, artists, painters, stylists, philosophers, theorists, filmmakers, etc., contribute(d) to knowledge?
Send a 200-word abstract in French or English by 15th August 2025, to the organizer: Patience Odeh patience.odeh@uconn.edu, along with the presenter’s academic affiliation, contact information, and A/V requirements.
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