Mood and Gender: Pre-Twentieth-Century Panel of the Coalition of Women in German Annual Conference in Augusta, MI (October 21-24, 2010)

This panel will explore the interrelationships between concepts, representations, and modulations of mood and gender. Moods are generally understood as enduring affects like melancholy and sadness, boredom, happiness or anger that do not appear to have a clearly identifiable source and that can combine a variety of sensations and feelings, making them often difficult to describe. As recent scholarship demonstrates (cf. Elisabeth Goodstein, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Thomas Pfau, Juliana Schiesari, and Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf), definitions and evaluations of moods have changed radically over time, from the ancient four humors theory, to late 19th century psychology, psychiatry, and early psychoanalysis: Hildegard von Bingen's descriptions of "sanguine," "phlegmatic," "choleric," and "melancholic" women transgressed and challenged gender boundaries; in the romantic period, melancholy was considered a characteristic of the male genius; as the nineteenth century progressed, the same mood became increasingly associated with femininity as an illness hindering creativity. This panel invites papers that explore the interrelationships between mood and gender in changing historical, cultural, intellectual, and social contexts from the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century.

Possible areas of investigation include:
* literary and cultural representations and modulations of mood and gender
* mood and gender in medicine, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy
* the moods of genre and gender (i.e. the relationships between poetry, melancholy, and the male genius)

Please submit a 300-500-word proposal electronically by March 15, 2010 to both organizers:
Lisabeth Hock, Wayne State University (lhock@wayne.edu) and
May Mergenthaler, Ohio State University (mergenthaler.4@osu.edu)

Selected panelists must become members of Women and German by May 15, 2010.