CFP: Be/Longing: Women and the American Home
An area of multiple panels for the 2017 Film & History Conference:
Representing “Home”: The Real and Imagined Spaces of Belonging
The Hilton—Milwaukee City Center, Milwaukee, WI (USA)
November 1-5, 2017
DEADLINE for abstracts: June 1, 2017 (early decision); July 1, 2017 (general decision)
The American home signifies American family values, which, from Colonial settlement to the present, have been enabled by women who serve as the moral backbone of the nuclear family. From the duties of republican women during the American Revolution; to the pious, pure, domestic, and virtuous woman of the 19th century Cult of True Womanhood; to the women holding down the “homefront” during WWII; to the ideal housewife of the 1950s; and the backbone of the Conservative “Family Values” campaign of the New Right; women have continually served as a conduit through which to idealize the home space in the United States.
How have films and television programming variously represented women’s historical and contemporary longing for, and rejection of, the home space, demonstrating it as a site of contestation about where women be/long? How have women who struggle to disentangle from classist, white-washed, heteronormative expectations of marriage and motherhood been portrayed in film and television? In what ways have these narratives reflected and helped shape ideologies of women’s place in America?
This area invites 20-minute papers (inclusive of visual presentations) considering any aspect of the relationship between (including the rejection of) women and/or the home and American family values. Topics include, but are not limited to:
* Women’s longing for the home – in what ways are women shown to be desiring the idealized home space? (for example: Good Fences, Girl on the Train, Home for the Holidays, Jackie, Joy)
* Women’s rejection of the home – in what ways are women resisting the idealization of home? (for example: Scandal, Shameless, Empire, Trainwreck, Mona Lisa Smile, Grey Gardens, Rachel Getting Married, Pleasantville, Being Mary Jane, Pariah, Real Women have Curves)
* Women’s reimagination of the home – in what ways are women re-crafting/re-inventing home to meet their own needs? (for example: The Fosters, X-Men, The Kids Are All Right, Mask, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Mermaids, Fried Green Tomatos, Waiting to Exhale, Blackish, Jane the Virgin, Fresh Off the Boat)
* Women, motherhood, and the home – how do women navigate the expectations of motherhood and the home? (for example: A Crushing Love: Chicanas, Motherhood and Activism, Gilmore Girls, Bad Moms, Mommy Dearest, Parenthood, Mothers and Daughters, Terms of Endearment, Joy Luck Club, Mother of George, The Good Mothers, How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer)
* Women and American family values – in what ways are women being used as a represenations of the success and dominance of American family values? (for example: Miracles from Heaven)
* Women and loss of home – how are women’s identities tied to the home, and what happens when that is lost? (for example: MississippiMasala, Daughters of the Dust, Step Mom, I Will Follow, Eve's Bayou, Shots Fired, Middle of Nowhere, The Color Purple)
Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter.
Please e-mail your 200-word proposal to the area chair:
Laura D’Amore
Roger Williams University
ldamore@rwu.edu
For more information please click "Further Official Information" below.
This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:
http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory/conference/2017/2017_CFP_Women.php