Book Roundtable featuring Hester Baer, Maria Stehle, and Beverly Weber (October 8)!

On October 8, 2021 at 10am PST, there will be a roundtable discussion of two recently published books by WiGgies: Hester Baer’s German Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalism (Amsterdam University Press, 2021) and Maria Stehle and Beverly Weber’s Precarious Intimacies: The Politics of Touch in Contemporary Western European Cinema (Northwestern University Press, 2020). Pre-registration required.

The event is hosted by the recently-formed CES Cinema Studies Network, a new collective that is forming to highlight the scholarship of people working on Central, Eastern, and Southern European cinema cultures. If you have questions or would like to be added to their mailing list, please visit https://cescinema.weebly.com/contact.html or follow them on Twitter @CESCinema

Both books are available open access. Baer: https://degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9789048551958/html…. Stehle/Weber: https://jstor.org/stable/j.ctv14161gx….  

Feminist German Studies names incoming Co-Editor, Beverly Weber

We are writing to share the wonderful news that Beverly Weber (University of Colorado Boulder) has been appointed Co-Editor of Feminist German Studies for a three-year term starting in January 2022. Beverly will be joining Alexandra Hill as FGS Co-Editor at the conclusion of Co-Editor Hester Baer’s term. Beverly comes to the position with a strong record of research, publication, and editing experience. The search committee was especially impressed with Beverly’s dedication and leadership within the organization, her vision for the journal, and her demonstrated understanding of the importance of strong feminist mentorship and the role that the journal plays in mentoring scholars at various stages in their lives and careers. Beverly’s commitment to antiracist feminism, decolonization, and social justice as well as her desire to facilitate transdisciplinary conversations across fields will serve the journal well. We are truly honored that Beverly has agreed to accept this position and look forward to seeing the continued rigorous and innovative feminist scholarship that will emerge in the years ahead.

We wish to thank the search committee members for their hard work: Angineh Djavadghazaryans, Carrie Smith, Lisa Hock, Rob McFarland, and Helga Thorson.

-The WiG Leadership Team

Update on the WiG Conference 2020

Dear WiG members, conference panel organizers, and participants,

At a recent leadership meeting attended by the Steering Committee, the presidential team, the conference organizers, and other officers and former officers of the organization, we voted unanimously to hold a virtual conference in fall 2020 in lieu of our traditional in-person conference. Given that many participants travel great distances to attend the conference; that many of our members have pre-existing health conditions or are caregivers for people with pre-existing health conditions; and that many have lost access to conference funding and/or work or attend universities with significant travel restrictions, we believe this to be the only safe and responsible option. Making this difficult decision now will allow us to plan the best conference possible in this format.

We will be reaching out to panel organizers and participants today to ask for their input on if and how they wish to run their sessions online. We will also be exploring options to host a small in-person component of the conference for local attendees in driving distance of Sewanee, if this is determined to be safe and feasible. Once we have received all feedback, we will then begin creating a revised conference schedule. We plan to have all scheduling information available by the end of July with conference registration to open by August 1.

Although conference registration and WiG membership will be required to attend the majority of conference events, the registration fee will be much reduced from previous years and scaled depending on one’s income level in order to encourage as much participation as possible, particularly from those in precarious or underpaid positions. We also plan to allow members to donate conference registration fees to cover the costs for graduate student and contingent faculty participation. More information regarding fees will be available once we have a better sense of how many participants we will have.

To that end, we are asking everyone who is not presenting on or organizing a panel and who does not hold a leadership position in the organization to please fill out this two-question attendance survey that will help us get a rough estimate of participants and thus allow us to determine registration fees. One positive effect of hosting the conference virtually is that many members who were previously not planning on attending due to cost of travel or prevalence of fall conferences may be able to join us. We welcome all to attend!

If you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Sincerely,

The Ad Hoc Virtual Conference Committee

Liesl Allingham, Regine Schwarzmeier, Maria Stehle, Faye Stewart, Helga Thorson, Didem Uca

Feminist German Studies: Co-Editor Allie Hill’s term renewed

We are writing to share the wonderful news that Allie Hill (University of Portland) has agreed to renew her term as editor of Feminist German Studies for another three years. Allie’s initial term as co-editor of Feminist German Studies (2018-2020), first together with Waltraud Maierhofer and now with Hester Baer, has led to several exciting initiatives, including a name change from Women in German Yearbook to Feminist German Studies in 2018 to the journal’s newest initiative of offering two issues per year starting in 2020.

We are extremely honoured that Allie has agreed to renew her term as the journal’s co-editor for a second and final term (2021-2023) and look forward to seeing the rigorous and innovative feminist scholarship that will emerge in the years ahead.

-The WiG Leadership Team

Call for Proposals: WiG Out Week 2020

Deadline: January 15, 2020

WiG Out Week is an array of WiG-endorsed events happening anywhere and everywhere the week of March 23-28, 2020. Potential ideas include regional symposia, (virtual) lectures, film screenings, book discussions, feminist pedagogy workshops, or local community service or activism initiatives. All events, big and small, are welcome, as long as they are in keeping with the WiG Mission Statement. While we are unable to provide funding, we will promote the events on the website and social media and feature them in a future newsletter. We envision this week as an opportunity to carry on the spirit of WiG throughout the academic year, promote feminist German studies in your communities, and celebrate Women’s History Month.

To submit your event for consideration, please send a brief proposal (~200 words) to the second year Steering Committee members, Didem Uca (duca[at]colgate[.]edu) and Nicole Grewling (ngrewling2[at]washcoll[.]edu), by January 15, 2020. In your proposal, please include a title, date/location, description of the event, names of organizers/participants, and how many WiGgies you hope to have in attendance. All are welcome to submit. Let us know if you have any questions.

We thank you for your time, energy, and commitment to WiG. We look forward to receiving your proposals and WiGging out together next spring!

CfP as shareable Google Doc