WiG Calls for Papers for Conferences with WiG-Sponsored Sessions

(note: these are the WiG CFPs only. For related CFPs go to the "Other CFP" page.)

WiG MLA

AATG GSA

Coalition of Women in German (WiG) 32 st Annual Conference

Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort

Salt Lake City, Utah

Oct 23-26, 2008

Tenure, Inc.: Junior Faculty in the Market-Driven University , Thursday Night Session
As evidenced both by trends toward privatization and corporatization of the university as well as by increased reliance on non-tenure-track teaching lines, the professional landscape for young Germanists has changed drastically over the past decade.  While university resources are dwindling and new faculty responsibilities - for everything from program building to search committees - proliferate, the demand for “excellence in research” has remained stable or increased.  Junior faculty are often faced with the prospect - and expectation by their administration - of securing external funding to provide them with the time and resources they need to pursue their research, often while filling positions they may not be able to rely upon having for the next semester or for the long term.  In a university marketplace that relies heavily on non-tenure-eligible lecturers and adjunct instructors, recent PhDs today can expect to begin their careers with a series of short-term contract positions, involving cross-country moves and ever diminishing personal reserves, both financially and emotionally.
  What is the future of tenure in German Studies?  Can the above changes be seen in a positive light?  What do WiGgies as feminists and activists have to say about the return to a masculinist paradigm of ivory-tower-researchers relying on poorly paid lecturers to teach the bulk of their curricula and female or minority colleagues to serve on toothless “diversity” committees or take on the more “people-oriented” responsibilities like German Club and student outreach?  We invite papers that offer strategies for successfully navigating this new professional landscape. From more experienced colleagues in chair or other administrative positions, we welcome discussions on institutional responses to these issues. Mid-career WiGgies may consider addressing “everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask” for younger colleagues. If you are on the job market or have been recently, what suggestions do you have for your fellow job seekers? Priority will be given to papers that examine these topics in experiential, programmatic, and/or practical capacities.
  We invite short and informal,  perhaps polemical,  papers  that might consider some of the following issues:

- the conundrum of work/life balance for the young academic in the current tenure environment
- the tenure clock and the biological clock: marriage/partnership and the question of when/if to have children
- the recent appearance of “research-only” positions that further widen the gulf between teaching and research
- “visiting assistant” “adjunct” “adjunct assistant” “preceptor” “lecturer” “renewable” “teaching fellowship” and other new job ad terminology
- the publishing crisis
- multiple teaching competencies (Film Studies, Women's Studies, etc.) - career boon or liability?
- the rise of the community college sector / online distance education
- the obsession with “outcomes assessment”
- increased pressure for humanities scholars to pursue “external funding” for research in the face of dwindling university reserves
- the disappearance of pre-tenure leave for research
- dependence on lecturers and adjunct or visiting faculty for the sake of “economic flexibility” but at the expense of program continuity
- the myth of the “inside candidate”
- the “I-did-it-so-can-you” attitude amongst some senior scholars
- university attempts to promote “diversity” by overtaxing women and minorities in terms of committee service and other responsibilities (tokenism)
- importance of “SCHs” (student clock hours - i.e. one's ability to generate enrollment) for one's tenure dossier
- social life and emotional stability as they relate to professional performance
- the pressure to incorporate into our teaching technology that is poorly supported on a logistical and administrative level
- the role of feminism, postfeminism, activism

- the role of mentorship

Please send a one-page proposal of NO MORE THAN 300 WORDS as well as a ONE-PAGE CV or bio-sketch to both of the organizers by March 1, 2008:

Elizabeth Bridges
bridges (AT) hendrix.edu
Kristin Vander Lugt
ktvl (AT) iastate.edu  

Fashioning the body: bodies, fashion and self-presentation in pre-20th Century German Literature and Culture

Proposals are invited for a pre-20th century panel that speak to the symbolic and cultural meaning(s) of clothing and the body as they relate to (self)-presentation. What is the relationship between embodiment, identity, and the clothed or fashionable body? How is this relationship depicted in pre-twentieth century cultural (con)texts. Issues that papers may wish to address include: how clothed and unclothed bodies have been thematized in pre-twentieth century texts and contexts; what bodies and fashions (e.g., clothes, accessories, hair-styles) signify regarding status and categories of identity in the cultural arena of the German-speaking world; how fashion works to socially situate the body and how such placements are undermined; how the concept of embodiment relates to the clothed and fashionable body. Interdisciplinary projects as well as papers from different academic and theoretical perspectives are especially welcome.

Please submit a brief abstract (250-500 words) and a c.v. electronically to both panel organizers by March 15, 2008: Cathie Grimm ( cgrimm (AT) albion.edu ) and Alison Guenther-Pal ( guenthea (AT) lawrence.edu ).

Theater and Drama Pedagogy in Second Language Acquisition

In the attempt to foster foreign language learning, various new approaches have made headlines in the past years. Next to an increasing emphasis on technology in the classroom, research on the effects of student theater performances as well as on utilizing elements of drama pedagogy has come to the attention of language teachers. Drama pedagogy is a holistic teaching and learning approach related to dramatic art forms. Engaging with techniques borrowed from theater and performance allows students to experience the foreign language in hands-on situations which simulate reality beyond the scope of mere role-play. Unlike traditional approaches to literature which tend to emphasize understanding on an exclusively intellectual level, both drama pedagogy and theater performances ask students to engage with literary texts in the foreign language on an emotional level, thus inspiring imagination and creativity.
 Proposals for papers that investigate innovative scholarship and/or teaching at
the intersections of theater/drama and the acquisition of foreign language, culture, and literature are welcome. Please send 200 - 250 word abstracts and a brief bio (approx. 100 words, please no CVs) by March 1, 2008 to

Sonja Klocke: sklocke (AT) knox.edu

Assistant Professor of German

Department of Modern Languages

Knox College

Galesburg, IL

and

Karin Baumgartner: karin.baumgartner (AT) utah.edu

Assistant Professor of German

Department of Languages and Literatures

University of Utah

LNCO 1328

Salt Lake City, UT 84112

 

Poster Session: Open Topic - A “Dokumenta” of Feminist Work

The organizers of the WiG Poster Session welcome proposals for the 32nd Annual Conference of the Coalition of Women in German in Snowbird, Utah (Oct. 23-26, 2008). The poster session gives feminist scholars the opportunity to conceptualize their current research, teaching or academic life in visual form. An engaging presentation is self-reflexive about how the form conveys the content and solicits response.

Proposals must include a brief abstract describing the project and a detailed description of the poster's layout, design, and materials. We are interested in redefining the poster board-sized displays that incorporate pictures and texts. We especially welcome proposals in the categories of 3-D art, interactive exhibits, multimedia presentations, and performance.

Posters from past sessions have dealt with such topics as teaching, literature, film, cultural studies, history, and balancing career and family. “Posters” have taken the shape of PowerPoint presentations, websites, dioramas, sculpture, and of course, cardboard. Many universities support the production of posters as a way of publicizing research. You may want to find out what your institution offers in terms of audiovisual support.
Show us all how creative you really are! Engage the audience in a dialogue! Present your current book project! Get valuable feedback on your newest, brilliant research idea! Share teaching techniques! Find innovative ways how to present your feminist work!

Please e-mail proposals to all three panel organizers by March 15, 2008:  Kyle Frackman, University of Massachusetts Amherst ( frackman (AT) german.umass.edu ); Monika Moyrer, Valparaiso University ( Monika.Moyrer (AT) valpo.edu ); and Amy Young, University of Arkansas Little Rock ( adyoung (AT) ualr.edu) .

Writing (on) Skin

This panel seeks to explore how skin as an intersection between body and text is articulated and represented in German literature, film, art and culture. What happens when the impermeable boundary separating our body from the exterior is transgressed or becomes permeable, what when we in turn transgress it with respect to others? What types of encounters with skin – colonial, erotic, violent – have shaped the German literary imagination? In what ways is skin gendered and constitutive of a body politics? How has skin been “written” in periods that concealed rather than revealed it? How is skin literally used as a surface for writing? We welcome contributions that trace the construction – or deconstruction – of skin as a boundary, an interface between the self and the other or between cultures, or as a canvas for texts of all kinds.

Proposal topics could include but are not limited to:

•  skin as a gendered surface

•  skin as an ethnic marker

•  body modifications, tattoos, projections

•  encounters with skin during German colonialism

•  skins and scalps – the German obsession with the American West

•  animal skins

•  manuscripts and text on skins

•  skin in film or photography

•  eroticism, pornography

•  trauma and torture

Please send 1-page abstracts and a CV or brief academic bio to BOTH organizers:

Verena Kuzmany

vkuzmany (AT) u.washington.edu

Marjanne Goozé

mgooze (AT) uga.edu

Panel Discussion: Responses to the 2007 MLA Report on Foreign Language Education

The 2007 “MLA report on Foreign Languages” is a bold response to the national security rhetoric that has been driving new initiatives in language education in recent years. At the same time, the MLA report calls for urgent and far-reaching changes in foreign languages departments if they are to be serious players in higher education.

(A link to the 10-page report is available on the MLA's homepage: www.mla.org).

In lieu of regular papers, we envision a panel discussion with brief prepared statements followed by a discussion among panelists (prior to opening up the discussion to the plenum). We seek panelists who seriously engage with the MLA recommendations in the context of their particular institutional and/or departmental situation.

Possible topics include:

• challenging the bifurcation into language and content courses and related curricular and governance issues (including the ingrained power structures that are part of this two-tier system)
• the role of advanced language learning for fostering translingual and transcultural competencies
• curricular design and reform that respond to the above issues
• implications for the education of graduate students

Panelists may either reflect on best established practices (in light of the MLA report) or on practices and institutional issues that require serious rethinking and change.

Please submit a brief description of your contribution to the panel discussion including a statement on your particular institutional/departmental context (approx. 400 words) by March 5, 2008 to the panel organizers: Friederike Eigler ( eiglerf (AT) georgetown.edu ) and Gabi Kathoefer (Gabi.Kathoefer (AT) du.edu).

 

Post-Wall Border Crossings: Ex-GDR Perspectives on the World

Angela Krauß, the guest author at the 2008 WiG conference, started her career as a writer in the GDR and remains a prolific German author today. While her earlier, East German work often addresses aspects of life in the GDR, her later texts engage with the experience of the political and social changes of the Wende , but also with the experience of travel to familiar places in Eastern Europe as well as the encounter with only recently accessible places in the West. Her Frankfurt lectures on poetics furthermore address the intersections of writing and creativity.

For the guest-related panel “Post-Wall Border Crossings” we seek contributions that address themes of travel in the literature or films of authors with an East German background. Papers could address the work of Angela Krauß directly, or engage with the works of other authors and post-wall East German experiences of travel more generally. While some East Germans have described German unification as the arrival of a new country at their doorstep rather than the encounter with a new country away from home, travel remains an important aspect of the post-Communist East German experience. The encounter with new places and cultures, revisiting familiar places, as well as temporary displacement from home enable a wide range of reflections on the old GDR as well as on post-wall German identities.

Contributions to this panel could address, but are not limited to:

• the role of travel, place and displacement in the work of ex-GDR authors,
• ex-GDR engagements with or critiques of the tradition of travel literature,
• the (re)assessment of GDR values, especially East German feminisms and gender roles, through the experience of travel,
• the shift from Communist notions of transnationalisms to post- Wende notions of transnationalisms and globalization,
• the role of the writer and public intellectual in post-Communist Germany and abroad,
• GDR diasporas – issues of leaving and arriving.

Please send abstracts by March 15 to both panel organizers:

Kai Herklotz: kherklot (AT) carleton.edu

Ulrike Brisson: ubrisson (AT) wpi.edu

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~~~ Calls for WiG Sponsored Panels ~~~

Two Session sponsored by the Coalition of Women in German (WIG) at the

German Studies Association, October 2 - 5, 2008 St. Paul, Minnesota

New Nationalisms and Conservatism in Germanophone Countries: Realities, Representations and Responses

This panel encourages critical, interdisciplinary, and feminist responses to the Rechtsrutsch (shift towards the right) and new nationalisms in Germanophone and other western European countries in recent years (with this emphasis on Western Europe we acknowledge that a discussion of new nationalism in post-socialist Eastern Europe would require a panel of its own). The main idea is that political conservatism, along with the various right wing, anti-Islamic extremisms on the one hand, and the drastic loss of power of the social democratic parties throughout Europe on the other hand, have become so prominent that we need to take this phenomenon more seriously as a transnational phenomenon in German studies. We invite papers that deal with the realities and representations of – and critical and artistic responses to -- the nationalist and xenophobic (anti-semitic and anti-Islamic) ideology and propaganda of right wing populism since the late 1990s (e.g. Jörg Haider, Jen-Marie Le Pen, and Christoph Blocher), as well as papers that deal with the weakness of the left parties and their past and future strategies to regain votes. We welcome transnational approaches.

Questions to be addressed in papers may include:

• What is the place in European history of the right wing politicians' ideology, tactics and propaganda, e.g. their evocation of the solidarity within the nation and Volk,scapegoating of immigrants and asylum seekers for complex economic and social problems appeal to latent resentments, use of abusive language, and conscious breaking of taboos (e.g. bluntly anti-semitic and xenophobic remarks), and their- contrivance of conspiracies (Haider and Blocher) in order to win sympathy, and what kind of theories and vocabulary are best fit to discuss these?
• How do nationalist movements borrow from, and adapt each others' propaganda strategies? E.g. the Swiss Peoples' Party's controversial sheep poster (that promotes the peoples' initiative for the expulsion of criminal foreigners in order to ‘create security' by showing three white sheep kick out a black sheep) has been adapted practically one-to-one by neo-national movements in Spain (democracia national) and in Germany (the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands in Hessen).
• How does the neo-national anti-globalization ideology compare to arguments by anti-globalization groups on the left, e.g. Attac?
• What kind of counter-representations are created by oppositional camps and what is the place and impact of new media such as YouTube?
• What are the main characteristics of the ‘good, diligent and decent' white Christian European people that right wing populist parties are appealing to? How do national and international media respond?
• How do contemporary writers and directors respond to new nationalisms? What kind of style and genres do they use?
• How have immigrant writers and filmmakers reacted to new nationalisms and right wing violence – in their texts and through personal activities?
• What kinds of resistance have popular nationalist leaders, parties and movements met? What old forms of resistance are still used (e.g. demonstrations, critical journalism, documentary filmmaking, comedy and satire, and not least the law) and what new (e.g. computer-based) forms have emerged (e.g. counter-propaganda on YouTube)?
• How do the leftist parties respond to, and explain their weakness and lack of unity?
• How has the left's loss of power been depicted and/or referenced in film (e.g. documentary film) and literature?

Please send abstracts of 250-500 words by 13 January 2008 to Karin Baumgartner (karin.baumgartner (AT) utah.edu) and Andrea Reimann (areimann (AT) miami.edu).

Nostalgia for Belonging – Re-definitions of Heimat?

On October 27, 2007, German President Köhler declared that thanks to Günter Grass and his work, Germans could use the term Heimat again. Given the (politically) controversial reception of Grass' Beim Häuten der Zwiebel as well as the latest debates about the resurgence of national pride and the threat of right-wing nationalism in Europe, this statement seems rather surprising. In addition to such a re-claiming of the term Heimat by the political mainstream, various minority groups in Germany have recently accentuated their entitlement to Germany as their Heimat. In the context of this revived desire to belong to a geographical, political, and/or national space, it is crucial to ask what concepts of Heimat are (re)created in these imaginaries.

We welcome proposals for papers that investigate concepts of Heimat and/or the desire for belonging as they become visible in contemporary German literature, film, museums, monuments, music, and politics.

Please send 200-250 word abstracts and a short bio (approx. 100 words, please no CVs) by Feb 1, 2008 to bothBarbara Kosta at bkosta (AT) u.arizona.edu and Sonja Klocke at sklocke (AT) knox.edu .

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WIG-sponsored Session for the MLA 2008, San Francisco

Changing Notions of Belonging in German Literature and Culture

Issues of belonging, place, and identity have gained new importance in an increasingly interconnected and globalized word. In the academic realm, the increased attention to representations of place and space is now commonly referred to as ‘spatial turn.'

This session looks at the history of ‘belonging' as it is represented and critically examined in literature, film, and other cultural texts. The session includes (but is not limited to) the German notion of ‘Heimat' which emerged in the late 18 th century and, over the course of the 19 th and 20 th centuries, became at times closely aligned with notions of exclusion, ethnic homogeneity, and nationaliism. But beyond these dominant representations of Heimat, we also invite proposals that examine alternative or contravening notions of place and belonging. Proposals may address any period of German literature/culture. Possible topics include:

• Notions and representations of Heimat
• Gendered and racialized notions of belonging and place
• The role of temporality & memory in representations of place
• The ‘spatial turn' and representations of belonging and place
• Notions of belonging in aesthetics and cultural/literary theories
• Alternatives to spatially bounded notions of home and belonging

Please submit abstracts (approx. 400 words) by March 1, 2008 to the panel organizers: Friederike Eigler ( eiglerf (AT) georgetown.edu ), Jens Kugele ( jk443 (AT) georgetown.edu ).

Getting into Place: Literary embodiments of landscape and the natural world.

We are seeking contributions that explore the relations of language, place, nature and culture. Possible topics might include but are not limited to: literary representations of environmental issues, the layering of cultural and natural history in particular terrains, the portrayal of natural phenomena, cultivating/designing nature, or other aspects of the ways humans perceive, and interact with, the non-human world.

Send 200-word proposals to both co-organizers by March 15 to:

Julie Klassen ( jklassen (AT) carleton.edu )

Caroline Schaumann ( cschaum (AT) emory.edu )

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Two Panels sponsored by Women in German, AATG 2008, Orlando , Florida November 21-23, 2008

Feminist Pedagogy in the German Classroom: Theory, Models and Case-Studies 

Feminist pedagogy is a theory about the democratic creation of knowledge by fostering a collaborative learning environment where student ideas and experiences count as learning resources and contributions to knowledge. Or, as Kathleen Weiler explains: “In terms of feminist pedagogy, the authority of the feminist teacher as intellectual and theorist finds expression in the goal of making students themselves theorists of their own lives by interrogating and analyzing their own experience.” [Kathleen Weiler (1991) “Freire and a Feminist Pedagogy of Difference” Harvard Educational Review 61/4, p.462]. Consequently, the following four themes are often identified as the core-themes of feminist pedagogy: Empowerment, Community, Social Action, and Reflexivity.

For this panel, we seek papers that address how feminist pedagogy can be and/or has been used to transform the German classroom, and we invite presenters to illustrate their theoretical approach with specific examples from their language-, culture-, and/or literature classrooms.

Please send 1-page abstracts and a CV or brief academic bio by e-mail to BOTH organizers, by December 21, 2007.

Make sure to include in your abstract whether you will need any audio-visual for your presentation.

Stefanie Ohnesorg, University of Tennessee, Knoxville:

ohnesorg (AT) utk.edu

Monika Moyrer, Valparaiso University:  

Monika.Moyrer (AT) valpo.edu

Filling Out in the Middle: Innovations for Intermediate German

 With this panel, we hope to engage in dialogue on how to enrich our students' experiences in the intermediate level of German.  After the beginning level, when the curriculum is more self-explanatory, how do we maintain the momentum?  What are new ways to capture our students' interest while catering to their limited but developing vocabulary?  How do we avoid the common drop in enrollment after the beginning level?  Are there ways to address and communicate the broad diversity of race, gender, sexuality, ability in the German-speaking countries without resorting to familiar, inaccurate stereotypes? 

 Possibilities could include:  approaches to current events; use of film, music, art; language immersion; communicative teaching; online technologies (e.g., chatting); etc.

 Please e-mail one-page proposals to both panel organizers by December 15, 2007:  Lisa Marie Anderson, Hunter College ( lisa.anderson (AT) hunter.cuny.edu) and Kyle Frackman, University of Massachusetts Amherst ( frackman (AT) german.umass.edu ).  

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