Panels at the 2026 WiG Conference

This page provides general information about the 2025 conference panels.

See the conference website for more detailed program information.

General Information

The Coalition of Women in German (WiG) provides a democratic forum for all people interested in feminist approaches to German literature and culture or in the intersection of gender with other categories of analysis such as sexuality, class, race, and ethnicity. Through its annual conference, panels at national professional meetings, and through the publication of the Feminist German Studies, the organization promotes feminist scholarship of outstanding quality. Women in German is committed to making school and college curricula inclusive and seeks to create bridges, cross boundaries, nurture aspiration, and challenge assumptions while exercising critical self-awareness. Women in German is dedicated to eradicating discrimination in the classroom and in the teaching profession at all levels.

The 2025 WiG conference will be held in-person at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Presenters must be in attendance at the conference (no virtual participation).

Membership to the Coalition of Women in German and conference registration will be required to attend the conference and present on panels or at the poster session but are not required to submit a proposal.

Panels

Thursday Night Session

Through the Generations: 50 Years of Women in German*

The 50th anniversary of the Coalition of Women in German annual conference is an occasion to take some time to reflect and look back on the history of our organization. How has WiG developed over these past fifty years? How has our organization affected and interacted with the field of German Studies, feminist scholarship, and feminist practices? What challenges and opportunities has WiG faced over time, and how has it met them? What goals did we set ourselves, and have we reached them? How has the organization itself changed over time? Who are the “Wiggies” and how have they shaped our organization? These and related questions should serve as the basis for a celebratory Coalitional Feminism in Action session to kick off our anniversary conference. For this purpose, we invite short prerecorded presentations/interviews and in-person presentations from first-generation and other senior Wiggies. We envision the session to begin with an overview of our shared history in this format and will then break into smaller groups which provide the opportunity to discuss our history and offer junior members the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the history of our organization.

Pre-20th Century Panel

Cinderella’s Cros and Birkenstocks

As part of the 50th anniversary of Women in German, this panel serves as a way to see how the past (and the canon) can be transformed into an unexpected, whimsical, and radical futures. This panel is all about past things created anew, whether literary adaptations into film, television, theater, and other ‘modern’ media, in ways that apply a feminist or queer lens to the source text. Feminist and queer adaptations both enrich an existing text while rejecting heteronormative, patriarchal, colonial languages that uphold oppressive institutions. This panel considers the utopian function of adaptation as a process of rebuilding with the ruins.

Pedagogy Panel

Palestine, Feminist Pedagogies, and The German Studies Classroom

This roundtable and workshop explores integrating discussions of Palestine into the German and German studies classroom from the perspective of feminist pedagogies. How might decolonial, abolitionist, anti-racist, and other feminist frameworks inform approaches to and necessitate the teaching about Germany and Palestine’s entangled histories, present, and futures? Relevant short readings will be circulated in advance. Presenters will give a brief account of what they have done and challenges they faced, then attendees will have the opportunity to workshop ideas for their own teaching.

Open Session 1

German Feminist Studies: Challenges and Strategies*

Since the founding of the Coalition of Women in German, we have learned that feminist thought is not a monolithic ideology and not all feminists think alike. Similarly, we have developed diverse approaches, perspectives and frameworks that we bring to our scholarship and our teaching. A 2023 study by the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) found that student interest in women and gender studies was on an upward trend nationwide. According to the report, “Undergraduate enrollment in women and gender studies classes has increased in about half of all departments, …, remained the same in about 30 percent and declined in 20 percent.” This increased student interest is occurring alongside political animosity as numerous states introduce legislation to defund or ban DEI programs and/or to remove women and gender studies departments. We invite papers for this “forward looking” panel that address the challenges we will face and potential strategies we must employ as academics, activists and organizers in order to continue the work we’ve begun. Some questions to consider: In what ways do the academic and social successes of the past inform our organization and fields of study going forward? What are our intellectual, political, and pedagogical commitments for the future? What might our approaches and frameworks look like in light of current challenges? What might the continued transformation of social and cultural institutions look like? We envision a panel that is broad in scope, yet stimulates thoughtful conversation among our members as we embark on the next chapter of our organization.

Open Session 2

Abject Appetites: The Gendered Politics of Food in Literature, Film, and Media

Feminist German Studies has just begun to engage more deeply with the growing interdisciplinary field of Food Studies. In the last few decades, German Historians have investigated the politics of food, especially during war and in postwar periods. Important work on feminist food studies offers new insights into the complex intersections between food, race, gender, sexuality, and class in global contexts (see Allison Carruth, Psyche Forsom- Williams, Anita Mannur). This panel seeks papers that investigate food and gender in German literary and cultural studies from a feminist perspective: How do literature, film, and media address questions around the labor of food, of growing, cooking, and serving food? What are the connections between food and the body, and, more broadly, materialist feminist theory? How do food studies intersect with questions of environmental justice and sustainability? And, broadly, why and how do stories about food matter, politically and socially?

Guest-Related Panel

Black Power, Activism, and Feminism in East German Society and Film

This roundtable reflects on Black Power, activism, and feminism and the representation of Black women activists and professionals in East German society and cinema. The panel will explore tensions between the ideal of anti-racist solidarity represented in DEFA feature and documentary films and newsreels and the lived reality of many Black people in East Germany. Though the GDR ostensibly rejected racial bio-essentialism, in public discourse women of color in particular were neither portrayed as equals nor allowed an unchallenged position in a socialist future with white citizens. Leaning on work by intersectional feminist scholars such as Kira Thurman, Peggy Piesche, Sara Lennox, and Sara Pugach, among others, we will engage with questions such as: What roles did Black Power, activism, and feminism play in the GDR? How did these movements figure in the imagination of East Germans? How do we reconcile the positive images of figures like Angela Davis visiting the GDR with the negative reality of anti-Black discrimination and racist violence? What tools from feminist, queer, and critical race theory help us understand the representations and politics of East German society and cinema? What experiences did Black and non-white film professionals have in DEFA and in East German television? Which filmmakers and public figures gained attention and resources in the GDR? Who remained out of the spotlight? And how have these historical conditions shaped the focus of scholarship today?

Conference Guest: Katharina Warda

“Katharina Warda was born in Wernigerode (Saxony-Anhalt) in 1985 and also grew up there. In 2014, she completed a Magister degree in Sociology, German Literature and Intercultural Business Communication in Jena. In 2008/09, she studied African Studies in Falun (Sweden). Since 2015, she has been a Fellow of the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School for Literary Studies and is doing her PhD in Berlin on the resistance of biographical narratives in diary blogs. In this context, she spent 2016/17 on a research exchange at Princeton University (USA).
In addition, she works as a freelance author focusing on East Germany, marginalized identities, racism, classism, and punk. Since 2021, she has been a member of the advisory board of ‘Kein Schlussstrich!’, a nationwide theater project on the NSU complex. In her project ‘Dunkeldeutschland’ she explores the post-reunification period from the social margins and illuminates blind spots in German historiography, based on her own experiences as a Black East German woman in the GDR and after 1989/90.” [https://speakerinnen.org/en/profiles/katharina-warda]

Her current film project, Our Sister Angela – Black Power in the GDR, co-directed with Jascha Hannover, is scheduled to be released in 2026.

Poster Session

The poster session allows scholars to employ audiovisual forms to initiate conversations about intersectional feminist issues in their research, teaching, and activism. Posters (in a variety of formats) will address a range of topics, such as pedagogy, literature, film, cultural studies, history, and politics.

WiG-Sponsored Panels at other Conferences, 2026–27

AATG/ACTFL 2026

TBA 

German Studies Association 2026

Celebrating 40 Years of Black German Studies

FiGS-BDSN Sponsored Panel at GSA 2026

“Immer noch wird Integration mehr als einseitiger Prozess der Anpassung von Ausländern an die deutsche Gesellschaft verstanden, denn als wechselseitiger Prozess des Aufeinanderzugehens, in dem auch die deutsche Gesellschaft eine neue kulturelle Identität finden muss, die nicht auf Absonderung und Ausgrenzung beruhen kann.” (Ayim 1986)

Since the publication of Farbe bekennen: Afro-Deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Ayim, Oguntoye, & Schultz, 1986), the field of Black German Studies has experienced a large surge as scholars fill in gaps of Black German-speaking experience, culture, and literature. Important work has been done in the disciplinary fields of Film, Music, Body, Museum, and Disability Studies (to name a few), while other scholarship has turned to pre-20th century theater, children’s books, and philosophy. A consistent theme in literature on Black German Studies has been the impact of the Afro-German movement since its inception through the contemporary age. In complement with another BDSN sponsored panel that focuses on the future of Black German Studies, this panel aims to explore the significance of the Afro-German movement as it exists today and look back at how it has developed since Farbe bekennen was published 40 years ago. Of particular interest are transnational papers that engage with Black German cultural institutions (and their collaborators), literature, and the institutionalization of Black German Studies.

One of the many endeavors of this panel is to reserve protected time and space for the fostering and reinforcement of scholarly connections between the Coalition of Feminists in German (FiGS) with the Black Diaspora Studies Network, the co-sponsors of this session. Over the course of the past two years, both communities have witnessed a surge of energetic discussions on the subjects of representation, in/justice, politics of belonging, and flattening of experience. Subsequently, there appears to be a desire to reconnect with one’s peers to tend to the developing topics of social and political discourse where feminist methods and perspectives could be of unique and unparalleled insight. This call for submissions encourages a focused investigative scope on the interwoven features of marginalization, erasure, im/mobility, and in/accessibility to resources and spaces experienced by individuals who identify with and are categorized in accordance to Black experience, identity, and correlating politics. The potential beneficial reverberations of such discussions include, but are not limited to, one’s pedagogical development, continued development of areas and breadth of research subjects, sense of community and belonging, and the continued broadening of discourse representation at the GSA.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
● The institutionalization of Black German Studies
● Changes in claiming the “Afro-Deutsch,” “Afropean,” and/or Black identity
● Politics of Belonging
● The collaboration of Audre Lorde and May Ayim in forming Black German organizations
● African diaspora and ethnic identities
● The development of Black German institutions (ex. Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland, Afro-Deutsche Frauen, etc.) and their collaborators
● Current challenges in the field of Black German Studies
● Intersectional feminism

As a co-sponsored panel with the Coalition of Feminists in German Studies (FiGS), please take a moment to review FiGS’s Mission Statement and Accessibility Guidelines below:

Mission Statement: The Coalition of Feminists in German Studies (FiGS) provides a democratic forum for all people interested in feminist approaches to German literature and culture or in the intersection of gender with other categories of analysis such as sexuality, class, race, and ethnicity. Through its annual conference, panels at national professional meetings, and through the publication of the Feminist German Studies, the organization promotes feminist scholarship of outstanding quality. Feminists in German Studies is committed to making school and college curricula inclusive and seeks to create bridges, cross boundaries, nurture aspiration, and challenge assumptions while exercising critical self-awareness. Feminists in German Studies is dedicated to eradicating discrimination in the classroom and in the teaching profession at all levels.

Accessibility Guidelines: FiGS has recently adopted accessibility guidelines for our conferences. If you are presenting a paper, please review the accessibility guidelines at least two weeks in advance of the conference so that you will have plenty of time to follow all relevant guidelines for your type of presentation.

Please send a brief abstract (~300 words) and a short bio (~250 words) to both Katie Miller-Purrenhage (km1679@georgetown.edu) and Cynthia D. Porter (porter.506@osu.edu) by February 27th, 2026. Please note that all participants must be members of the GSA at the time of panel submission in March 2026.

Bodies of Evidence: Gender and True Crime

FiGS-Sponsored Panel, Feminists in German Studies (WiG)
Annual Conference of the German Studies Association (GSA) | Phoenix, AZ | September 24–27, 2026

Abstract deadline: February 15, 2026 (200–300 words + brief bio)

From serialized podcasts to tabloid headlines, Netflix docudramas to nineteenth-century trial transcripts, true crime has become one of the most consumed and controversial genres of modern media. In contemporary German-speaking contexts, media such as Kampusch, Zeit Verbrechen, and Mordlust draw wide audiences, particularly among women. Why do so many women turn to narratives of violence, survival, and justice? What do these cultural products reveal about gendered experiences of fear and risk, but also pleasure and community?

This panel invites papers that explore how women, queer creators, and other marginalized voices engage with true crime as creators, subjects, and consumers in
German-speaking countries, with the option of comparative or transnational perspectives. Papers may examine the genre’s ethical stakes and its ties to histories of
representation, including how bodies and trauma are mobilized in true crime narratives. We also welcome work that connects present-day media production and consumption to longer cultural or literary traditions of crime narration, such as the infanticide in Faust, the forensic ambiguity in Kleist’s Marquise von O, or the moral sensationalism of Weimar-era Kriminalfilme.

Possible topics include:
– Racialized, classed, abled/disabled, and sexualized hierarchies of victimhood and perpetration
– Ethics of true crime consumption and production (e.g., trauma porn, voyeurism)
– Filmic, televisual, and visual representations of crime and punishment
– Feminist, queer, or anti-racist interventions in true crime narratives
– Silences and absences: which bodies are seen, heard, or believed?
– Community formation, fandom, and affective investment in true crime
– Historical antecedents of true crime in literature and film
– Social media and amateur sleuthing
– Post-migrant German crime media
– Narrative trust and emotional closeness (e.g., voice and podcasting)
– Gendered constructions of perpetrators, guilt, and expertise

Submission details:
Please send a 200–300 word abstract and a brief bio to both panel organizers by
February 15, 2026:
Liesl Allingham, lialling@sewanee.edu and Corinna Kahnke, cokahnke@sewanee.edu

Modern Language Association Convention 2027

TBA

WiG Annual Conference: History

2024 Conference: October 24-26, 2024, Online

2023 Conference: Nov. 3-5, 2023, at Portland State University, Portland, Oregon

2022 Conference: Nov. 10-13, 2022, at Portland State University, Portland, Oregon

2021 Conference: Nov. 4-6, 2021, held as a virtual meeting

2020 Conference: Oct. 15-18, 2020, at The Sewanee Inn, Sewanee, Tennessee

2019 Conference: Oct. 17-20, 2019, at The Sewanee Inn, Sewanee, Tennessee

2018 Conference: Oct. 18-21, 2018, at The Sewanee Inn, Sewanee, Tennessee

2017 Conference: Oct. 26-29, 2017, at the Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta

2016 Conference: Oct. 13-16, 2016, at the Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta

2015 Conference: Oct. 22-25, 2015, at the Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta

2014 Conference: Oct. 23-26, 2014, at Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort, Shawnee on Delaware, PA

2013 Conference: Oct. 24-27, 2013, at Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort, Shawnee on Delaware, PA

2012 Conference: Oct. 25-28, 2012, at Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort, Shawnee on Delaware, PA

2011 Conference: Oct. 20-23, 2011, at Yarrow Golf and Conference Center, Augusta, MI

2010 Conference: Oct. 21-24, 2010, at Yarrow Golf and Conference Center, Augusta, MI

2009 Conference: Oct. 22-25, 2009, at Brook Lodge, Augusta, MI

2008 Conference: Oct. 23-26, 2008, at Snowbird Resort, Snowbird, UT

2007 Conference: Oct. 18-21, 2007, at Snowbird Resort, Snowbird, UT

2006 Conference: Oct. 19-22, 2006, at Snowbird Resort, Snowbird, UT

2005 Conference: Oct. 16-19, 2003, at General Butler State Resort Park, Carrollton, KY

2004 Conference: Oct. 16-19, 2003, at General Butler State Resort Park, Carrollton, KY

2003 Conference: Oct. 16-19, 2003, at General Butler State Resort Park, Carrollton, KY

2002 Conference: Oct. 17-20, 2002, at Rio Rico Resort, Rio Rico, AZ

2001 Conference: Oct. 18-21, 2001, at Rio Rico Resort, Rio Rico, AZ

2000 Conference: Oct. 19-22, 2000, at Rio Rico Resort, Rio Rico, AZ

1999 Conference: Oct. 28-31, 1999, at Monte Toyon Retreat, Aptos, CA

1998 Conference: Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 1998, at Monte Toyon Retreat, Aptos, CA

1997 Conference: Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 1997, at Monte Toyon Retreat, Aptos, CA

1996 Conference: Oct. 31-Nov. 3, 1996, in St. Augustine, FL

1995 Conference: Oct. 19-22, 1995, in St. Augustine, FL

1994 Conference: St. Augustine, FL

1991-1993 Conferences: Great Barrington, MA

1988-1990 Conferences: St. Croix, MN

1985-1987 Conferences: Portland, OR

1982-1984 Conferences: Thompson’s Island, Boston Harbor, MA

1979-1981 Conferences: Racine, WI

1976-1978 Conferences: Miami University, Oxford, OH

WiG 2022 Thursday Night Session: 

Speakers: 

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WiG 2022 Praxis/ Pedagogy Panel: “’Teaching Interdisciplinarity”

Panel Organizers: Claire E. Scott (Vanderbilt University, German Studies) and Eliza Ablovatski (Kenyon College, History)

Presenter: Gabi Maier

Presentation: ““Exploring an Interdisciplinary Teaching Approach Between German Studies and Architecture”

In her presentation, Gabi shared her experiences with a course called “Digital Vienna” that she taught with a colleague in Architecture. She described the collaboration between two different disciplines and the challenges of interdisciplinary teaching, the requirements of the class (e.g. the creation of 3D models of historical buildings for a digital map of Vienna) and their pedagogical approach (among others, project based learning). Her presentation also entailed an assessment of the course and made suggestions regarding improvements for another iteration.

Presenter: Simone Pfleger (University of Alberta)

Presentation: ““Beyond (Queer) Theories: Cross-Cultural Dialogue and Community Service Learning through Transatlantic Exchange,””

Simone reflected on the pedagogical considerations and teaching experiences that emerged from a co-taught, remote, combined undergraduate- and graduate-student course on Queer Theory. The collaboration was between Bielefeld University and the University of Alberta. The virtual environment and need for connecting exclusively online brought about by COVID-19 facilitated a new and exciting transatlantic collaboration, which allowed for the creation of a course that pursued a twofold objective: foster cross-cultural dialogue and exchange among the students from the two partner universities; and provide students with practical experiences through project-based work with Edmonton community partners (such as Edmonton 2Spirit Society, Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, and Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton) that could be completed in an online setting. While the former enabled students to discuss theoretical readings so that they were able to develop an understanding of how normative ideas around identities and bodies have impacted the construction of social hierarchies and shaped an unequal distribution of power in different geographical, socio-cultural, and historical contexts, the latter encouraged students to develop new skills when translating theory to practice and applying queering as methodology in an investigative project with a community partner. This form of engagement and exchange ensured that all participants were exposed to a variety of approaches and ideas that expanded their understanding of how to engage with scholarship and activism beyond their own academic training and disciplinary confines.  

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WiG 2022 Pre-Twentieth Century Session: “Cultural Transfer, Inbound and/or Outbound: Bonding across Borders”

Session Organizers: Anne Wooten (University of Texas/Austin), Denise Della Rossa (Notre Dame University), Carol Strauss Sotiropoulos (Northern Michigan University)

Anne Wooten provided a rich introduction, inviting attendees to ponder the theoretical underpinnings of cultural transfer, as first articulated and defined by Michel Espagne. Alerting attendees to the diversity and range of the four papers, Wooten drew on areas of commonality, e.g., the power structures between differently gendered and racialized characters; and salient contemporary theoretical approaches to reappraising both neglected, undervalued works by women and two of the most widely read 18 th -c. epistolary novels.

Presenters: Monika Nenon

Presentation: “’Productive Reception. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloїse and Sophie von La Roche’s Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim”

Monika takes a fresh look at Rousseau’s and La Roche’s most popular novels. Nenon draws on Robert Darnton’s theoretical concepts of the epistolary novel to compare the two works’ form and content in order to better comprehend the emotional impact they wielded on readerships across cultural zones. Nenon then looks to recent works in the field of Media Studies, in particular theories set forth by Robert Vellusig and Gisbert Ter-Nedden, to apply the Kinoeffekt to epistolary novels.

Presenter: Linda K. Hughes

Presentation: “Ottilie von Goethe as Mediator of Anglo-German Cultural Exchange”

Linda presents Ottilie von Goethe, Goethe’s daughter-in-law, as a key mediator of cultural exchange between German women writers and the Anglophone world, and between British women writers and Germany. After meeting cultural, literary, art, and proto-feminist critic Anna Jameson in 1833, Ottilie von Goethe became Jameson’s German social and literary guide, enabling Jameson to devote a section on German women writers in her Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad (1834). Soon translated into German, Jameson’s work reversed the “outbound” cultural transfer to “inbound.” Ottilie von Goethe introduced Jameson to the works
and proto-feminist projects of Rahel (Levin) Varnhagen and Bettina von Arnim; further, she was instrumental in determining which of Princess Amalie of Saxony’s plays Jameson should translate. Those/most of us not familiar with both Ottilie von Goethe and Anna Jameson will not forget the duo as a prime example of cultural transfer, both inbound and outbound.

Presenter: Julie Koehler

Presentation: ““Female Heroism and Mentorship in Retellings of Madame d’Aulnoy’s “The Bee and the Orange Tree’” 

Julie discusses three German women writers’ retellings of d’Aulnoy’s 1697 “L'Orangier et l'Abeille,” retellings that appeared in the three most important early 19 th -c. fairy-tale collections. Like the original, in each variant of the story a young and helpless girl finds herself in a strange place inhabited by monstrous ogres. Needing to save the prince she loves and herself from being devoured, she uses a magic wand to transform him into a tree and herself into a bee. Several plot and character distinctions from the original in these examples of inbound cultural transfer invite questions about intent and audience. Significantly German women storytellers reduce the romantic plot, and expand instead on examples of women’s cleverness, knowledge, and magic to create situations in which women—caring mothers, fierce protectors, powerful fairies, and clever princesses—care for, mentor, and rescue each other. 

Presenter: Sarah Vandegrift Eldridge

Presentation: “Disciplinary Transfers: Following Black Feminist Thought to the German Robinsonade”“

Sarah’s paper draws on Toni Morrison’s insights into representations of Black and indigenous characters in American literature to elucidate ways 18 th -c. female
Robinsonaden allowed German writers to explore the construction of white selves and their relationship to religion, race, and gender. Turning to Morrison’s discussion of “the interdepending working of power, race, and sexuality in a white woman’s battle for coherence,” Eldridge’s paper discusses three female Robinsanden, to argue that this applies to the encounters of female European protagonists with non-white Indigenous figures and populations. As previous
scholarship on the female Robinsonaden explored only gender, Eldridge’s paper contributes significantly to Robinsonaden studies by exposing the ways racial and religious differences inflect gender identities and the construction of white female subjectivity.

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WiG 2022 Panel: 

Panel Organizers:  

Presenter: 

Presentation: 

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WiG 2022 Community Hour: 

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