COALITION OF WOMEN IN GERMAN (WIG) 34RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE Brook Lodge Hotel and Conference Center Augusta, MI October 22-25, 2009

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22

6:00-7:00 pm DINNER

7:15-8:45 pm THURSDAY EVENING SESSION: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH Organizers: Heike Henderson, Boise State University Gabi Kathoefer, University of Denver Chantelle Warner, University of Arizona

  1. Anke Finger, University of Connecticut. “International Research Collaboration: Co-Editing and Co-Authoring Across Languages and Disciplines”
  2. Sabine Gross and Marc Silberman, University of Wisconsin. “More Work, Better Results: On Collaboration”
  3. Monika Fischer, University of Missouri. “Looking Outside the Box – Ideas of Collaboration in Research and Teaching”

8:45-9:30 pm BREAKOUT GROUPS

9:45-11:10 pm FILM PRESENTATION: “DAS FRÄULEIN” (81 MINUTES) “Das Fräulein” is Andrea Štaka’s first full-length film. It premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2006, where it won the festival’s grand prize. From the film’s website (www.dasfraulein.ch): “This is an intimate portrait of three strong-willed women now living in Switzerland, but who originally come from various parts of a country that no longer exists (former Yugoslavia). ‘Das Fräulein’ describes the uprooting of people and of their yearning at a time when more and more humanity is on the move between various cultures, religions and countries - as travellers, as displaced persons or simply as people who have no home.”

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23

7:30-8:30 am BREAKFAST

9:00-10:45 am THE FALL OF THE WALL, TWENTY YEARS AFTER Organizers: Beret Norman, Boise State University Katharina Gerstenberger, University of Cincinnati

  1. Yuliya Komska, Dartmouth College. “A Moving Wall: A London Staging of The Death of Peter Fechter”
  2. David James Prickett, Humboldt Universität. “Motherhood and the East-West German Divide”
  3. Hester Baer, University of Oklahoma. “‘Neue Deutsche Mädchen’: The Resurgence of Feminism, Twenty Years After”
11:00 am – 12:45 pm MEMORIES AND MEMOIRS Organizers: Caroline Schaumann, Emory University Helga Thorson, University of Victoria
1. Ursula Mahlendorf, University of California, Santa Barbara. “Same time; Different Places”
2. Anna Kuhn, University of California, Davis. "Frauen schreiben anders: Gender and Autobiography in Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben, Still Alive and unterwegs verloren and Ursula Mahlendorf’s The Shame of Survival”
3. Angelika Bammer, Emory University and Ruth-Ellen Joeres, University of Minnesota, in dialogue. “Truth: Nothing But, but Not the Whole”
1:00-2:00 pm LUNCH
2:15-4:15 pm PRE-20TH CENTURY PANEL ENTMYTHISIERUNG: WOMEN REWRITING MYTHS AND LEGENDS THAT SHAPE THE PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS ABOUT WOMEN Organizers: Karina Marie Ash, University of California, Los Angeles Waltraud Maierhofer, University of Iowa Regina Range, University of Iowa
1. Liesl Allingham, Virginia Tech. “’Darthula nach Ossian’: A Female Warrior, Her Unruly Breast and the Creation of Her Heroic Legend”
2. Birgit Tautz, Bowdoin College. “Friederike Brun’s Creation, Appropriation, and Destruction of Myth”
3. Marjanne Goozé, University of Georgia. “Mothers for and of the Nation: Demythologizing Motherhood in Two Short Tales by Bettina von Arnim”
4. Ulrike Brisson, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. “A Balancing Act: De-and Reconstructing Self-Images in Nineteenth-Century Women’s Travel Writing”
4:30-6:00 pm POSTER SESSION Organizers: Kyle Frackman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Michelle S. James, Brigham Young University
1. Beate Brunow, Pennsylvania State University. “Dramatic Inquiries: Encountering Discourses on Female Creativity”
2. Imke Brust, Bucknell University. “The Imagination of Unified Nations in Post-Apartheid South Africa & Post-Wall Germany”
3. Pauline Ebert, Wayne State University. “The Cultural Memory of German Victimhood in Post-1990 Popular German Literature and Television”
4. Friederike Eigler, Georgetown University. “Trans/National Representations of Expulsion”
  1. Sarah Fetterhoff, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Edith Stein: Pioneer, Paradox, Woman”
  2. Maureen Gallagher, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Old Shatterhand’s Better Half: Klara May’s Life and Works”
  3. Jennifer Ruth Hosek, Queen’s University. “Out from the Cold: On Cinema and Urban Ruins”
  4. Katherine Hubler, Boston College. “Male Participation in the German Woman Question, 1865-1919"
  5. April Nichole Huffines, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “‘die sollent es ze nún malen lesen’: Mechthild’s Redefinition of Women’s Roles in the Middle Ages”
  6. Corinna Kahnke, California Polytechnic State University. “Die kunstseidene Studentin–Re-Negotiating Prostitution”
  7. Sonja E. Klocke, Knox College. “Aggressive Aspects of Globalization in Juli Zeh’s Novels”
  8. Jens Kugele, Georgetown University. “Witchcraft Discourse–Towards a Digital Teaching Tool”
  9. Victoria Lenshyn, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Disrupting the Narrative Structure: Das Leben der Anderen and the Construction of Women’s Memory in Film”
  10. Beth Muellner, College of Wooster. “The ‘Untidy’ Photographic Collection of the Empress Elisabeth (‘Sisi’) of Austria (1837-1898)”
  11. Anne Rothe, Wayne State University. “Trauma Culture: Emploting the Pain of Others in the Therapeutic Age”
  12. Carol Strauss Sotiropoulos, Northern Michigan University. “Margaret Fuller: (Nineteenth-Century) Woman in German”
  13. Jamele Watkins, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Entwicklungsjahre: Intercultural Childhood Autobiographies:
  14. Astrid Weigert, Georgetown University. “Exploring Gendered Notions of Heimat in the Undergraduate Classroom”

6:00-7:00 pm DINNER

7:00-7:15 pm ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dissertation Prize (Presenter: Birgit Tautz)

Best Article Prize (Presenter: Elizabeth Mittman)

7:15-9:00 pm GUEST READING: DRAGICA RAJĆIĆ Dragica Rajčić was born 1 April 1959 in Radosic/Splith. In 1978, she emigrated as a “guest worker” to Switzerland where she worked as a cleaning woman, took in ironing, and did odd jobs. In 1988, she returned to Croatia, but she fled the country in 1991 after the start of the war. Today she lives in Zurich, Switzerland. Rajčić has emerged as an innovative voice in Swiss-German transnational literature. She has received numerous awards for her poetry, including the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize and the Meran Poetry Prize in 1994. In addition to writing poetry, she founded the journal “Glas Kastela” and has written short prose works, essays, and plays. Rajčić is currently working on a novel focusing on the life and work of Hermann Broch.

9:00 pm -RECEPTION HOSTED BY THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & LETTERS, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Invited Guests: Karin A. Wurst, Dean of the College David Prestel, Chair of the Dept. of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,

Asian and African Languages

Lisa Fine and Anne Ferguson, Co-Directors of the Center for Gender in Global Context

Norm Graham, Director of the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24

7:30-8:30 am BREAKFAST (YEARBOOK EDITORIAL BOARD MEETING)

9:00-10:45 am PEDAGOGY AND PRAXIS PANEL (E-PANEL) QUEERING THE GAZE: FILM AND FEMINISM IN THE CLASSROOM Organizers: Corinna Kahnke, California Polytechnic State University Faye Stewart, Georgia State University

  1. Kyle Frackman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “The Curious Case of the Turkish Drag Queen: Queer Film and Feminist Pedagogy in an Advanced German Stylistics Course”
  2. Jenneke Oosterhoff, University of Minnesota. “Never a Dull Moment: Teaching with Dutch Film”
  3. Carrie Smith-Prei, University of Alberta. “Queer Borderlands: Teaching German Film in the Gender Studies Classroom”
  4. Maria Stehle, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “‘I Guess We Are Really Speaking Across Purposes’: Speech, Performance, and Communication in the Queer Classroom”

11:00 am-12:45 BUSINESS MEETING pm 1:00-2:00 pm LUNCH

2:00-6:00 pm FREE TIME Weather permitting, optional events for Saturday afternoon include a trip to a local winery or the nearby Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. There are also opportunities for tennis, golf, bicycling, hiking, jogging, etc.

6:00-7:00 pm DINNER

7:00-8:45 pm GUEST-RELATED PANEL WOMEN IN TRANSIT: EXILES, EXPATRIATES, GLOBAL NOMADS

Organizers: Mareike Herrmann, The College of Wooster Cary Einberger, Michigan State University

  1. Julie Koser, University of Maryland, College Park. “‘Die Bahn der Wanderschaft ist unveränderlich schon angelegt, nur die Schritte der darauf Einherwandernden sind ungewiß, unbeständig, schwankend’: The Memoirs of Regula Engel-Egli as a Woman's Guide to Nomadism”
  2. Erika Nelson, Union College. “Migrating Sense and Transgressing Boundaries: Challenging Difference in the Works of Dragica Rajcic and Andrea Staka”
  3. Faye Stewart, Georgia State University. “Rites of Passage: Transgendered Bodies and Border Crossings in Film”

9:00 pm CABARET AND CASH BAR

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25

7:30-9:00 am BREAKFAST

9:00-10:30 am SPEAKOUT Open discussion of issues and ideas raised during the conference. Suggestions are often integrated into future conferences and other WiG activities.

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS:

Elizabeth Mittman, Michigan State University Denise Della Rossa, University of Notre Dame Jennifer Redmann, Kalamazoo College

CONFERENCE SPONSORS:

Michigan State University – College of Arts & Letters Michigan State University – Dept. of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African

Languages Michigan State University – Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies Michigan State University – Center for Gender in Global Context Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst University of Notre Dame – Nanovic Institute for European Studies