Female Experience in Early Modern England | 6-7 November 2020, University of Auckland

This two-day conference is sponsored by the Alice Griffin Fund and organised by the School of Humanities at the University of Auckland. We invite academics and postgraduate students to submit proposals for 20-minute papers on the topic of female experience in early modern England.

The last fifty years have seen an expanding interest in women’s history in the early modern period, from the everyday lives of ordinary and élite women to their artistic production and involvement, disproving Virginia Woolf’s assertion that Shakespeare’s sister ‘died young – alas, she never wrote a word’.

In 2020, this conference asks, where has this interest in female experience brought us and what are the areas that remain vibrant or underexplored? Were women the authors of their own experience, is that experience different from what scholars previously believed, and if so, how? We are seeing a surge of women in humanities disciplines, encouraging the comparison between women as ‘authors’ of their experience now and in early modern England. What does the work of emerging scholars have to contribute to the discussion of the female experience in early modern England?

Papers should address some of these questions. They may raise questions of ‘authorship’ in regards to literary or artistic production. They may consider women’s experiences of early modern life and the ways in which they or others organised that experience, in a real or representational context. We also welcome proposals for workshops that offer hands-on insight into female experience, whether performative (song, theatre, dance, games, letter writing) or practical (making medicines or cosmetics). We envisage these workshops to be either 30 minutes or 1 hour each.

We have chosen England as a topic of discussion because of its centrality in previous discussions of early modern female experience. The conference aims to challenge the ever-evolving contemporary perspective that we know all there is to know about how women lived in the past and to fashion one or two surprises. In particular, this conference aims to foster new discussions on a topic that is no longer ‘new’ but still in need of continuing study. It aims to incorporate interdisciplinary perspectives, acknowledging the multi-faceted ways in which female experience was lived and imagined. We encourage talks that engage with the practical aspects of female experience, including marriage and household management, personal care, adornment and medical care; as well as female creative and performative experiences.

The keynote speaker will be Associate Professor Sarah Ross, Victoria University Wellington, whose lecture is entitled, Woe is She: “Female Complaint” and Women’s Songbooks in Early Modern England.

We are calling for submissions by both established scholars and by PhD candidates/MA students. New Zealand speakers who are not based in Auckland may be eligible for a travel bursary. Applications for presentations from scholars based overseas via Zoom are welcome. The conference is free and we plan to offer online access.

Please submit a 150-200 word abstract and a short CV for your paper by 30 September 2020 to Susannah Whaley: swha390@aucklanduni.ac.nz. If you would like to apply for a travel bursary, please notify Susannah, who will supply further details when they are available.

Contacts:
Susannah Whaley, postgraduate coordinator: swha390@aucklanduni.ac.nz
Associate Professor Erin Griffey: e.griffey@auckland.ac.nz
Professor Tom Bishop: t.bishop@auckland.ac.nz