Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

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Friday 14 April 2023 14.00 - 16.00
J-11 WOM22 Gender and Women's Stories, Narratives
B44 (Z)
Networks: Culture , Women and Gender Chair: Marianna Muravyeva
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Anna Di Giusto : Paper Women. The Construction of Feminist Identity through Comics in the 1970s
At the crossroads between literature and art, comics occupy a singular and not yet fully explored place in the history of the cultural formation of contemporary society. While some studies investigate the influence of comics in national history (Bianchi, 2011) or in world wars (Badino, 2010), there is still a ... (Show more)
At the crossroads between literature and art, comics occupy a singular and not yet fully explored place in the history of the cultural formation of contemporary society. While some studies investigate the influence of comics in national history (Bianchi, 2011) or in world wars (Badino, 2010), there is still a lack of research about the impact of feminist comics on female emancipation from the 1970s onwards. Born for a purely male audience, with the advent of feminism, some talented female illustrators grappling with the most significant revolution in women’s customs. Thanks to their pen, these authors illuminated decisive historical passages that, however, the official narrative continues to belittle or ignore even today. The commitment of famous authors such as Nidasio, Ghigliano, Simola, and Sansoni, together with the sensitivity of publishers such as the Giussani sisters, undermined the heroic-centric universe of the comic strip. They give voice and body to another female imaginary, the one of emancipated femininity that, for the first time, western women could experience and were called upon to invent.
This research, carried out mainly in women's archives and libraries, covers a geographical area stretching from Turin to Naples. Therefore, it is a work in progress to reveal the incidence of female and feminist comics in Italian society since the 1970s. Archival research makes it possible to highlight how the comics of these female authors represented a shock wave that brought feminist thought into the homes of Italian women. (Show less)

Pauline Mari Hernando : Of Women and Corporeal Experiences: A Critical Inquiry on the Grotesque Politicking in the Philippines
Historic events that sprung from the local and national elections in the Philippines are deeply embedded and marked with myriad of bodily experiences by women. Most of these experiences are tagged in many prevailing ways, all performative and semiotic. The popular image of Philippine politicking is never complete without ... (Show more)
Historic events that sprung from the local and national elections in the Philippines are deeply embedded and marked with myriad of bodily experiences by women. Most of these experiences are tagged in many prevailing ways, all performative and semiotic. The popular image of Philippine politicking is never complete without the materiality of “women texts” as a major contributing factor in the incessant pursuit for traditional politics. These women texts occupy the dialogic space within campaign periods as mere source of sensual and sultry entertainment. Diversions provided by theses bodies were ultimately used since the onset of the republican system. This paper seeks to produce critical inquiry on the ideological narratives and structure of consumerism and subjectivities made for Filipino women under the framework of current neoliberal economic policies. The nature, trends, and influences that hone such carnivalesque and corporeal practices on women can be attributed in the predominating feudal-patriarchal system in the country. Thus, the immense effect in the configurations of electoral system. Social movements, including the women’s liberation movement, has been carrying out enduring efforts to put an end to these practices by continuously engaging in the process of cultural revolution for more than half a century. (Show less)

Emily January Petersen : Diverse Histories: Responsibly Expanding Research Practices to Marginalized Communities
In my field of rhetoric and writing, there is a long history of overlooking non-EuroWestern narratives (Haas, 2012; Petersen, 2017), and we tend to neglect women’s voices, particularly women in the Global South. But what does it mean to recover and reclaim women’s histories in the Global South? When the ... (Show more)
In my field of rhetoric and writing, there is a long history of overlooking non-EuroWestern narratives (Haas, 2012; Petersen, 2017), and we tend to neglect women’s voices, particularly women in the Global South. But what does it mean to recover and reclaim women’s histories in the Global South? When the cultural frame is unfamiliar, can Euro-Western researchers do it justice? While conducting archival research in South Africa and Botswana, I found documents that advocated for women’s rights, colonial memos of Indigenous African women’s voices, reports and meeting minutes for white women’s clubs, voting instructions, anti-apartheid songs, and correspondence. The research experience revealed several important lessons of what it means to recover histories, make sense of unfamiliar documentation, understand cultural frames, and recognize colonial legacies. First, I learned that archival sites represent colonialism and may reproduce violence against those who are marginalized (Clancy-Smith, 2010). Second, I learned how the realities of globalization and the legacies of colonialism privilege particular types of research and researchers (Schwartz & Cook, 2002). And third, I learned that global, cross-cultural research is a site of struggle between resources of the privileged and the views and realities of the people who produced, read, and were affected by the documents I collected. Further, my research into five particular stories about women from the colonial records in Pietermaritzburg exposes how documentation functions alongside resistance and social change. I use counterstory and feminist content analysis to situate these stories. My presentation will outline the lessons I learned as a researcher and share specific stories from the archives, which reveal ways of making, identifying, and legitimizing women’s knowledge and agency. I aim to encourage others to make histories more robust and inclusive of the Global South. (Show less)

Sneha Krishnan : How to tell a Murder Mystery: Race, Domesticity, and Violence in Colonial Madras
In 1919, Clement de la Hey, Principal of Newington College in erstwhile Madras (now Chennai) in Southern India was murdered, allegedly by one of his students. For the de la Hey family – members of which are still resident in Oxfordshire – this was not only a tragedy but a ... (Show more)
In 1919, Clement de la Hey, Principal of Newington College in erstwhile Madras (now Chennai) in Southern India was murdered, allegedly by one of his students. For the de la Hey family – members of which are still resident in Oxfordshire – this was not only a tragedy but a source of anxiety and shame as insinuations were made that the murder was a crime of passion, the perpetrator having begun an affair with Clement’s much-younger wife. Worse, the alleged murderer was acquitted despite significant circumstantial evidence, because the prosecutor could not establish a motive. There was no evidence – no letters, no diaries – of the affair, or of any other source of the student’s ire. In this paper, I ask how to tell a story about gendered violence, which has both accrued a large paper archive around it and remains painfully opaque. I argue that the facts – the whodunit – are less compelling than what the circulation of this story, both in memory in Madras, and in the family’s painstaking attempt to build a sanitised archive of the murder, tells us about how gender, race, and respectability are constructed, through the recording of violence, in the archive. (Show less)



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