[ecrea] CFP: Single Lives: 200 Years of Independent Women in Literature and Popular Culture

*CFP: Single Lives: 200 Years of Independent Women in Literature and 
Popular Culture University College Dublin, 13-14 October 2017*

**

*Keynote Speaker: Rebecca Traister*

**

*Proposal Deadline 1 April 2017, midnight Dublin time.*

*Notifications by 1 May 2017*

**

This conference will explore the last 200 years of literature and 
popular media by, about, and for single women in relation to aesthetics 
and form, race, sexuality, class, space, reproduction and the family, 
political movements, and labor.

Literary scholar Jennifer Fleissner has convincingly argued that young, 
independent women were the center around which anxieties and excitement 
in the modern era coalesced. A range of historians, demographers, and 
literary scholars have focused on the social and political significance 
of diverse single women in the late nineteenth, twentieth, and early 
twenty-first centuries. Moving between the family home and domestic 
independence, between household and public labor, and between chastity 
and a range of sexualities, the single woman remains a literary and 
social focus.

In recent years, especially in relation to UK and US elections, there 
has been an explosion of popular interest in contemporary singleness. 
Rebecca Traister’s /Big Girls Don’t Cry /and/All the Single Ladies/, 
comedian Aziz Ansari’s /Modern Romance, /Eric Klinenberg’s /Going Solo/, 
the /Washington Post’s /“Solo-ish” column, and the work of psychologist 
and single-rights activist Bella DePaulo’s work all explore what it 
means to be a socially, politically, and sexually active single person 
in the 21^st century. News outlets, film, television, and a host of 
social and marketing media have demonstrated that people are fascinated 
by the changing status of singles.

Singleness Studies has emerged as an academic field over the last two 
decades but has rarely had its own forum for collaboration and exchange. 
This conference will bring together multiple disciplinary perspectives 
to uncover the social, political, economic, and cultural connections 
between the “singly blessed” women and “bachelor girls” of the 19^th and 
early-20^th century and “all the single ladies” of the contemporary 
moment. We seek proposals that analyze single lives within or across 
this time frame, from disciplines including literature, media studies, 
history, geography, sociology, architecture, political science, and 
more. Papers and full panels that create new perspectives by crossing 
boundaries and integrating multiple disciplines are especially welcome.

*Possible topics include*

·Representation of singles in literature

·Representation of singles in film, television, and other digital media

·Narrative form

·Space and architecture

·Demographic change

·Reproductive rights and family structures

·Reproduction and temporality

·Independent women’s labor and political work

·“Women adrift” and crisis narratives

·Singleness and race, class, or identity politics

·Queer singleness

·Familiar Figures: bachelor girls, spinsters, new women, and single ladies

·The single and the state

·Singleness and literary or media genre

·Conservative and radical independence

·Singleness in Trump’s America

·Single activism

·Comparative singleness

Scholars from all disciplines are encouraged to apply.

**

*Full Panel Proposals:*Panel coordinators should submit a
200-word rationale for the panel as whole. For each contributor, please
submit a 250-word abstract, a short bio, and contact information. Panels
that include diverse panelists with a range of affiliations, career 
experiences, and disciplinary homes are strongly encouraged. Panels 
should include 4 papers. Submissions can be emailed as a Word document 
to (singlelives2017 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(singlelives2017 /at/ gmail.com)>.

*Individual Papers:*Individuals submitting paper proposals should provide
an abstract of 250 words, a short bio, and contact information. 
Submissions can be emailed as a Word document to 
(singlelives2017 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(singlelives2017 /at/ gmail.com)>.

*Conference Statement:* We hope to host a diverse, welcoming, open first 
Single Lives conference. We understand diversity to include attendees as 
well as academic subject, approach, and field. We welcome comparative 
projects, though because of its smaller scale, this conference will be 
conducted in English.

Please direct all questions about the conference and the submission 
process to: (singlelives2017 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(singlelives2017 /at/ gmail.com)>

For up to date conference details, see our website: 
https://singlelives2017.wordpress.com/

Find us on Facebook: 
https://www.facebook.com/Single-Lives-2017-Conference-1262119710546609/

Follow us on Twitter: @SingleLives2017

*Conference Organizers*:

Kate Fama

Jorie Lagerwey

School of English, Drama, and Film

University College Dublin

*Conference Sponsors*

College of Arts and Humanities, University College Dublin
Humanities Institute, University College Dublin


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