[Gesth-l] CFP

[Nora Sellei]

CALL FOR PAPERS 

“The
Aftermath of Suffrage”: What Happened After the Vote Was Won?

 

24-25 June, 2011, Humanities Research Institute,


University of Sheffield

 

Organised by:
Dr Julie Gottlieb (julie.gottlieb at sheffield.ac.uk)


and Prof.
Richard Toye (r.toye at exeter.ac.uk)

 

Speaking at
a luncheon in 1939 to celebrate the 21st anniversary of women’s
suffrage, with Britain on the brink of another world war,
Independent MP Eleanor Rathbone reflected: “that on 21st birthdays
one usually looked forward, but in their case it was perhaps safer to dwell on
the past. They could say that they were now better equipped to face difficult
times by their past stern struggles. Everybody now had a share in choosing
their rulers, and also a share in the responsibility for the choice….women’s
organisations had achievements to their credit, in the cause of peace and wider
humanity, disregarding national boundaries.” (Manchester Guardian, March 18, 1939) Taking our cue from Rathbone,
what had been achieved and what was seen to have remained unattained after
suffrage? Why was it only women’s suffrage that was commemorated in this way
and not universal suffrage (where are the men)? This conference will bring
together scholars working within this field of historical research to explore
the aftermath of the Representation of the People’s Act (1918). This larger
question will be approached from a variety of viewpoints, including political,
social, organisational, personal, and discursive. 

 

The history
of the suffrage movement in Britain has long been of great interest,
first principally for women’s historians and political and constitutional
history, and more recently for gender and cultural historians. Similarly, there
has been significant scholarly interest in feminism between the wars, with some
revision of earlier impressions that the inter-war women’s movement was a
failure when compared to the energy, ideas and publicity associated with Edwardian
suffragism in particular. However, there has been little systematic exploration
of the connection between these two phases or an attempt to break down the
rigid periodization of pre- and post-suffrage and think instead of a continuum
of political and personal histories. 

 

This
conference seeks to shed new light on gender and political history in the
post-suffrage period by doing just this and considering how the contested
legacies of both women’s suffrage and universal suffrage reflected and refracted
contemporary debates about political representation, democratic reform, the
sexual divisions of labour in politics, and women’s very gradual inclusion in
national politics. 

The
conference will take place in the university’s Humanities Research Institute,
centrally located for the university, the city centre, and transport links. 

 

We warmly
invite proposals for papers to be presented at this forthcoming international
conference. We encourage proposals from PhD students, early career academics
and unaffiliated scholars. Papers should be 20 minutes long. Please send a
title and a 250 word synopsis, as well as a short biography (100 words), to julie.gottlieb at sheffield.ac.uk
and r.toye at exeter.ac.uk to reach us no
later than 3 December, 2010.

 

We seek
contributions that address aspects of the following questions. 

 What happened to the women’s movement
     after the vote was won? Does the celebrated ‘franchise
     factor’ debate of the 1970s need to be revisited?What directions did those women
     (and men) who had played prominent roles in the suffrage movement take? What post-suffrage patterns can
     be discerned for those who had been at the forefront of the suffrage
     movement, both the militant and constitutionalist wings? What hopes and ambitions were
     invested in women’s and universal enfranchisement (the Representation of
     the Peoples Act) upon its achievement, and, crucially, how did those
     concerned evaluate these successes or failed promises as the years wore
     on? What was the impact of universal
     suffrage on the main political parties?Did celebration of the
     attainment of full adult male suffrage in 1918 become overshadowed by the
     more momentous achievement of women’s suffrage, and how was universal
     suffrage represented in the political discourse of the post-war years? How was the historiography of British
     suffragism conditioned by Britain’s growing isolation as a
     democratic state in inter-war Europe? How did the close relationship
     between the women’s movement and the peace movement make certain
     assumptions about the new force women were to represent in politics and in
     world affairs?How were suffrage days
     memorialised and remembered?Where are the significant shifts
     in the way that suffrage has been remembered, for example from sense of
     lost promise and disappointment in the inter-war period that women’s
     enfranchisement did not, in fact, change the nature and practice of
     politics,  to the hero-worship
     culture that accompanied Second Wave Feminism? 

 

Conference format:  The
conference will have a combination of plenary and parallel sessions, with
plenty of opportunity for informal discussion. Confirmed speakers include Adrian
Bingham, Myriam Boussahba-Bravard, Karen Hunt, June Hannam, Angela John, Jon
Lawrence, Helen McCarthy, June Purvis, Mari Takayanagi, Pat Thane, Philippe
Vervaecke, Valerie Wright, and the two conference organisers, Richard Toye and
Julie Gottlieb. 





      
--------- következő rész ---------
Egy csatolt HTML állomány át lett konvertálva...
URL: <https://listserv.niif.hu/pipermail/gesth-l/attachments/20101002/c7aaab0d/attachment.htm>