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The Newberry Seminar on Women and Gender
2011-2012

Seminar sessions are held on Fridays from 3:00 PM–5:00 PM
at the Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Illinois.

Co-sponsored by the History Departments of Northeastern Illinois University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture at the University of Chicago

Coordinated by Joan Johnson, Northeastern Illinois University and Francesca Morgan, Northeastern Illinois University

"The Codfish and the Cattle Princess," Sunset 41(September 1918): 43. Ayer 5A 794

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We will pre-circulate papers to those planning to attend. If you cannot attend and want to read a paper, please contact the author directly. E-mail scholl[at]newberry.org, or call (312) 255-3602 to receive a copy of the paper. Papers are available for request two weeks prior to the seminar date. Please include your e-mail address in all correspondence.

The seminar format assumes that all participants have read the essays in advance, and that all those requesting the paper will attend the seminar. Please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend. We encourage faculty members to call the seminar to the attention of graduate students.

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Schedule

September 23, 2011

Indian Women, Agrarian Villages, and Landscapes of Violence
Susan Sleeper- Smith, Michigan State University

Commentator: Brenda Child, University of Minnesota

October 21, 2011

Family and Friendship in Early America

Friends and Lovers Friendship and Romance in Mixed-Sex Friendships in the Early American Republic
Cassandra Good, University of Pennsylvania

This paper examines the lines between mixed-sex friendships and romantic relationships in the early American republic. Given the overwhelming cultural focus on marriage and seduction in this era, it was hard for people then—as it is for historians today—to distinguish between friendship and romance. Without prescriptions for how to conduct a heterosocial friendship, men and women had the opportunity to collectively define the emotional and sexual character of a relationship. Through an examination of literary texts and manuscripts, I argue that men and women adapted the sign system of romance to create new, more flexible possibilities for heterosocial relationships.

Founding Fathers/Founders as Fathers: Raising a Natural Aristocracy in Virginia
Lorri Glover, St. Louis University

Commentator: Thomas Foster, DePaul University

November 18, 2011

Wives on Trial in the Late Nineteenth Century

Who’s Afraid of the Feme Covert?: Gender, Civil Status & Lunacy Law in the 19th-Century U.S.
Kathryn V. Burns-Howard, Northwestern University

No Ordinary Servant: Affect, Dependency, and Wives’ Household Labor, 1870- 1920
Kimberley Reilly, University Of Baltimore

Commentator: Kimberly Neilsen, University Of Wisconsin-Green Bay

January 27, 2012

New Directions in Gender and U.S. Imperialism

The Transnationality of Women’s Movements: The Inter American Commission of Women and Its Caribbean Partners
Neici Zeller, William Paterson University

Commentator: Augusto Espiritu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

February 24, 2012

Religion, Feminism, and Beauty Culture in Black Chicago

‘Modesty on Her Cheek’: The Moorish Science Temple, African- American Girls and Great Migration Beauty Culture
Marcia Chatelain, Georgetown University

To be Black, Christian and Feminist: Rev. Addie Wyatt, the Women’s Movement and the formation of a Progressive Faith Politic
Marcia Walker, University of Chicago

Commentator: Kevin Mumford, University of Iowa

March 30, 2012

Reimagining the Postwar Wife

Domesticity and Feminism in the Displaced Homemaker Movement in the late 20th Century
Anna Flaming, University of Iowa

“Caution and Discretion”: Pursuing Lesbian Desire Within Marriage, 1945-1969
Lauren Gutterman, New York University

Commentator: Susan Levine, University of Illinois at Chicago

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