Gendering Material Culture

CFP for Kalamazoo '09 - Please feel free to circulate!

Gendering Material Culture
(co-sponsored by the Society for Medieval Feminist Studies & by the Medieval
Feminist Art History Project)
Organizer: Alissandra Paschkowiak

The 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Kalamazoo, MI
May 7-10, 2009

This session considers the investigation of the relationship between gender and the material culture(s) of the Middle Ages.

Papers could include a discussion of the production or the reception/interpretation of material objects --imagined or real-- and their impact upon or promotion by individuals, collectives, corporate entities, or nations. How does the gendering of the producers, the gendering of the objects, and/or a gendering of the reception yield meaning or provide some understanding of the Middle Ages? Interdisciplinarity is especially encouraged.

"Material culture" may include shoes, clothing, textiles, psalters, manuscripts, maps, furnishings and household goods, architectural items/structures, sculptures, jewelry, tapestries/woven items, instruments, ceramics, or others.

Please submit 1-2 pg abstracts and cover materials to Alissandra Paschkowiak (apaschkowiak@wsc.ma.edu) by 15 September.