WHAT: The East Central chapter of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies seeks panels on female networks during the long eighteenth century.

WHERE: West Chester University, West Chester, PA, USA

WHEN: 12-14 November 2015

Deadline for Submissions: 5 June 2015

Forging Connections among Women:   It is a truth once universally acknowledged that the way societies have organized themselves isolates the average woman; they may socialize within the space they find themselves in with their families and friends, but there are enormous pressures and social and economic constraints keeping them from reaching out to people beyond the family and milieu into which chance has thrown them. Thus the writing and publication of poetry, novels, plays, letters and memoirs and travel by women especially when addressing issues and experiences from a woman’s point of view become ways for the average woman to become part of a network and dialogue with other women.  A trip to a spa or town where there was a public life such a woman could enter into, owning and managing a shop or a girls’ school, teaching in one, a profession like midwifery would be other places and provide shared experiences for women to forge connections with other women as women.  I invite papers on topics like these where a woman could feel she was or indeed be connected to other women through gender experiences.

Send 300-500 word abstract to Ellen Moody (ellen.moody “at” gmail.com) no later than 5 June 2015.