The Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States Presents their Zoom Series 2022-23: Victorian Promises
"The Promises of Feminism"
Virtual Roundtable Event
Friday, 4 November, 2022
11:00 a.m. Pacific Time
Please join the event via this Zoom link: https://sou.zoom.us/j/82296018963
The promise of a better, more egalitarian future was fundamental to Victorian feminism. Victorian feminists envisioned a future where women had the opportunity to meaningfully participate in waged labor, to exercise the right to vote, to hold property, to have equal access to quality education, and to hold equal protection under the law. As many scholars have noted, though, such visions were almost exclusively limited to white, middle-class women, whose promising futures were often dependent upon the subjugation of working-class women and women of color. This panel critically examines and interrogates the promises of Victorian feminism, offering new analysis of Victorian feminist thought and new directions for the study of the Victorian feminist canon. We explore the way Victorian feminism has shaped contemporary feminist theory and practice, and propose new modes of teaching, preserving, and writing about Victorian feminism.
Panelists:
“Economic Promises and our Neoliberal Present” – Lana L. Dalley, California State University, Fullerton
“Victorian Studies and the Category of ‘Woman’” – Doreen Thierauf, North Carolina Wesleyan University
“Utopian Visions in Victorian Fiction” – Tara MacDonald, University of Idaho
“Orlando: Time Travels in Feminist Victorian Literary Criticism, 2005 and 2022” – Karen Bourrier, University of Calgary
“The Menace of Victorian Feminism: Temperance, Eugenics, Racial Uplift and Other ‘Promising’ Directions in Short Biographies of Activists” – Alison Booth, University of Virginia
Click here to view the event flyer as PDF.