What's More Fun Than Feminist History? More Berkshire Conference Highlights

Iacovetta presents at an event that makes me want to go to Canada

The 15th Berkshire Conference is finishing up with a business meeting as I write here at my desk in Shoreline, a meeting where outgoing president Kathleen Brown of the University of Pennsylvania will hand the organization over to Franca Iacovetta of the University of Toronto.  Iacovetta will take us to Canada for the very first time, just as Vicki Ruiz took us West for the first time in 2005, and Ruth Mazo Karras took us to the Midwest for the first time in 2008.  Thanks to a great program committee, the University of Massachusetts -- Amherst, and a hard-working local arrangements (who, it is rumored, started shuttling people to the airport at 4:00 a.m.) the meeting appeared to come off without a hitch.

If you heard a rumor that this year's festivities included a burlesque show, I won't say you are wrong -- they also included a spirited exchange between Radicalesbian Artemis March and a young feminist (whose name I never learned) about pornography, which cheered up those of us who are writing books about the sex wars of the 1980s.  Historiann never made it because of a family emergency, which has caused her to confess to having a family (but let's not belabor it, shall we?), but the blogger meetup went off without a hitch even without our favorite cowgirl.  If you want to see the Tweeted conference, go here.  If you want to see an analysis of the program's bias towards US and modern history, go to Blogenspiel.  FeMOMhist has a running commentary here, here, here and here.  Janice Liedl reports in here, and Knitting Clio's day 1 report will probably be followed up soon.

Last night, at the traditional Saturday party, you couldn't help but wonder which of the under-thirty set out there shaking it in a line dance would be the future Berks president who takes us to -- Mexico?  Hawai'i? Oregon?  Who knows -- the sky is the limit, and we can boogie anywhere you take us.

If this was your first Berkshire Conference, the point is:  keep coming.  And consider posting to the page on the website, redesigned under Brown's direction in this conference cycle, called "Think/Learn/Teach/Do," that asks you to reflect on your conference experiences.

One of my favorite additions to the conference this year was the poster sessions, a way of presenting research that is common in other fields but rarely employed at a history conference.  I think it's a keeper:  scholars with research to present can do so in an interactive way with a mobile audience who stops by to talk to them about it.  It doesn't force you to listen to a whole panel, it allows you to connect to a scholar whose work you are interested in and, best of all, doesn't force you to choose between the talk you really ought to be at (because it's a friend, your research field, a famous person) and the talk that piqued your interest but doesn't have any utility for your work.

So without further ado, here is a short film I made of a poster session with a Flip.  Kelly O'Donnell is a second-year graduate student in the History of Science and Medicine program at Yale, and her poster session was on the Menstrual Cup:  take it away, Kelly.

Berks Highlights: There's Got To Be A Morning After (If You Can Make It Through The Night)

Sarah Palin is not at the Berkshire Conference

The sun is finally shining in Amherst, after a day and a night of severe weather that created delays, cancellations, and flights diverted to places like Syracuse.  Power was out for up to four or five hours in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but not at the air-conditioned opening reception last night, where we all treated each other to drinks purchased with the *two* free tickets that were stapled to the conference folder.  As most of us enjoyed ourselves at the opening plenary, dinner at Amherst Chinese (which can seat a large group if you are looking for a dinner reservation tonight) and the dessert reception, our sisters were fighting their way cross-country through a storm system that stretched from Chicago to Philadelphia.  Rumor has it that the heroic local arrangements committee was dispatching transportation to Bradley Airport in Hartford until 3 A.M.  Bleary-eyed latecomers nevertheless hauled themselves out of bed for panels beginning at 8:30 a.m.

Because of a variety of appointments, I didn't make any panels this morning, but the conference has a lively book exhibit and numerous common spaces in the Campus Center where knots of old friends are gathering, and editors chat up potential and signed authors.  Supported by the free WiFi, and surrounded by an invisible Bell of Silence, scholars are finishing up their comments and papers.  The coffee isn't perfect, but it's good.  All is well.

Cliotropic Tweets the Berks

By afternoon, I was ready for scholarship.  I started my Berks experience with "Queering the College Campus," which was a great pick, and was Tweeted by Shane Landrum here.  Two fabulous papers by Susan Freeman and Heather Murray made me believe that lesbian history is moving into a whole, new exciting register. Stephanie Gilmore linked the field to histories of sexual violence and the ongoing state of terror that is endured by contemporary GLBTQ students despite the broad-based "acceptance" of homosexuality among young people of all political and religious beliefs.  Given the Title IX suit at Yale, the activism at Dickinson against that school's ineffective rape policies, and the periodic scandals that erupt about fraternity and athletic team hazing, Gilmore's presentation on her new research about violence against LGBTQ students -- which connects homophobic violence to all three phenomena -- was particularly compelling. Athletic teams and frats are particular nodes for homophobic violence and harassment (pledge rituals include such tasks as "taking a picture of a faggot"), but Gilmore was persuasive that by focusing only on this we neglect the ways in which entire campuses and administration policies are complicit in maintaining sexism and heterosexism.  Gilmore's research argues that GLBTQ students navigate harassment and sexual violence every day, and that college administrations -- who proudly boast that such students are an aspect of campus "diversity" -- know this and do nothing to change it.   Administrators who she has interviewed, while they condemn violence against such students, vigorously resist the notion that they are capable of intervening in it.  One unintended outcome of the demise of in loco parentis policies (many of which were themselves sexist and homophobic) has been an insistence by student life professionals and administrators that such violence is a feature of "student culture" that only students themselves can change.  On the other hand, the same administrators will defend explicitly violent, sexist, racist and heterosexist rituals associated with student organizations because they and powerful alumni/ae insist that eliminating them will be disruptive to college tradition and memory (can you say Chief Illiniwek?)

Other panels that are looking good for a Radical sighting today are:

"Researching and Interpreting Feminist Activism of the 1960s abd 1970s:  An Intergenerational Roundtable," with Judy Wu, Ros Baxandall, Marisela Chavez, Amy Kesselman, Jessica Lee, Barbara Ransby and Sheila Rowbotham.  Cape Cod Lounge; and

"Plenary:  The Sex of Geopolitics," with Anjali Arondekar, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Geeta Patel, Carol Vance and Siobhan Somerville.  Bowker Auditorium.

Thanks to those of you who are introducing yourselves randomly:  keep coming up to say hi -- that's what the Berks is about, but it is particularly nice to see someone who says "Hi, I usually comment on your blog as....."  If you are reading this before 5:30 on Friday June 10, don't forget to show up to meet the bloggers at the Grad Lounge of the Lincoln Campus Center.  Although Historiann won't make it, there are confirmed appearances by Clio Bluestocking, Another Damned Medievalist, Janice Liedl, and Knitting Clio.

The Berkshire Conference: What To Do, What To See, What To Wear

In the introduction to her classic volume of essays, Disorderly Conduct:  Visions of Gender in Victorian America (Oxford: 1986), Carroll Smith-Rosenberg wrote:

The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians has proved one of the pivotal influences in my professional and personal life.  Through both formal and informal comments on a succession of papers, Berkshire members have contributed to my development as a woman historian and as a historian of women.

 Second that.

So Sisters, the triennial gathering of the tribe is about to begin.  By tonight, participants in the 15th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women will have begun to assemble for this year's event, “Generations: Exploring Race, Sexuality, and Labor across Time and Space.” The conference begins on Thursday June 9 and ends on Sunday, a day devoted to seminar-style discussions organized around papers submitted in advance.  Undecided? Living nearby and thinking of dropping in for the day?  On site registrations are welcome.  Click here for all the information you need.  Congratulations to president Kathleen Brown, her program chairs, and everyone else who worked hard to put this together.  By this time Thursday, you will all be watching it unfold before you.  As a former program chair, let me say that is a glorious feeling. (And Sue Porter Benson?  I miss you tonight.)

What follows are some common questions and answers as you pack your suitcases.

Should I network?  Yes and no.  If you are a younger scholar, you should always be networking.  On the other hand, one of the beautiful things about the Berks is a sociability unmarred by icky things like job interviews, editorial board meetings, recruiting, being a dignified senior person blah, blah, blah.   My advice is that you should take this as an opportunity to make friends:  I have made nearly all my best friends in the historical profession through the Berkshire Conference, and let me tell you, being funny is a higher value than being smart.  One of my favorite Berks memories is being in a hotel room with my team and some random graduate students that we had picked up somewhere.   A former undergrad, now a prize-winning professor, showed up with -- well, I guess there's no other way to put it:  weed.  Anyhoo.  We all inhaled, and what followed was a game of charades in which we made the grad students guess who our dissertation advisers were! 

OK, you had to be there.  My point is:  if you have the choice between trying to make an impression on someone by buying them a drink or telling them about your research, you know what to do.

Are men welcome?  Humans of all genders are welcome:  I don't think Tom Dublin has missed a Berkshire Conference since I was a tiny Radical pecking hir way out of the egg.  Tom and his partner, women's history legend Kathryn Kish Sklar will be recruiting for their web-based project, "Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000," so if you see one of them walk by, tell them you're interested, and say that Tenured Radical sent you.  Other male-bodied folk to keep your eyes out for are Shane Landrum of Cliotropic fame (who is on a great state of the field roundtable on transgender history on Saturday at 3:30); Robert Beachy, who has a forthcoming book on gay Berlin (do I see Joan Scott as a comment on that global heteronormativities panel?); political science prof Paisley Currah, who is presenting in a Sunday seminar on his hot project about pregnant men; and many more.  OK, well a dozen more, actually.  So this will be practically the only place where history is practiced that men will find themselves in a distinct minority, which is one reason -- if you are a cool feminist man -- to attend.

What should I wear?  I am the wrong person to ask, as anyone who knows me would testify.  As I write, my black tee shirts are neatly piled across the room next to two pairs of jeans and a pair of black cowboy boots (received just in time, since I mistook the re-heeling shoe bag for the "Please take me to Good Will" shoe bag.)  Coats and ties are not necessary, although I shall bring a tie and a formal shirt just in case it cools down in time for for my own panel (Saturday at 1:15, with Jane Gerhard, Carolyn Bronstein and Vivien Fryd.) The ethic is summer casual:  there's no need to look "professional," in the conventional sense, and don't wear anything that is going to be ruined by sitting in the grass, blowing off the panel you were going to attend, and talking to a new friend.

Also recommended for this weekend?  Sunglasses, sunscreen, a broad-brimmed hat, sandals, and dancing shoes for the Saturday night shindig.  If you are staying in a place that is not air-conditioned, purchase a small fan on your way in from the airport.  There are plenty of places to shop in the vicinity, but be warned:  the UMass campus is a good hike from the town of Amherst itself.

Will I find a girlfriend at the Berks?   I can't guarantee this, but it is true that some nineteenth century Seven Sisters-y thing kicks in at the Berkshire Conference, even (or especially) among the non-Sapphicly inclined.  If you do not have a girlfriend already, it is, in fact, likelier that you will find a girlfriend at the Berks than anywhere else you have been or ever will be.

It is highly unlikely -- although not impossible, I suppose -- that you will find a boyfriend at this conference.


Registration opens at 8:30 AM tomorrow in the campus center, is open until 8:00 PM and the program starts at 3:30.  Yowzah!  I'm partial to round tables, and will be choosing between the following tomorrow:

"What's So Feminist About Food History?"  with Hasia Diner, and Franca Iacovetta, the next president of the Berkshire Conference in its big move to Toronto in 2014.

"New Generations of Feminist Legal History," which features some great new research by Leigh Ann Wheeler on the ACLU's fight for sexual freedom in the 20th century.

"Peyton Place:  Selling Sex and Crafting Readers," with Ardis Cameron who wrote a preface for a brand new edition of the novel that became a synonym for small, petty history departments New England towns.

And of course, you must attend the star-studded opening plenary, with Kathleen Brown, Martha S. Jones and Rebecca Scott, from 7:30 to 9:00.

After Days of Being Serious I Need To Post This

Go here for Historiann's report on this year's Little Berks. As everyone has inferred, I missed the Little Berks -- one of my favorite annual events -- for the Policy History Conference. In Historiann's honor, even though she came east without telling me, ahem, I am posting a video from Garfunkel and Oates, the girl version of the Smothers Brothers.

Take it away, girls, on "Pregnant Women Are Smug!"

Call For Papers: The Fifteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women

The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians has just posted its call for papers for the 15th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, which will be held at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, June 9-12, 2011. The theme is "Generations," and the link to the call will remain in the sidebar at left until March 1 2010, the closing date for proposals.

As your favorite Radical has been a program chair in the past, and remains an active member of the organization, here are answers to a few frequently asked questions:

Do you have to be a woman to attend this conference? Oh, what is a woman anyway: as Denise Reilly would say, "Am I that name?" No, you don't have to be a woman to participate or attend, but you will certainly have a better time if you are interested in feminism and/or scholarship on women. There are some men who are regulars (Tom Dublin, Danny Walkowitz, Marc Stein and Kevin Murphy spring to mind immediately), and others who attend as many women do, because they have been invited to participate or because they happen to be in the neighborhood.

Are the conference organizers really interested in scholarship on race? Yes, and every kind of scholarship that attends to a racial analysis: colonial and post-colonial scholarship, the histories of slavery, immigration and migration, Native American, First Nations and indigenous studies, borderlands, Atlantic studies, whiteness studies, subaltern studies (OK, you keep naming them -- and put some people from these fields on your panel, ok?) If you are working in these areas, be assured that many of the women you most admire will be at the conference, and you should be too. And if your scholarship has not yet intersected with important new global and transnational scholarship that highlights the histories of people of color? There's plenty of time to start reading and get ready to meet senior and rising young historians where they are.

Are graduate students welcome? Most definitely. In fact, many of us who are now officers and strong supporters of the organization originally attended the conference as graduate students, and it became one of our first introductions to doing institutional work with, and developing genuine friendships with, senior scholars. You will have the most fun if you come with a group of friends, so start planning now. But guaranteed, you will make new friends, sometimes really good ones.

OK, but are graduate students welcome as participants? Again, absolutely -- and you may find, as a feminist scholar and/or a historian of women, that this is a particularly generative location for your work. Things to think about in putting together a proposal might be:

Work across institutions. In other words, your co-panelists should not be your most immediate colleagues. The point of a conference is not performance (although performance can be fun); or a line on your vita. The point is intellectual exchange that pushes your work forward. Think about diversity as well, and if you can, internationalize your panel.

Find a senior scholar to comment on your panel who you genuinely want to engage with. This may require you conferring with one or more of your mentors to ask them to make an introduction for you. Often assistant professors will be the best people to make these connections, because they know a broader range of young scholars whose books are just coming out, and whose work might best speak to yours.

Try to think of a paper to give that will be interesting to you and everyone else almost two years from now. One of the observations I would make about the Berks is that, because it has a longer lag time from acceptance to presentation, and because graduate student time moves more quickly, the paper you wanted to give can seem a little stale by the time the conference really rolls around. Some of the best panels, bar none, that I hear at conferences are focused on methodological issues and questions of evidence, not uncovering something (you think) no one has heard about yet. Round tables can be particularly vital.

Will it be a relentlessly Americanist conference? Lord no, but we rely on you to work actively to put international scholars on your panels. By this we mean not just non-United States specialists, but people who live and work outside the United States (which includes Canada and Mexico, my friends -- not so far away geographically, but sometimes not as much on our radar as they should be.) Some money becomes available to support travel to the US for scholars who need it, but you might want to also dig through institutional coffers to see if you can help at an early stage.

Is there a dance? Oh yes. One of the best.

Will I have a good time? Double yes. It is unlike any other conference, including we can guarantee you will not have to cross picket lines to get into it. Since we are meeting in Happy Valley, unlike San Diego, any homophobia or transphobia you encounter will be entirely aberrational, and will be suppressed immediately by roving bands of lesbian monitors recruited from the Northampton vicinity. ("That's a joke, son!")

Oh, and by the way? The stars will be out, I promise. I will be there; so will Historiann, and I would be shocked if Knitting Clio did not attend. Because GayProf will have finished his Never Ending Project of Doom, we will insist on his attendance as well.

Valentine's Day Super Sunday Radical Roundup

Do As I Say Not As I Do Department: Yesterday, when I thought that a mysterious Web Presence was taking out my illustrations and leaving a ghastly grey hole in their place, I took a bunch of the affected pics down. This was precipitous. Further research on Websense (that I should have done at the time perhaps, but I was maxing out the archives hours) suggests that it is a network device that is location specific, not a bot at all, much less a tool of the capitalist patriarchy. Here I am sitting in a Starbucks on 93rd and Broadway (which I think is a tool of the capitalist patriarchy) and my blog hasn't been mangled by lost pictures and ominous messages at all. Still the mystery remains: why did Websense knock out a picture of that sexy Radical cowboy?

Feeling Helpless About Haiti? Have An Archives, Museum Or Public History Degree? Well, the last thing they need in Port-au-Prince are a bunch of historians coming down to help dig or rescue children (Baptists from Idaho are taking care of that, from what I hear.) But the Blue Shield is looking for archivists, restorers, curators, librarians, architects and other experts to volunteer to help assess the damage to Haiti's libraries, archives and cultural treasurers. You can volunteer on-line at the link in this post, and the Blue Shield will assess your credentials and see if you can be enrolled in this vital project.

Conference News: The Deadline for the AHA 2011 Annual Meeting in Boston is tomorrow. Unlike this year's event in San Diego, you won't have to bust through a line of angry queers with Ph.D.'s: in fact, they will be down the street getting married, since this is legal in Massachusetts. Also note a changed date in the sidebar for the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians: we at Tenured Radical have been notified that the deadline for proposals has been extended to March 15. So date up your favorite chick historians now for the Best Little Conference in 2011! And feminist history menz? You haz cheesebuhgeh too. Don't be shy: apply.

Website Of The Week: Check out the Disability Social History Project. This rising field has a lot going for it, particularly in the ways that it opens up new ground in queer, critical race, and feminist history; not to mention political and cultural history more broadly. This interesting site is written by Stephen Dias, a long time disability activist who participated in the Section 504 demonstration in San Francisco in 1977, and is produced by Patricia Chadwick.

Can I Get A Witness? Are you starting out your career in religious studies? The Center For Young Scholars in American Religion is looking for you! To wit:

"Young Scholars in American Religion 2015-2012: Call for Applications. The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture announces a program for early career scholars in American Religion. Beginning in October 2010, a series of seminars devoted to the enhancement of teaching and research for younger scholars in American Religion will be offered in Indianapolis. The aims of all sessions of the program are to develop ideas and methods of instruction in a supportive workshop environment, stimulate scholarly research and writing, and create a community of scholars that will continue into the future."

Go to the website for details.

Department Of Things You Won't Learn About The Candidate In A Convention Interview: It appears that Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama prof who went postal when her tenure case was turned down, accidentally shot her brother as a college student and was subsequently a suspect in an attempted pipe-bomb murder at the Harvard Medical School in 1993. Now, I watch television and read police procedurals: suspicion in the pipe-bomb case may have followed from the fact that Bishop had already been implicated in a violent death. Nevertheless, as Margaret Soltan at University Diaries suggests, Bishop may have ended up in Alabama because Massachusetts was getting a little, um, warm.

And Finally.... In case you didn't already know that Duke History Dude Timothy Tyson is a rock star, the movie based on his book Blood Done Sign My Name goes into release this week. Here's a nice interview on NPR where this southern anti-racist progressive scholar discusses the personal roots of this civil rights story. I wonder what ever happened to the other book about justice in the Carolinas that was supposed to be a major motion picture?