Call for Proposals for a collection

Women and Things: Material Culture, 1750-1950

Maureen Daly Goggin and Beth Fowkes Tobin, editors

Although the body is both object (for others) and a lived reality (for the
subject), it is never simply object nor simply subject. It is defined by its
relation with objects and in turn defines these objects as such.

--Maurice Merleau-Ponty

We invite proposals for essays for a collection titled Women and Things:
Material Culture, 1750-1950. This collection invites scholars to consider
women's engagement with the material world, from the most ordinary, mundane
daily practices and objects to the most extraordinary, life-altering
practices and objects, over the two-hundred-year period of 1750 to1950.

Since material culture encompasses all human-made objects, the possibility
of topics is wide open so long as they connect women to things. Therefore,
topics might include, but are certainly not limited to: fiber arts
(needlework, quilting, knitting, crocheting); decorative arts; other kinds
of crafts; painting; sculpture; scrapbooks; albums; china; porcelain;
architecture; interior design; landscape and gardening; shopping; clothing;
fashion; and food. The focus might be on all or part of the life-cycle of an
object, from design, to production, to circulation, to consumption, to
commodification, to valuation, to collection and display.

Although scholars in anthropology, museum studies, and decorative arts have
long taken material culture as their focus, in the past twenty years
scholars from other disciplines that have traditionally been more
text-centric have increasingly turned their attention to material objects in
what might be termed the material turn. This edited collection is designed
to serve those scholars. We look forward then to proposals from a wide
variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to, cultural studies,
history, literature, rhetoric and composition, art, art history and art
theory, communication studies, visual design, race studies, and women's
studies. We encourage and wish to present multiple theoretical frames and
methodologies that grapple with questions concerning women and material
things.

Please send your 250-500-word proposal and a CV as electronic attachments in
MS-word or RTF format to Beth Fowkes Tobin (beth.tobinasu.edu) and Maureen
Daly Goggin (maureen.gogginasu.edu) by March 30, 2007.