Fourth Edition of AIWAC – Annual International Women in the Arts Conference: Love, Marriage, Desire. The Civic and Juridic Status of Women from Antiquity to Modernity: Acquiescence, Resistance, Destabilization.

Convened by Consuelo Lollobrigida and Adelina Modesti; organized by the University of Arkansas Rome Program.

The fourth edition of AIWAC considers the legal status of women under patriarchy and how women have historically responded to societal norms regulating their relationships with others and their personal desires.

How have women represented marriage and other affective relationships in literature, drama and art? How does art, literature or architecture produced or commissioned by women constitute a (female) love language? What constitutes female desire, and how is this expressed in women’s artistic or literary practices? How has the dominant status of women as defined by patriarchy since antiquity been contested by female artists, writers and other cultural producers?

Areas/themes to be considered include:

- Lifecycle: from daughter to wife and mother; the widow.
- In her father's house: father-daughter relationships, paternal authority: repression or conflict but also support (e.g. Sofonisba/Amilcare Anguissola; Lavinia/Prospero Fontana; Artemisia/Orazio Gentileschi; Elisabetta/Giovanni Andrea Sirani; Plautilla/ Giovanni Bricci).
- What's love got to do with it? Marriage: entrapment or empowerment?
- Motherhood and the maternal.
- Born again: Widowhood and female agency.
- In Death: Funerary monuments and other forms of memorialization.

Alternative visions and experiences: How are the received identities of womanhood under patriarchy challenged, resisted or destabilized?

Lifelong singlewomen: the single [professional] woman, the childless woman: a threat to 'family' or a means of freeing oneself from patriarchal constraints towards personal and/or professional fulfillment. Especially relevant in relation to women writers and artists.

Brides of Christ: convents and all-female communities as contested sites for female education and creativity, as well as female desire. Spirituality; ecstatic visions; teaching; nun artists and musicians; spiritual writings.

Female Sexuality. Sapho and her sisters: lesbian identity, female couplings and friendships in life, literature, theatre, music, art. Crossdressing and Trans identities.

Treatises and conduct books on Marriage and Love, by male and female writers (esp. feminist humanists).

Protestant/Counter-Reformation marriage reforms: clandestine marriage, consensual marriage.

Keynote Speaker will be Chiara Mercuri.

The proposal can be art historical as well as philosophical, literary or technical in nature. Case studies as well as papers providing a broader view and/or of a more reflective nature are welcome.

Conference papers will be published in the “AIWAC acta colloquia” postprint series in collaboration with Brepols Publishers.

To submit a proposal:
- Write an abstract in English in word; max. 500 words (excl. authors name(s) and contact details). Include a short bio of 150 words max.
- Save the proposal as following: AIWAC3_name and family name
- Include a short CV
- E-mail to clollobruark.edu, amodestiunimelb.edu.au

Practical information:
- Call for papers deadline: July 14, 2024
- Successful applicants will receive a notification by September 14, 2024.
- The talks should be no longer than 20 minutes.
- The organizers cannot contribute towards transport and/or accommodation costs of speakers or attendees.
- A registration fee will be communicated along with the acceptance of papers.
- Excluded papers won’t be notified.

Program:
The conference will take place at University of Arkansas Rome Center and will combine selected paper presentations with keynote speakers. The conference will be hybrid with in-presence and remote presentation. The final program will be communicated in mid-October 2024.