Women's "Private" Writing and the American Civil War (11/15/02; 9/24/03-9/27/03)

Proposed Panel: Women's "Private" Writing and the American Civil War

Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW) Conference
September 24-27, 2003
Fort Worth, TX
SSAWW website: http://www.unl.edu/legacy/SSAWW1.html

Proposals and papers are sought for a panel on women's "private" writing and the American Civil War. Women's Civil War fiction has recently received some long overdue attention from critics such as Elizabeth Young and Kathleen Diffley. Yet women's private writings-diaries, letters, family memoirs-remain marginalized, usually relegated to historians of the Civil War. What happens when such private writing is taken as the subject of literary study? How do women writers use these texts to comment on and participate in the Civil War? How does the Civil War affect the process of self-construction in such texts? How are such texts marked by class, race, and geographical location? Is such writing really private after all? Papers focused on individual authors are welcome, as are broader discussions of the issues involved in studying women's private writing about the Civil War.

Please contact the session organizer with your ideas by email or postal mail no later than November 15, 2002. Direct all inquiries, abstracts, or full papers to:

Jennifer Putzi
Department of English
124 Tucker Hall
College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, VA 23187
jlputz@wm.edu