Women in Mamet's Plays & Film (12/30/02; ALA, 5/22/03-5/25/03)

Women in David Mamet's Plays and Films:
Negotiating an Unforgiving Land

This proposed panel for the Annual Conference of the American Literature Association, 22-25 May 2003, Cambridge, MA seeks to examine the depiction of women within David Mamet's considerable body of work-from his earliest plays (which were frequently criticized as misogynist), to his screenwriting and directing for Hollywood (which continue to be predominately, though not exclusively, about men), to his most recent (and first all-female) play Boston Marriage (which may suggest that Mamet has begun to reexamine his own dramaturgy).

Of particular interest would be how female voices/identities manifest themselves within decidedly masculinized worlds; how women confront, overcome, or succumb to their (enforced) marginality; and how Mamet's female characters have (or have not) evolved over nearly three decades worth of plays and films. But submissions dealing with any aspect of women's experiences (from a variety of perspectives: gender studies, psychoanalysis, deconstruction) with Mamet's writing are welcome.

Please send 250 word abstracts (included in the body of the email; no attachments, please) to jcwestgate@ucdavis.edu, or send hard copies of abstracts to J. Chris Westgate, Department of English, University of California Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616 (along with contact information) by December 30, 2002.