Edge Hill University’s GenSex and ICE, as part of The Wonder Women Campaign: 100 Years of Women’s Right to Vote offer a call for papers for a
Suffragette Symposium
On 28th February 2018 at Edge Hill University, 2-9pm
2018 will see Edge Hill University mark, celebrate and explore issues which relate to the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in the UK. Edge Hill, which was the first non-denominational teacher training college for women, was founded as an institution which broke traditional barriers for women and promoted women’s rights. Its graduation gowns still proudly display the colours of the suffrage movement.
2018 specifically honours the passing of the ‘Representation of the People Act’ which enfranchised all men, but only extended suffrage rights to women over the age of thirty who met minimum property qualifications. This was only partial progress, but is often seen as the watershed moment, with over 8.4 million women able to exercise the right to vote for the very first time.
GenSex (the Gender and Sexuality Research Group hosted by Edge Hill University) and ICE, EHU’s Institute for Creative Enterprise, seek to establish The Suffragette Symposium as part of a series of events that examine the progress that has been made since 1918. The Symposium’s keynote speaker is acclaimed author and scholar Mary Talbot, joined by the artist Bryan Talbot, who will provide an illustrated presentation of their graphic novel Sally Heathcote: Suffragette (London: Jonathan Cape, 2014). We also seek a panel of speakers, and the event will culminate in a screening of the recent film Suffragette (dir. S Gavron, 2015: UK).
We welcome abstracts for twenty minute papers from diverse disciplines including literature, linguistics, film studies, cultural studies, women’s studies, history, music, fashion and media. Topics may include, but are by no means limited to:
- The fight for women’s suffrage.
- The history of the women’s suffrage movement.
- The suffragette as a cultural icon (this could include fashion, textiles and artistic representations of suffrage).
- Suffrage and racial difference.
- The Suffragettes in Lancashire/the North of England.
- The ideologies of suffrage.
- The feminism(s) of suffrage.
- Twenty-first century representations of suffrage.
- Suffragettes in fiction, film and other media.
Please submit a 250 word abstract for 20 minute papers, along with a brief biographical note, to gensex.ehu@gmail.com by 18th December 2017. If you have any questions please contact GenSex’s Chair, Dr Mari Hughes-Edwards, via this email address or through our Facebook or Twitter accounts.
