CALL FOR ARTICLES FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE OF WOMEN IN FRENCH STUDIES

Co-Editors: Julia Simms Holderness and Laurence M. Porter

Dept. of French, Classics, & Italian – Michigan State University

“RIVALRY, COOPERATION, CONSPIRACY, AND PATRONAGE: STUDIES IN THE DYNAMICS OF WOMEN’S INTERACTION IN FRENCH LITERATURE AND CULTURE”

How do women collaborate, and how do they compete? These questions have profound implications for our understanding of society; and yet, literary and cultural studies have tended to seek answers in only two spheres—the familial and the erotic. We invite reflections on historical or fictional collaborations and competition among women in other areas such as education, the workplace, professional life, politics, salons, courts, or convents. Analyses of “underground” collaboration (or competition) are of particular interest to us. Contributors may focus on any period of French or Francophone literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present. Critical perspectives from extra-literary fields such as sociology, anthropology, and social psychology are welcome. Publication is planned for 2010.

            Two hard copies of your completed article in either French or English, from approximately 4,000 to 6,500 words, accompanied by a précis (a summary in the form of one complete sentence per paragraph in your text) and by an electronic copy on PC-compatible diskette, should reach Laurence M. Porter, 723 Collingwood Drive, East Lansing, MI, 48823-3416, by September 30, 2008. You must have already joined Women in French for your article to be considered. Both editors will evaluate all submissions.

Preliminary inquiries are welcome: address them simultaneously to dameraison@yahoo.com and to porter@msu.edu

Format: Follow the MLA Style Manual, except for modifications required in French texts (quotation marks, spacing, ellipses). Number all pages consecutively. All NOTES must be endnotes, beginning on a separate page. Avoid “ibid” and “op. cit.” notes. Finally, list WORKS CITED on a final, separate page. On each page after the first, provide a HEADER with your last name and a short title for your essay. All materials must be double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font.

A few examples of possible avenues of inquiry:

Ø      Artistic patronage at the courts of Aliénor d’Aquitaine, Marie de Champagne, Marguerite de Navarre.

Ø      Political activism (e.g., Assia Djebar’s “L’Amour, la fantasia” or Ousmane Sembene’s “Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu”)

Ø      The salon (e.g., The Hôtel de Rambouillet, Mme de Staël, Natalie Barney, Paulette Nardal)

Ø      Gynotopias (e.g. Christine de Pizan’s “Cité des dames,” Monique Wittig’s “Les Guérillères”)

Ø      Underground communities (e.g. the anonymous Évangiles des Quenouilles, Marguerite Yourcenar’s retelling of Médée, 1996)