CFP Imagining Histories: The Challenges of Working with Early American Women
Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference
Philadelphia, November 6-9, 2025
Since its founding, the Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW) has been committed to the recovery of the writings of early American women writers. Over time, thanks to the work of creative writers and scholars like Susan Howe, Heather Love, Honorée Fannone Jeffers and many, many others, we have continued to interrogate what is meant by recovery, what orientation the intellectual in the present time might best take in relation to the author and writings being recovered, and what is meant by “woman” writer and “writing.”
Participants in this roundtable will explore how early American women are imagined and how that imagining is always already historically embedded. In collaboration, we will explore
- Who among early American women have been represented/not represented
- Where women are found and hidden in early texts
- How, why, and with what effect women writers in later periods, including our own, have imagined early American women
- How we teach early American women in relation to history and historicism
We welcome proposals that trouble the conflation of the United States with America, that trouble the category of “woman writer,” and that trouble notions of recovery itself. Please send proposals to Tamara Harvey (tharvey2@gmu.edu) and Samaine Lockwood (jlockwo3@gmu.edu) by February 22, 2025. We ask that you include a title, a 250-word abstract, and a short biography (100 words or fewer).