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<font size=4 color="#0000FF">forwarding for wider info - please pass on
as you wish - keep well - Chris<br><br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=4>Michelle
Masse<br>
contact email: <br>
<a href="mailto:mmasse@lsu.edu">mmasse@lsu.edu</a><br><br>
CFP: <i>Staging Women's Lives in Academia </i>(Literature and Language
Workplaces)<br><br>
We are putting together an edited collection, tentatively titled
<i>Staging Women's Lives in Academia</i>. The subtitle, yet to be figured
out, will indicate that our focus is upon women in literature and
languages. The book, under serious consideration at Rutgers University
Press for its new Higher Education Studies series, will focus upon nodal
points of professional (graduate school, pre- and post- tenure, mid- and
later- career, and retirement) and personal life for women in academia.
We have two key premises: that choosing not to continue down the
traditional path of academic life stages is as significant as following
it, and that the usual conflation of academic and age-specific life
stages is deeply gendered. <br><br>
Our design for the collection outlines professional life stages. These
range from:<br><br>
• finishing the degree (who chooses to write or not write the
dissertation);<br>
• seeking academic or other employment post-Ph.D.;<br>
• beginning and then remaining in the profession (publishing, promotions,
moving into administration or not);<br>
• leaving academia once employed (whether in a full-time or part-time,
pre-tenure or post-tenure position);<br>
• deciding to retire or to continue working. <br><br>
We welcome essays from women who have followed a traditional career path,
but also from those who've travelled other roads. We can readily see a
graduate student writing about the decision to get the Ph.D. but not
pursue academic employment, for example, an adjunct writing about
mid-career parenting decisions, an administrator writing about being
"stuck," an associate professor talking about the decision not
to seek promotion to full professor, etc. Parenting, elder-care issues,
and general assessment of "professionalization" values can also
lead to priorities other than those usually counseled through
professional advice venues. <br><br>
Although we of course want contributors to draw upon personal experience,
we will be asking that they both theorize and concretize their essays. As
you think about this call, we'd like to ask that you also think about
some very basic questions that could help others, such as: "Do/did
you discover that your experience was typical, but nonetheless didn't
expect it?" "What would you point out as the key features of
this stage to a colleague just beginning it?" "How do you think
your experiences were shaped by the kind of school you worked at and
where your school was situated?" and, everyone's favorite,
"What would you do differently if you had it to do again?"
<br><br>
Besides these basic questions, there are many others that you might
consider, such as: What is gendered about your career path, your career
experience? How did race/ethnicity, age, class, sexuality, and culture
affect your academic experience at each stage? How did your academic work
feed into, enhance, or distract from other parts of your life? Or how
much of your personal life intersects with or clashes with your work
life? Has your work changed over time? Have you changed over time in
terms of your enthusiasm for, and interest in, your work? <br><br>
We want contributors to be frank, but we also want these essays to
encourage "best practice" discussion and also to serve as
references for other women. Because responding fully to some of these
topics may be difficult, we are willing to accept proposals or essays by
authors writing under a pseudonym or anonymously. We also invite
proposals written by several people in dialogue with each other.
<br><br>
Please consider sending in a proposal for this collection, but also think
about students and colleagues who fall under the "did not choose
to" rubrics who may not be receiving notes such as this. Please
forward this call to them. We would like to receive proposals by June 1,
2012. Proposal packets should include a 500-word abstract (or a full
essay, if appropriate) and a brief c.v. Final essays should be around
6250 words, including notes and Works Cited, although we will consider
shorter pieces. They should be sent to both of us: <br><br>
Michelle Massé at <a href="mailto:mmasse@lsu.edu">mmasse@lsu.edu</a><br>
Nan Bauer-Maglin at
<a href="mailto:nbauer-maglin@gc.cuny.edu">nbauer-maglin@gc.cuny.edu</a>
<br>
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