Seductive Stratagems and Textual Tactics: Transgressive Feminine Discourse(s)

This year I decided that instead of just participating in the American Comparative Literature Association Conference I would take it a step further and organize a seminar. I am happy to say that my seminar proposal titled "Seductive Stratagems and Textual Tactics: Transgressive Feminine Discourse" has been accepted. However, the success of the seminar is dependent on the quantity and quality of submissions. With that being said, I am posting the call for papers through every channel that I can think of, including this modest blog. If you aren't able to send in a submission, I urge you to pass this information along to as many people as you know that might be interested in this topic.

"Leila" (1892) by Sir Frank Dicksee British via artmagick.com.

Below is the description for the seminar:

Seminar Organizer(s): Sylvia Morin (University of Houston)

This panel will examine how conflict characterizes modernity and post modernity, and how the response to crisis often takes a militarized tone. Even within literary discourse, the division resulting from Gender is one which suggests combat. Lucia Guerra-Cunningham, in her analysis of women writers, especially those from Latin America, exposes the fact that “literature has traditionally been a territory where men’s imagination has prevailed.” This metaphor of territorial conquest and mastery over the textual tract has forced women to “perform a concealed masquerade which allowed mimicry and the mischievous invasion into a foreign terrain.” Camouflaged with a masculine pseudonym, writers such as George Sand, George Eliot, and Fernán Cabellero crossed from the private into the public sphere with success. However, not all women have traversed the gender divide by masquerading as men. Some have and continue to opt for what some may consider to be a less covert approach. What are some of these explicit tactics that women writers resort to? Does seduction function as a stratagem or a ruse to confuse the enemy or is feminine guile another form of disguise? Is seduction a weapon that should be resisted because the feminist movement sees it as a “misappropriation of women’s true being” as Baudrillard has noted? Paper topics may include but are not limited to women’s texts that explore revolutionary/militarized discourse, seductive narratives, characterizations of the femme fatale as transgressive rather than destructive. Papers addressing any of these themes with a comparative approach to Spanish language literature are especially welcome.

Click on Seductive Stratagems and Textual Tactics to go directly to my seminar description within ACLA.