Calls for Papers

Past Calls

The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society invites papers for two panels at the 2023 American Literature Association Conference, May 25-28, 2023 in Boston. 


Panel 1. Gilman on Evolution and Social Theory

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s career coincided with the years when the social sciences were first being established in America. Though she worked outside of academia, Gilman was one of America’s earliest and foremost social theorists. Like many other intellectuals at the turn of the century, Gilman sought to incorporate evolutionary science into her social philosophy. From her early Nationalist poems to her utopian fiction and numerous sociological works, Gilman relied on a model of evolutionary science to advocate for social reform. For this panel, we invite proposals for presentations that examine Gilman’s engagement with evolutionism in any of her literary or non-fiction works, as well as the writing of her contemporaries, and those who influenced Gilman.

Some questions to consider include but are not limited to:

How is Gilman’s social philosophy informed by evolutionary science?

How is Gilman’s poetry and/or fiction informed by evolutionary science?

How is Gilman’s intersectional feminism related to reform Darwinism?

How does Gilman reconcile her religious faith with her interest in evolution?

How do Gilman’s views on evolution influence her politics?

How did Gilman’s social theory influence progressivism?


Panel 2. Open Topic

For our second panel, we invite proposals for presentations that examine any aspect of Gilman’s

life and work. We also welcome comparative projects, digital humanities presentations, and

pedagogical papers.


Please submit abstracts to andrew_ball@emerson.edu by January 6.

For more information about the conference, please visit the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org  

American Literature Association - Fall 2022 Symposium

"The Historical Imagination in American Literature"

October 27-29, 2022

Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe, NM

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society


The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society is seeking papers for a panel at this year’s American Literature Association’s Fall Symposium: “The Historical Imagination in American Literature.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prolific writer, lecturer, and women’s rights activist. The reach and influence of Gilman’s impact can be seen across a broad range of scholarly and literary discourses. Her articles, essays, letters, papers, theory, as well as fiction is taught in a range of classroom settings from literature survey courses, introductory sociological courses, composition courses, Women and Gender Studies courses, and others. Drawing from this symposium’s broader focus on the “usable past,” this session invites papers that consider the ways that philosophical, psychological, and political factors shaped the way that Gilman was received in her own time, as well as the ways that reception has shifted over time. How has the reception of Gilman’s treatment of subjects such as race, class, and gender in her writing changed? In what ways is Gilman’s writing still useful for scholars and students as we continue to make sense of, as well as shape our own, historical realities? What obligations do scholars and educators have in wrestling with the complexity of Gilman’s writerly past? What is the future of Gilman studies and how can further examination of her past writing advance those aims?

All topics are welcome. Examples include: 

·      papers incorporating historical and biographical data

·      Gilman’s influence and impact on other writers, society, fields of study

·      Comparative approaches between Gilman’s work and her contemporaries and/or 20th/21st century contemporary writers 

·      Gilman’s writings and lectures addressing race

·      new approaches in the fields of intertextuality, materialist studies, ecofeminism, and gender studies as they relate to Gilman

·      pedagogical approaches to Gilman in the non-literature classroom 

 

Please email abstracts by September 1, 2022 to Danielle Cofer at coferd@lindsey.edu.

For more information about the symposium, please visit the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org

American Literature Association Conference, May 26-29, 2022 

Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, IL

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society


The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society will sponsor two sessions at the American Literature Association Conference at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago on May 26-29, 2022.

All topics are welcome. Examples include:

Please email abstracts by January 15, 2022 to Hannah Huber at  hlhuber@sewanee.edu.

For more information about the conference, please visit the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org  


American Literature Association, 32nd Annual Conference, July 7-11, 2021 

CFP for VIRTUAL PANEL: Open Call

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society

This session broadly invites papers on any aspect of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's work. The session will be completely virtual and pre-recorded via Zoom. Please submit a 250-500 word abstract and a CV no later than March 29th (with a preferred deadline of March 22nd) to Hannah Huber at hlhuber@sewanee.edu.

For more information about the conference, please visit the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org as well as the ALA support page for the 2021 digital option.  

American Literature Association, 31st Annual Conference, May 21-24, 2020 (*Canceled due to COVID-19*)

CFP: Digital Humanities in Charlotte Perkins Gilman Scholarship

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society

This session invites papers to discuss new approaches to the digital in Gilman research and discovery. Digital humanities, as an emerging subfield in literary studies, can be considered an innovative means of approaching Gilman scholarship. Thus, this panel will gather a selection of papers that envision the myriads ways in which digital tools and methods can facilitate new projects that help widen our understanding of Gilman and her era. Topics may include methodological, theoretical, and pedagogical approaches to digitizing Gilman scholarship—particularly through engagements with cultural studies, queer theory, critical race studies, genre studies, and women’s and gender studies, as well as digital visualizations and transmedia representations of women’s writing, reform, recovery, and the archive. Please submit a 250-500 word abstract and a CV by January 17, 2020 to Hannah Huber at h1huber@uic.edu.

For more information about the conference, please visit the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org.

American Literature Association, 30th Annual Conference, May 23-25, 2019

CFP: New Approaches to Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s life and work intersect a universe of historical discourses: a testament to Gilman’s rapacious reading habit, sweeping interdisciplinary curiosity, and to her sustained engagement with pressing contemporary issues, scientific discoveries, and progressive remedies embraced by feminists of her time. This session invites papers that discuss new approaches to reading the life, work, and/or literature of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and her intellectual peers, predecessors, and descendants. The panel will gather a selection of papers that help to widen our understanding of the historical, social, literary, and political movements that surrounded one of America’s most famous feminists. Topics may include theoretical approaches to Gilman, such as queer theory, critical race studies, and genre studies, alternative visions of motherhood, feminism in the socialist movement, visual art in women’s writing, reform, recovery, and the archive, and any of the broad connections springing from the life and work of Gilman. Submit a 250-500 word abstract and a CV by January 29, 2019 to Hannah Huber at hhuber@email.sc.edu

For more information about the conference, please visit the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org.

SSAWW 2018 Triennial Conference

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society

CFP: Recovering Gilman for the 21st Century

The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society invites proposals for a panel on “Recovering Gilman for the 21st Century” for the SSAWW 2018 Triennial Conference in Denver, Colorado (November 7-11, 2018).  This panel will explore how recovery provides new contexts and frameworks for analyzing and teaching Gilman’s work.  Topics include but are not limited to

Please send a brief abstract (200-300 words) and short bio to Dr. Jacqueline Emery, SUNY College at Old Westbury, emeryj@oldwestbury.edu, by January 31, 2018.

Jacqueline Emery, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of English

SUNY College at Old Westbury

Texts, Contexts, and Subtexts: Charlotte Perkins Gilman in Her Time

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society CFP

May 25-28, 2017

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s articles, letters, papers, and library underscore a central quality of her diverse and prolific career: her works were deeply engaged with the social and scientific milieus of her time.  An avid reader, enthusiastic learner, and active member within her own intellectual communities, Gilman often reached out to those whose work she admired – as well as to those whose work she found lacking. Through her lectures, publications, and correspondence, Gilman impacted a broad cross-section of scholarly and literary discourses.

This session invites papers that shed light on the constellation of influences that spanned between Gilman and her intellectual peers, predecessors, and descendants. The panel will gather a selection of papers that help to widen our understanding not only of Gilman in her time, but of the historical social, literary, and political movements that surrounded the works and life of one of America’s most famous feminists. Submit 250 to 500-word abstracts and a CV, by December 1, 2016, to Brandi So, Stony Brook University, at brandi.so@stonybrook.edu.