Society for the Study of Early Modern Women & Gender – RSA Annual Meeting
Chicago (21-23 mars 2024), avant le 1er août 2023

The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women & Gender (http://ssemwg.org) will sponsor up to three panels at next year’s annual conference of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA), to be held in Chicago, on 21-23 March 2024.  The SSEMWG supports and promotes inclusive and creative scholarship on women and gender across the early modern world. We are committed to interdisciplinary, intersectional approaches that are historically sensitive and theoretically exploratory.  

The Society is soliciting proposals for pre-formed panels (or roundtables) in any discipline that explore women and their contributions to the cultural, political, economic, or social spheres of the early modern period and whose interest in it includes attention to gender and representations of women. Proposals that include young/emerging scholars are especially welcome.  

If you have an individual paper proposal, or if you find yourself a presenter or two short of a panel or roundtable, please send your ideas to Lora Walsh (ljwalsh@uark.edu). Depending on how many individual proposals arrive, I might suggest a grouping of individual papers into a session. I also might circulate a list of brief abstracts that are in search of a panel, roundtable themes in search of presenters, or any other nascent ideas that people in our network might be able to develop into something full-fledged. 

Sponsorship of a panel (or roundtable) by the SSEMWG signifies that it is pre-approved and automatically accepted for presentation at the RSA annual meeting. 

Proposals for a pre-formed panel, linked panels, or roundtable should be sent to Lora Walsh (ljwalsh@uark.edu), SSEMWG associate organization representative for RSA, by no later than 1 August 2023  with the following materials, assembled into a single Word document (no PDFs, please). Careful adherence to these guidelines is greatly appreciated: 

  • Title of panel (or roundtable) (max 15 words)  
  • Abstract (max 150 words) describing the panel (or roundtable) + keywords 
  • General discipline area of panel (or roundtable) (History, Art History, Literature, or other) 
  • For a panel proposal: names of Organizer(s), Chair, Paper Presenters, & any Respondent(s), including current affiliation + email address for each participant 
  • For a roundtable proposal: names of Organizer(s), Chair, and Discussants (min 4, max 8), including current affiliation and email address for each participant 
  • CV for Panel or Roundtable Organizer(s) & Paper Presenters only (5 pages max per person, not in prose), indicating PhD completion date (past or expected) 
  • For each panel paper: title (max 15 words), abstract (max 150 words) & one discipline most closely related to your submission (for list see https://www.rsa.org/page/DisciplineReps) 
  • Specification of any audio/visual needs (Digital Projector, Internet Access, Audio Capability, etc.) 

Please note that at RSA, chronological boundaries are held to 1300-1700, individuals may serve as a presenter or respondent only one time, and most paper presenters in sponsored sessions should be members of the sponsoring organization or discipline group. Also, per RSA rules, all panels and roundtables must include at least one scholar who is postdoctoral, and that participants who are currently graduate students “should present material directly related to their advanced degree, not term papers.” For complete RSA guidelines for panel and roundtable proposals, please consult https://www.rsa.org/page/ConferenceSubmissionsGuide  

Decisions regarding SSEMWG panel sponsorship will be sent out at least one week prior to the regular RSA submission deadline (15 August) for submission of panel or paper proposals. 

Applicants for SSEMWG panel sponsorship do not need to be Society members at the time of submission, but, if successful, all members of the panel should join the Society before the 2024 RSA meeting. Membership dues rates are based on income and can be found at https://www.rsa.org/page/JoinRSA.  Participants are also expected to be/become RSA members and to register for the conference and are responsible for covering their own travel and lodging costs. Limited travel grants are available to members of the Renaissance Society of America (visit www.rsa.org/).