The current dual crises of the global CV-19 pandemic and the (also global) renewed struggle for racial justice have turned our attention to women worldwide whose critically important service roles bring to mind and expand on their similar occupations in the long nineteenth century. Women comprise the majority of the workforce that has been deemed \u201cessential\u201d during the pandemic \u2014 from healthcare and social services to retail and other service sector jobs. Women have been disproportionately affected by the loss of employment, whether through involuntary lay-offs or voluntary resignation due to the need to provide \u201cessential\u201d care at home, most significantly as teachers of their now virtually-schooled children. Across various service horizons today, we also observe that women, especially those of color, continue as in the past to confront institutionalized discrimination, subordination, and marginalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both this troubling contemporary reality and its historical precedents make clear the inherent ambiguity of women\u2019s service. On the one hand, as Hannah Branch and Melissa Wooten have shown, service occupations may offer fields of action that enable new paths of social mobility for women; on the other, as with today\u2019s virtual mother-teachers, such service often perpetuates domestic stereotypes, race conflicts, and class affiliationi<\/sup>, while also severely impacting career progression, lifetime earning potential, and ongoing emotional stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Studies on women and service largely focus on three main research areas: 1) women and domestic service, 2) women and service in an entrepreneurial context, and 3) women and military service. Kristina Booker, in particular, conceptualizes women in service as either engaging in such work from a humanitarian \u201cspiritualized sense of \u2018duty,\u2019\u201d or actually working for wages in a servant capacity.ii<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not as well examined, however, is the complexity of women\u2019s service as an enabling or a disabling factor within a transatlantic context. Throughout the long nineteenth century, women in the transatlantic world were engaged in a range of service roles, including nursing, teaching, and reform causes. Many served in menial jobs with no glory or recognition, while some held leadership roles in various movements, such as antislavery, temperance, workers\u2019 rights, woman\u2019s rights, and community service. Several served openly with the respect of family and society, while other women were forced to disguise themselves in order to serve their chosen cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a virtual workshop series, the Intercontinental Cross-Currents Network solicits considerations of the contributions of women in wide-ranging service roles in the transatlantic world during the long nineteenth century. We are interested in presentations that engage with the following broad topics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spheres of Service<\/strong> Politics of Service<\/strong> Representation(s) of Service (literary and otherwise)<\/strong> Intersectionality and Service<\/strong> Scholarship of Service<\/strong> These 90-minute conversations will take place via Martin Luther University\u2019s virtual conference system, MLUConf, in June and July 2021 (specific dates to follow). The series will launch on Monday, June 7, at 11:30 am (EST)<\/strong> with keynote speaker, Jake Wynn<\/strong>, from the Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, D.C., whom we\u2019re honored to welcome. He will discuss the humanitarian work of Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross in 1884. Virtual conference organizers:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n ______________________________________________________________________________ The current dual crises of the global CV-19 pandemic and the (also global) renewed struggle for racial justice have turned our attention to women worldwide whose critically important service roles bring to mind and expand on their similar occupations in the long nineteenth century. Women comprise the majority of the workforce that has been deemed … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2424,"featured_media":228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,9,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.urz.uni-halle.de\/julianitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u25cf Women\u2019s wartime service and aid to the resulting populations displaced by wars
\u25cf Red Cross Societies and their important role in women\u2019s service<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u25cf Service in which women covertly participated
\u25cf Social criticism directed at women who served away from home
\u25cf Women\u2019s strategies to promote their serving publicly
\u25cf Colonialism and women\u2019s service
\u25cf Rhetoric of separate spheres and women\u2019s service
\u25cf Societal value of and respect for (or lack thereof) women\u2019s service<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u25cf Artistic representations of service (literary, visual, musical etc.)
\u25cf Effects of service on women\u2019s writing, art, rhetoric, and other creative endeavors
\u25cf Intertextual notions of service in a transatlantic context
\u25cf Life writing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u25cf Women and race in service
\u25cf Women, wealth, and class
\u25cf Service and shared space across class, national, gendered, or racial boundaries
\u25cf Women\u2019s service as propaganda
\u25cf Notions of service in women\u2019s, sexuality, and gender studies<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u25cf Women\u2019s service in historiography and narratives of women\u2019s service
\u25cf Archives of women\u2019s service
\u25cf Examples of women\u2019s service that has gone unacknowledged or unidentified
\u25cf Advantages and dangers of looking at women\u2019s history through the lens of service<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We welcome panels, roundtables, and individual papers. For individual presentations, please provide a 300-word abstract; to propose a panel or a round table, please send a brief description of the topic and a 300-word abstract for each presenter. Email these materials to crosscurrents@amerikanistik.uni-halle.de<\/strong> by March 15, 2021<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laura-Isabella Heitz, MLU Halle-Wittenberg
Khristeena Lute, SUNY Adirondack
Julia Nitz, MLU Halle-Wittenberg
Sandra H. Petrulionis, Penn State University, Altoona<\/p>\n\n\n\n
i<\/sup> Enobong Hannah Branch, and Melissa E. Wooten, \u201cSuited for Service: Racialized Rationalizations for the Ideal Domestic Servant from the Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Century,\u201d Social Science History<\/em> 36.2 (2012): 169\u201389. JSTOR. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.
ii<\/sup> Jennifer Aston, and Catherine Bishop, Female Entrepreneurs in the Long Nineteenth Century: A Global Perspective<\/em> (Palgrave, 2020); Carmen Birkle, and Justine Tally, \u201cIntroduction: Waging Health \u2013Women in Nineteenth-Century American Wars\u201d European Journal of American Studies<\/em> (2015): n. p. Web. 11 Nov. 2020; Janet Henshall Momsen, ed., Gender, Migration, and Domestic Service<\/em> (Routledge, 1999); and Kristina Booker, Menials: Domestic Service and the Cultural Transformation of British Society, 1650\u20131850<\/em> (Bucknell UP, 2018), 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"