ISTANBUL KULTUR UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
Graduate Seminar 2021
Representation of Women in 20th and 21st Century Novel.

“We the precocious, we the repressed of culture, our lovely mouths gagged with pollen, our wind knocked out of us, we the labyrinths, the ladders, the trampled spaces, the bevies – we are black and we are beautiful” asserts Helene Cixous deciphering the attributed meaning of being a woman (“The Laugh of the Medusa” 878). Throughout history, patriarchy has created a woman myth to define women’s sexual and gender identity, confining them into motherhood, madness, or monstrous images to devalue their role in society. Women’s writing shoulders the burden of the past by laying pre-defined representations of women bare and deconstructing the stereotypical gender roles in the novels.
The aim of this online conference is to exchange ideas on the representation of women, analyse the myths fabricated by the patriarchal order and explore how those myths are deconstructed or maintained in women’s writing in 20th and 21st-century novels.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

Social, Political and Cultural Implications of Motherhood
Madness and Monstrous Images of Women
Narrative Approaches to Ethnicity
Fragmentation of Female Identity
Beauty myth and body politics
Gender Performativity
The politics of reproductive Rights
Depiction and deconstruction of women’s stereotypical sexual and gender roles
Ecofeminist literary criticism: the relation between women and nature in relation to nature culture dichotomy

Plenary speakers will be confirmed later.
We welcome proposals up to 250 words including author's name, institutional affiliation, discipline and a brief biographical note.

Please send your abstract and bio to ellgraduateconference@iku.edu.tr
Proposals should be sent by September 24th, 2021.

No participation fee is required.
E-certificate will be provided for the presenters.
Abstract notification of Acceptance: by October 25, 2021
Program Notification: November 5, 2021
This online conference will be held on Microsoft Teams