“Oh, how I yearned for a little money of my own! Not much really. A few hundred a year would have done it. Just enough to meet a friend for lunch occasionally, to indulge in extravagantly colored stockings, a few small items, without having to appeal to Charley.”
-- Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (45)

The Critical Feminist Studies Division of the Cultural Studies Association (CSA) invites submissions for our 10th Annual Meeting, to be held at the University of California-San Diego, 28 March – 1 April 2012.

This year’s theme, “Culture Matters,” calls for proposals that critically and creatively reflect on culture and “the material” broadly conceived.

Within CSA’s theme for the conference, this Division asks similarly of Cultural Studies’ engagement with feminism. How do we define the relationship between feminism and material culture? What does a critical feminist approach to materiality look like? What are the im/possibilities of feminist materiality? Of feminist materials? Basically, what could be historically and culturally identified as the “stuff” of feminisms – commodities, things and objects? Above all, how does a critical approach to feminism reshape notions of Cultural Studies today? Why, and how, does Critical Feminist Studies “matter”?

Possible topics may include:
• Feminist Material Studies
• The stuff of feminisms – commodities, things, objects
• Feminist stuff and the im/possibility of feminist (material) goods
• Uses, values, desires and pleasures surrounding material goods/objects
• Critical Feminism and Material Cultural Studies
• Feminist theories of material culture

The Division seeks to fill two sessions for the conference. One session will be a traditional Panel with four, 20-minute presentations. One session will be a Seminar led by a scholar whose work especially highlights this year’s theme. Please indicate your interest for either Session.

Please submit the following for consideration:
1) Your name, institutional affiliation, email address and phone number;
2) Presentation/Paper title;
3) 250-word (max) abstract of your 20-minute presentation

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: OCTOBER 1, 2011

Send inquiries and submissions to:
Sarah L. Rasmusson
Chair of the Critical Feminist Studies Division
sarahrasmusson@yahoo.com and sarah.l.rasmusson@ Critical Feminist Studies dedicates itself to work that builds upon, even as it critiques, the institutions and practices of Women's and Gender Studies, focusing in particular on transnational formations and movements, queer and sexuality studies, and politics, practices, and representations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Studies_Association

The CFS Division is one of the largest within the professional organization of CSA and has previously sponsored special themes:
Girls Studies (2007)
Time & Temporality Studies (2008)
The Body & Embodiment (2009)
Disability Studies (2010)