Big Berks 2020 Program

THE BERKSHIRE CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORY OF WOMEN, GENDERS, AND SEXUALITIES 2020 GENDERED ENVIRONMENTS: Exploring Histories of Women, Genders, and Sexualities in Social, Political and “Natural” Worlds Autobiography: “Water / Ancestors / Middle Passage / Family Ghosts” by Howardena Pindell JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Baltimore, Maryland, May 27 – 31, 2020 THE BERKSHIRE CONFERENCE on the HISTORY OF WOMEN, GENDERS, AND SEXUALITIES 3 CO-PRESIDENTS WELCOME TO THE 18TH BERKSHIRE CONFER- ENCE OF WOMEN, GENDER AND SEXUALITIES In an extraordinary moment in time, spring 2020, we welcome you to this virtual or print version of the 18th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities (known as the Big Berks), which was scheduled to be hosted by Johns Hopkins University. Titled “Gendered Environments: Exploring Histories of Women, Genders, and Sexualities in Social, Political, and ‘Natural,’ Worlds,” the conference sought to elicit productive and intersectional conversation about the en- vironmental challenge of climate change and the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment. We all now know firsthand what it feels like to be standing in the swirl of a historic happening. This year’s Big Berks has been like none other in that it was scheduled to take place during what turned out to be the global pandemic of COVID-19. The Berks intellectual and social community, like communities all around the world, has had to adapt to emergency, relinquish plans years in the making, and forestall wishes of convening together in one place. After extensive deliberations, the officers and trustees of the Berkshire Conference agreed that in light of the profound uncertainty and very real health risks related to COVID-19, and in light of our host university’s announcement about the suspen- sion of sponsored events until further notice, it was not possible to meet as planned. Between 2017 and 2019, the organizing team of Big Berks 2020 did have the privilege of hosting three transformative Little Berks Business Meetings and Symposia, hosted in the lovely spots of Annapolis, MD; Pheasant Run, IL; and the Radcliffe Institute, Cam- bridge, MA. Those meetings attracted 50-75 attendees and featured applied sessions on writing, oral history, and archival practices; riveting keynote lectures and panels on women historians under political fire and on Indigenous and family history; and even a soothing dawn walk along a riverbank. These rewarding gatherings that would not have been possible without the leadership of Berks Vice President Jennie Brier, Treasurer Stephanie Richmond, Secretary Marisa Fuentes, and Executive Administrator Sandra Trudgen Dawson, take on even more meaning now and fill us with gratitude When the two of us first began to imagine the shape and tone of this 2020 Big Berks conference in a coffee shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the spring of 2017, we pictured a vibrant, community engaged gathering situated in Baltimore and deeply interconnected with that particular local setting and the global reach of an Atlantic world. We imagined a place and time apart where thinkers, activists, and creators would come together, exchange ideas, inspire one another, and find a replenishment of the spirit as well as the mind. We imagined layered and robust exchanges that stretched the term “environments” to and beyond its customary limits and sparked against the backdrop of THE BERKSHIRE CONFERENCE on the HISTORY OF WOMEN, GENDERS, AND SEXUALITIES 3 Baltimore’s rich and fraught history of urban slavery, citizenship bids, and global commerce. We imagined Maryland path-breakers Harriet Tubman and Senator Barbara Mikulski. We even dreamed of gifting conference-goers with locally made soaps in shades of brilliant azure that reflected our signature art piece for the conference, Howardena Pindell’s “Autobiography” (1988). Although that early vision for Berks 2020 and the more expansive version born of collaboration that took shape over the ensuing two-and-a-half years has not come to pass, we believe that it still holds a potency to inspire and inform. When you read through this aspirational program shaped under the stewardship of Program Committee Co-Chairs Cathleen Cahill and Martha Few, and Local Arrangements Committee Co-Chairs Shani Mott and Courtney Dobson, as well as the many members of both of these resplendent committees, you will, we hope, feel the vibrancy of Big Berks 2020 as it was intended to unfold. Indeed, some features of the Berks 2020 conference may yet take root and sprout in other forms under the auspices of the Berks or at the initiative of individual panelists. We look forward to those flowerings. The Berkshire Conference on the History of Women (the Big Berks) was first held in 1973 at Douglass College, Rutgers University. Born out of the women’s movement and intended to be a celebration of a new field of scholarship—women’s history—it has been held every three years since that time. In a collegial atmosphere that is more informal than that of most academic conferences, the Big Berks has always provided an opportunity to share research, experience, and insights as scholars and graduate students explore and expand the boundaries of women’s, gender, and sexuality history. From its inception the conference was inclusive. It brought together historians and a range of people from within and beyond the academy to discuss scholarship which addresses history from ancient to contemporary and from east to west. By 2017 when it was held at Hofstra University and hosted by Berks President Susan Yohn, the conference had grown to more than 1500 participants and 250 panels and other events. This year, we had expected over 1,000 participants to attend from 32 different countries. We are grateful to each and every person who proposed a session and/or registered for the conference. We are grateful to the presses and organizations that reserved booths as exhibitors and planned to host receptions at JHU. We are grateful to the historical societies and research libraries that offered to support the conference as institutional sponsors. That encouragement of new work in women’s and gender history will be sustained. The Berkshire Conference represents a special community. Please know how much we appreciate your scholarship, political engagement, and creativity. While we are deeply disappointed by this turn of events, we are confident that the Berks will continue to be the exciting, vital, and committed community that it has long been. Thank you for being an essential part of our collective future! 4 THE BERKSHIRE CONFERENCE on the HISTORY OF WOMEN, GENDERS, AND SEXUALITIES THE BERKSHIRE CONFERENCE on the HISTORY OF WOMEN, GENDERS, AND SEXUALITIES 5 We hope that you, your loved ones, and communities remain safe and well in the months ahead. Martha S. Jones, Co-president Tiya Miles, Co-president BERKSHIRE CONFERENCE OF WOMEN HISTORIANS: A SHORT HISTORY The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, which sponsors the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexu- alities, was founded in 1930 in response to the marginalization that women historians faced in a male-dominated profession. There was a small number of women with PhDs in history and they worked primarily in women’s colleges. Although members of the American Historical Association, the AHA excluded women from AHA “smokers,” the social gatherings where historians learned about jobs and where mentoring relationships were established. In 1929, a number of women return- ing from the AHA decided that women historians needed their own organization. By 1936 their spring weekend retreats in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts had become an integral part of the Berk- shire Conference of Women Historians, evolving into what we now call the “Little Berks.” The Little Berks continues to meet annually. Our retreats combine panels, discussions and business meetings with conversation, hiking, shopping, and socializing. Here we tend to institutional business and to the awarding of our book and article prizes. We hear presentations by leading scholars, discuss developments in the historical profession, and mentor junior scholars. The Little Berks also advocates for women in academia, (and more generally), funds graduate student fellowships and plans the triennial Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities. In the early 1970s a new generation of women scholars joined the Little Berks. They fused their scholarship with their advocacy of second wave feminism, in 1973 organizing the first Big Berks, at Douglass College of Rutgers University. It drew three times more than the expected 100 participants. The following year, at Radcliffe, the conference drew over a thousand participants. Between 1974 and 1993, the conference was held every three years at one of the women’s colleges in the Northeastern United States. Beginning in 1996, acknowledging its national and growing international constituency, the conference began to move around. It has since been held in the south (University of North Carolina), the west (Scripps College) and the Midwest (University of Minnesota). The 2014 conference at the University of Toronto was the first Big Berks gathering convened outside of the United States. The Big Berks is now the leading conference for historical scholarship on women, gender and sexuality and is attended by scholars from dif- THE BERKSHIRE CONFERENCE on the HISTORY OF WOMEN, GENDERS, AND SEXUALITIES 5 ferent fields, disciplines and many different countries. On the program of the 2020 conference, there are scholars, activists, artists and per- formers from over 20 countries. The 2020 invites Big Berks panelists to join the Little Berks. The goal is to encourage a larger number of people to become involved in this organization which has stood with women in the historical profession for nearly nine decades. Several of the past presidents of the Berks have gone on to lead other historical organizations, including the AHA. Thanks to organizations like the Berkshire Conference, women are no longer excluded from important meetings and activities of our professional groups.

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