Death and the Maiden: Representations of Women and Death in Literature and Culture: 11-12 May 2017, in Łódź, Poland. g.
The motif of Death and the Maiden has recurred in art and literature since medieval times. In most paintings representing this motif, the women are gracefully posed and approached or grasped, most frequently from behind, either by a skeletal figure or the Angel of Death. This particular posing implies seduction, erotic tension, vulnerability, and submissiveness, yet it also evokes fear and emphasi
zes the frailty of all mortals. The other frequent composition presents a woman entangled in a passionate embrace, kiss, and/or dance with the figure of Death, an arrangement that expresses passion as well as the inevitability and, at times, even warmth of the deathly embrace. In literature, women often die untimely, unnecessary, and cruel deaths, resulting not only from accidents of various sorts but also from social restrictions and complications. However, there are female deaths, such as Edna Pontellier’s from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening or Jessie Cates’s from Marsha Norman’s ’Night Mother, which can be read as powerful statements and gaining control of one’s life. And then there is Death in its multiple personifications. Death as a male lover, seducer, kidnapper, reaper (raper?), and angel are common motifs the world over. Hans Baldung Grien’s “Death and the Maiden” paintings, Matthias Claudius’s poem “Death and the Maiden,” or Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” may serve as notable examples. And yet Death is often a female seducer, angel, queen, bony lady, and saint (Most Holy Death). Persephone, “Madame Lamort” in Rilke’s fifth Duino Elegy, Carlos Schwabe’s “The Death of the Gravedigger,” or La Parca (Grim Reapress), Doña Sebastiana, and La Cavalera Catrina in Spanish culture all capture the spirit of a female Death who can be loving and merciless, beautiful and ugly, gracious and terrifying. Bearing in mind the versatile applications of the Death and the Maiden theme, we encourage participants to explore representations of the relation between women and death in literature and culture. We invite you to research not only themes and imagery in which a female figure is overpowered by Death in its many (dis)guises or in which Death serves as a scary reminder that we are all going to die, but also those in which the Death and the Maiden motif can be read as liberating and empowering for women, as a force that can propel life forward or, even if grim, can bring positive changes to various levels of life. The topics which this conference seeks to explore are:
- Dying, dead, and grieving women in literature and film
- Is “Death” a woman or a man? Personification of death in literature, film, video games, etc.
- (Un)dead women: ghosts, apparitions, and other supernatural beings
- Death/grief and gender (e. Do women grieve the same as men?)
- The awareness of mortality
- Women morticians
- The aging process and its social and cultural perception
- Leading causes of death in females
- Social death and identity loss
- Violence against women
The language of the conference will be English. Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (including the title, your professional affiliation, and e-mail address) should be sent as MS Word attachment to [email protected] by 15 January 2017. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 30 January 2017. Depending on the number, thematic range, and quality of the presented papers, selected conference proceedings will be subject to double-blind reviews and published in the Neophilological Quarterly (Polish Academy of Sciences) which is registered on Ministerial List B (12 points). We are also considering a collected monograph which might provide an optional publishing opportunity. Conference participation fees:
Standard registration fee: PLN 350 / EUR 95 / GBP 80
PhD student registration fee: PLN 200 / EUR 60 / GBP 55
This fee includes conference proceedings, daytime refreshments, and conference dinner. Accommodation is not included in the conference fee. Organizing Committee:
Dr Katarzyna Małecka
Dr Ewa Wiśniewska
