The Fourth Biennial Conference of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Association, ‘Contemporary Women’s Writing: (Wo)man and the Body’ was held at the National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan on the 11th-13th July, 2012.
On this page:
- Chair’s Introduction
- PG Conference Report
- Conference Paper Prize 2012
- Conference podcasts
- Photo Gallery
- Poster
Chair’s Introduction
As Chair of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Association, I was delighted to be able to attend the fourth biennial CWWA conference on (Wo)Man and the Body at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan.
CWWA was founded by Professor Mary Eagleton in 2005 as an informal network of scholars researching in this field and since then we have gone from strength to strength.
During that time we have organised three previous international conferences, in Bangor and Leicester, both in the UK, and in San Diego in the US in 2010 as well as a number of other shorter conferences and seminars. I was very happy to see this year’s conference take place in Taiwan and see so many colleagues, both local and from around the world, there.
In March 2011 we re-launched what was then the Contemporary Women’s Writing Network as an Association, with an elected Executive and membership subscriptions. One of the reasons for becoming an Association funded by members’ subscriptions was in order to provide a regular income that, in these financially difficult times, would allow us to support research work in the field.
With some of this money we were able to fund two travel bursaries in order to support an early career scholar and a postgraduate research student to deliver papers in Taiwan. The first bursary, for an early career scholar, went to Dr Kerry Myler, from Newman University College in Birmingham, UK. She spoke on ‘Mother Daughter Relationships in the Female Coming of Age Novel’. The second bursary, which was part-funded by our thriving sister organisation, PGCWWN (Postgraduate Contemporary Women’s Writing Network) went to Renata Dalmaso, from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil, whose paper was about Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, Fun Home. Renata also won the CWWA prize for the best paper presented by a PGR student at the Taiwan conference. Congratulations to them both. We hope that as the Association grows and develops we will be able to offer more financial support to scholars in the field in future.
The conference itself and my visit to Taipei were wonderful experiences, and I would like to thank the organizing committee members (who represented National Chiao Tung University and National Chenchi University in Taiwan and Hanyang Women’s University in Korea) and especially the chief organiser, Professor Pin-chia Feng, and her assistant, Daisy, for making us all feel so welcome in Taiwan.
Dr Susan Watkins, Chair of CWWA, Leeds Metropolitan University
Postgraduate Conference Report
Renata Dalmaso, a PhD student from Brasil, won the PG CWWN/CWWA postgraduate bursary competition to attend the CWWA conference ‘Contemporary Women’s Writing: (Wo)man and the Body’ at the National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. You can read her conference report here.
Conference Paper Prize 2012
The CWWA Executive is delighted to announce that the winner of the £200 prize for the best paper presented by a postgraduate research student at the July 2012 conference in Taiwan is Renata Dalmaso. Find out more.
Conference Podcasts
Extract from Professor Clare Hanson’s keynote address – ‘Beyond the Gene: New Narratives of Inheritance’.
Extract from Professor Shirley Lim’s keynote writer address – ‘To Be a Writer’
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