The European project Women's Legacy has made a collective effort to transfer the results obtained over the last decades of feminist research and women’s and gender studies in all areas of knowledge. Its objective is to correct the androcentric bias that distorts the cultural landscape, by intervening in the classroom, considering that this bias is shared and amplified within educational institutions.
This bias is one of the most pronounced elements of female delegitimisation and a contributing factor to rigour in educational content, as masculinity continues to be presented as the sole universal category. This lack of attention to women’s experiences, contributions and genealogies hinders knowledge and prevents these contributions from being woven into a shared narrative. The work carried out in recent years has raised issues that we had already addressed during the First Women’s Legacy Conference, and which we are keen to explore further in this second conference, in order to generate more rigorous, comprehensive and equitable knowledge in the classroom.
This conference is structured around three thematic axes, and we welcome presentations that address women’s legacy from any of these perspectives. We particularly encourage approaches that contextualise female figures and their works within the broader landscape of contemporary women’s creative production, and where possible, link them to their predecessors and to the legacy and influence they leave for future generations of all genders. Similarly, efforts will be made to contextualise these figures and their works within broader cultural contexts. All of this is intended to develop interpretative models that foster a deeper engagement with culture, one of the conference’s key objectives.
AXIS 1: Works and Figures: Contexts, Spaces and Relationships
This axis invites contributions on figures and works across various domains of knowledge including art, cinema, music, literature, science and technology, philosophy, and more.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- STEAM Fields: Including sciences and technologies as well as artistic and musical disciplines.
- Artistic Genres. Canonical and non-canonical art. The evolution of textile art through the ages, decorative arts, fashion, domestic arts, illustration, urban art. Product, graphic industrial design and architecture.
- Engineering, programming, scientific results and products.
- Musical genres. Alternative spaces such as music salons: female composers, performers and their significance. The qainat and the Arab musical salons. Monastic music. Popular and lesser-known performances by women: La pobla de les fembres pecadrius (Valencia) and musical-theatrical performances. Female artists in circus acts.
- Film and Audiovisuals, including digital and immersive art.
- Literary Genres: Canonical and non-canonical literary genres. Focus on letters from all periods and their themes (narrative, science, philosophy, travel, essay, didactic writing, lyricism, etc.). “Literature of the Self”: autobiography, memoirs, diaries. Classical literature and epigraphy as the origins of autobiography. Domestic recipes, notes and everyday writings. Other female-voiced genres. Scientific literature, including texts and spaces (e.g. the home and kitchen).
AXIS 2: Women’s Legacy Methodology. Specific Didactics
This axis focuses on pedagogical methodologies tailored to classroom practice.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Classroom approaches to working with female figures and their works.
- Critical review of how science and the humanities are currently presented in the classroom , with textbooks as a case study.
- Inclusion methodologies in diverse educational contexts and levels, including: Primary, Secondary, Further education, Higher Education, Vocational Education and Training (VET), Adult Education; Conservatoires; Colleges, Universities, Secondary Education Master’s programmes and other Master’s degrees; Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education; undergraduate and postgraduate studies; Schools of Art and Design; Drama and Film Schools; Higher VET; guidance and counselling.
AXIS 3: The Narrative. Women’s facts and contributions to cultural narratives. Sources and readings.
This axis centres on the critical review and analysis of cultural narratives.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Critical revision, the inclusion of female role models, and interpretative frameworks in the narratives and understandings of art and cinema, science and technology, literature, philosophy, music, history, sport, and more.
- Sociocultural movements. The impact of women’s production and agency on the formation, definition, or course of sociocultural movements that have shaped our understanding of the world. We welcome broad interpretations of what constitutes a ‘sociocultural movement’, such as the labour movement, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment, avant-garde styles, the Umayyad period, pacifism, abolitionism, and others.
- Emergence of women-led cultural movements, including: the Beguines and their influence; medieval and early modern female monastic culture; the 12th-century Renaissance; the querelle des femmes; salon culture (literary, scientific, musical, cultural, political); early modern religious literature; feminist film festivals, and other movements.
