THE (UN)FORGETTABLE WOMEN: FEMALE PRESENCES IN MEMOIRS, DIARIES, CORRESPONDENCE, AND BIOGRAPHIES 19-21 noiembrie 2026, Online

19-21 noiembrie 2026, Online

On the publication of his book of essays, Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages, Georges Duby examined the question of male dominance in medieval society and at the same time pointed out the limited and one-sided nature of the sources that historians depend on when reconstructing women's history. Since 1988, Duby's statements have been modified and corrected, especially as a result of the emergence of new historical methods and the progress of the feminist movements. More voices and sources from women - such as memoirs, diaries, autobiographies and artistic works - have now been included in the (re)construction of women's history. As a result, the recovery of historical writings produced by women has not only broadened our knowledge of the past but also enabled us to understand it in a more nuanced manner by considering women's experiences and memories.

Similarly, the memoirs and diaries of people like Anne Frank, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Queen Marie of Romania, Monica Lovinescu, Martha Bibescu, Cornelia Blaga Brediceanu, Marta Trancu-Rainer, and Elena Hartulari have helped ensure their positions in cultural memory, in some instances making them emblematic female figures or even archetypal heroines. Historians have generally concentrated on or restricted themselves to the experiences of these women. Although this has been useful in reconstructing the worlds and experiences of women, it has also involved certain risks, especially the marginalisation or neglect of other women. A result of this method has been the creation of a history mainly focused on 'female elites' – a trend which is still evident in school curricula, for example – in which the majority of women have been treated as a single collective group and have thus remained anonymous.

In view of this, the fourth conference in the IFSGen series wishes to give renewed attention to women's writings and to the female figures whose contributions have helped lead to a more detailed understanding of major historical events. It also aims to go beyond the existing canon of well-known women and to examine how far it is possible to write the history of those who have remained nameless—women coming from diverse social and professional backgrounds who have generally escaped the notice of historians. By doing this, the conference hopes to restore their voices, their everyday practices, and the various ways in which they have taken part in social, economic, and cultural life.

While we especially welcome submissions drawn from unpublished and little-known sources, we by no means wish to restrict the conference to such materials. We are also interested in examining the difficulties involved in recovering women's writings and in bringing to light texts, testimonies, and experiences that have hitherto remained outside mainstream historiography. In this way, we hope to bring forward the voices which have not received adequate attention and to help achieve a more nuanced understanding of women's position and role in the family and in society.

We invite proposals for lectures and papers addressing topics such as:

• Archives as spaces for recovering women’s memory;
• Women’s memoirs: lives, voices, and histories;
• From woman to “heroine”: constructions and representations in diaries, memoirs, and biographies;
• Writings from the private sphere: recovering women’s voices through diaries and biographies;
• Forgotten correspondence: recovering women’s history;
• The women whose memories have remained: their position in the historical mythology and pantheon of Romania;
• Ego-documents as sources for reconstructing individual life experiences and the broader historical past;
• Gender perspectives on writing the past: from “his-story” to “her-story”;
• Excluded, overlooked, marginalised: women who remain “outside” history.

The conference will take place online.

Vă invităm să ne trimiteți propunerile dumneavoastră, sub forma unui rezumat, în limba română și în limba engleză (maxim 200 de cuvinte). Propunerile se vor trimite electronic, prin completarea formularului disponibil: formular_ro, form_eng

Deadline: 15th October 2026

Toate propunerile primite vor fi supuse unui proces de evaluare. Lista lucrărilor selectate va fi comunicată pe data de 30 octombrie 2026. Vă rugăm să consultați site-ul conferinței sau să urmăriți e-mailurile oficiale pentru a primi toate detaliile privind acceptarea.

Contact persons:

Georgeta Fodor, UMFST „G. E. Palade”, Târgu Mureș

Daniela Deteșan, Institutul de Istorie „George Barițiu”, Cluj-Napoca

Claudia Septimia Sabău, Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca