Glasgow Women's Library, Saturday 3 June

On Saturday 3 June, The Transatlantic Literary Women Series teamed up with Glasgow Women’s Library for a day’s symposium, as the summer finale to its 2016/17 series funded by the British Association for American Studies and the US Embassy (PI Dr Laura Rattray).

As we head towards the centenaries of women’s suffrage in the UK and the US, this free, fully booked symposium celebrated the achievements of transatlantic literary women. It was a friendly, engaging and informative day of talks, workshops, readings and performances. The Transatlantic Literary Women committee, Laura Rattray (Reader in American Literature), recent alumnae Marine Furet and Saskia McCracken, and MA finalist Louisa Burden, welcomed speakers, workshop leaders and performers from both sides of the Atlantic.

Talks and topics included Jazz Age women and “women’s” advertisements (Melanie Dawson, College of William and Mary), African American women touring and lecturing in Europe in the late nineteenth century (Gary Totten, University of Nevada, Las Vegas), and Sylvia Plath (Tracy Brain, Bath Spa University). There were workshops on creative writing (Victoria Shropshire, University of Glasgow), on black feminism across the Atlantic (Claire Heuchan, University of Stirling), and a workshop in which speakers Ailsa Boyd, Eva Moreda Rodriguez, Maria Sledmere (all University of Glasgow) and Sarah Thomson (University of Edinburgh) made a case for *their* transatlantic literary woman. The symposium closed with a performance by award winning slam poet Carly Brown (University of Glasgow).

The Transatlantic Literary Women Series returns in the Autumn. Further details will be available later in the summer here: https://transatlanticladies.wordpress.com/

Transatlantic Literary Women Committee at the symposium, left to right: Marine Furet, Saskia McCracken, Louisa Burden, Laura Rattray (credit K. Falco)

First published: 15 June 2017

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