2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

These three papers address major issues in popular culture as they emerge in central--and unexamined--narratives and characters.  Based on discourse analysis, each paper unveils hidden meanings beneath what seem to be innocent characterizations.

Sacco looks at male desire for young girls in popular orphan narratives from the seventeenth century to the present, in which girls become the wards of adult men.  Banner analyzes the negative (and positive) interpretations of Greta Garbo, the pre-eminent film star of the mid-twentieth century.    Fields examines the negative interpretation of Jewishness in a popular television show.        

What is the function of these narratives?  How do they relate to each other?  Are they outgrowths of a particular historical moment, or do they grow out of trans-historical narratives?  Do they indicate inevitable cultural antipathies and desires in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural nation?  Are they examples of inevitable counter-discourses against hegemonic discourses posited by Michel Foucault?  Or, are they an outgrowth of the commodity fetishism of capitalism and its creation of a social order based on appealing to the interests of the individual against that of groups?   How do they relate to the negative attacks that have come to characterize our national politics today? 

Each of these papers also stands as an independent analysis of an important cultural phenomenon.  Thus it is imperative that they be presented and discussed in their own terms as well as in terms of major cultural theories.