UPCOMING EVENTS

Looking back on our Interim Meeting in Helsinki on, ‘Embodiment Revisited’

The second interim meeting of the SIEF working group FAEF was held in Helsinki, Finland on August 13–14 in 2026. It gathered members of the working group, the board and keynote lecturers to discuss one of the central issues of feminist theory: embodiment. The aim was to revisit the concept and its uses for feminist theory. For two days, we discussed and analyzed the relationship between corporeal sensations and perception, emotion, and affect, and how, iteratively, these phenomena continuously reshape subjecthood, identity, and cultural formations.

The two-day workshop consisted of small group presentations as well as keynote lectures followed by discussions. There were also some additional events on the theme, such as the guided tour of the collection of J. K. Harju, a folklore collector and drunk drifter whose folklore collection and other writings are preserved in the archive of the Finnish Literature Society (SKS), and a thematic archive tour in the folklore archive of the SKS. One of the host institutes, the Kalevala Society, held a reception for all the participants and keynote speakers along with invited folklore and literary scholars in Finland. The workshop was organized by the FAEF in collaboration with the Kalevala Society, Finnish Literature Society and the University of Helsinki.

The workshop meeting was the culmination of a year’s worth of discussion and readings on these topics, which we will incorporate into our own work. The annual meeting of the FAEF was held at the end of the meeting on August 14.

Following the workshop, we compiled a reading list with relevant literatures on Embodiment to be used by our members. The lists consists of core readings, that we discussed during the preperatory online zoom sessions, as well as further readings that came up during the workshop. You can find the list here.

About the zoom-discussions

Despite its long history, feminist scholarship continues to be marginalized within academia. As a result, too often the knowledge that is produced within these texts is ignored, not taken seriously, or simply forgotten about. In an attempt to remedy this process of forgetting and ignoring, the working group Feminist Approaches to Ethnology and Folklore hosts online reading sessions via zoom. Every two months its members come together to discuss an article that can in some way be considered seminal for the history, development or state of the art of feminist scholarship ranging from early work to recent publications. Readings can focus on feminist theory, but can also include contributions that exemplify a use of method or a subject or theme that is particularly relevant to feminist scholarship. Our discussions focus on what these texts can teach us. What can we learn from these texts in terms of the uses, abuses, and potential of feminist theory and approaches? And how can these texts inspire our own contributions to the field?

We always aim for lively debates and want these online sessions to contribute towards building an international community of feminist scholars sharing their thoughts, questions and insights. For the year 2025-2026, the zoom-discussions were tailored towards our workshop in August and focus on the theme of embodiment. For the latest information regarding the zoom sessions dates, times and readings please consult our Facebook page.

PAST EVENTS

2026 WG FAEF Workshop ‘Embodiment Revisited’
Helsinki, 13–15 August 2026

Our interim workshop took place from 13 – 15 August 2026 in Helsinki and focused on the theme of revisiting embodiment. Although embodiment has long been a central concern of feminist theory, we consider the topic as it intersects with feminist theory to be unfinished business. During this two-day workshop, we revisited the concept and its uses for feminist theory. The workshop went over two days, with opening lectures each morning and afternoon, followed by “break out” groups on a specific sub-topic.

Important deadlines:
Deadline for applications: Nov. 15
Response date for acceptance/rejection of application: 13 March 2026
Deadline to circulate your full concept paper to all workshop participants:
1 July 2026
Download Workshop Theme: Embodiment Revisited (PDF)

SIEF WG in Feminist Approaches Interim Meeting

August 23th-25th 2024, Hólmavík, Iceland

The workshop was 2.5 days in person, followed by our WG annual meeting which we opened up on zoom for all members

“Woman” on the edge

Our meeting took place in the remote north of Iceland, itself located at Europe’s furthest periphery. Iceland is constantly in a state of geological, geographical and meteorological precarity on the edge -- engendering an instability that contributes to unstable descriptions and impressions. Hólmavik, at its northern periphery is doubly “on the edge.” We are hosted by the Univ. of Iceland’s Research Center in Hólmavik, and by the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft, which resonates with yet another kind of precarity -- of those outside of society, shunned, avoided, and perhaps in contact with the supernatural. Our fields themselves are precarious in academia. And the status of “woman” has been historically (and in academia and the production of knowledge) peripheral, subordinate, and precarious, despite the paradoxical centrality of “woman” to the integrity of the family, the foundation of said society.
Read more here >>

Due dates
Abstracts: Nov. 15
Decisions on the proposals and open Registration was in early February
Readings for Concept Pieces: March 25
Working papers to be distributed: May 25th