Cooking up a (Life) Story: Women and Everyday Cultural Production

The Blue Castle: Conversations on Women, Culture and the Spaces of the Imagination presents its Fall 2009 series: Cooking up a (Life) Story: Women and Everyday Cultural Production. Please join us for four conversations dedicated to everyday cultural production! From the stories that emerge from women’s recipe collections, to the lives that are revealed in letters and on tombstones, and the taken-for-granted material artifacts that grace our homes, we’re taking a closer look at women’s myriad acts of everyday creativity, activities that have enriched – and continue to enrich – all of our lives.

On 21 September 2009, join us for The Blue Castle Show and Tell. Show and Tell is all about storytelling: it’s a space for you to share the stories of everyday creativity that have shaped your life.

Third wave feminism is embracing the traditional crafts, using knitting, stitching, cooking, and more as ways to bring out messages of social justice while simultaneously revaluing these activities as worthy of critical attention. What happens when we begin to examine this very broad arena of women’s creativity? Here’s your chance to look at the handcrafted items in your home in a new light! Bring along an item that was created by a woman in your life or an everyday item that makes you think of a creative woman in your life, and a story or two to go along with them. If the kitchen stove is too big to bring along, bring us a picture and the great stories that go along with it.

On 26 October, we’ll be joined by Suzanne Sexty, a regular Blue Castle-goer, who will talk about her research into the life of Catherine Isabella McLean Fraser: "Mother in Israel". From Crossapol on the isle of Coll, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, to the wilderness of Pictou, Nova Scotia, to Lunenburg, and finally to St. John's, the journey of Catherine Fraser took her far from her birth place. Wife of the first Presbyterian minister in Newfoundland, Catherine was a helpmate, mother and, always, "fiery Kate." The talk will look at Catherine's life as it brings her to Newfoundland.

Diane Tye, from MUN’s Department of Folklore, joins us on 24 November to talk about women’s recipe collections and the stories they can tell us. We invite you to bring along your favourite recipe, and a few stories that go along with it as well. I’m bringing along my friend Helene’s Aunt Dorothy’s ginger snaps…what will you bring? Perhaps there will be enough for a Blue Castle recipe collection...

Finally, on 8 December, we look at women as letter writers – more specifically, we’ll be travelling back to mid-twentieth-century Newfoundland to read the letters women wrote to Joey Smallwood in the early years of Confederation. An interactive venture that might rival our spring suffrage debates, this gathering requires the active participation of a series of readers interested in knowing more about women’s activities in mid-century Newfoundland and Labrador.

Just like last season, all events are free and will take place in the warm surroundings of The Ship Pub, on Duckworth Street. We hope you'll join us.