Calls for Papers from across the U.S. and beyond
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Added 9/28/12
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CFP: *Gender & History* Special Issue 26.3, Gender, Imperialism and Global Exchanges
From antiquity through the twentieth century, imperial expansions were accompanied by transregional and global exchanges of goods, ideas, people, natural resources, practices and styles. As free and unfree labour travelled across spaces, so too did a variety of commodities and natural resources. We seek proposals that explore the gendered impact of such exchanges on the metropole and/or the colonies, and how these dynamics were shaped by either gendered desires, gendered relations, or gendered ideologies. In particular, we wish to problematise the very notion of exchange through a critical examination of labour flows and goods and the extraction of resources.
How, for example, can a gendered analysis of a particular political economy shed light on uneven or exploitative global practices? How did imperial coercions of labour involve sexualised and gendered treatments of working bodies? We also welcome essays that focus on interchange, reciprocity, or resistance, on collaborative and coalition-building, as well as extractive, exchanges. We perceive empires broadly: as sociopolitical entities, as territories in flux, as formal regimes, as ideological and cultural hegemonies, as religious domains, as trans-regional trade networks, as multinational corporations.
Overall, we seek manuscripts that consider the gendered dimensions of sexual, bodily, social, material, political, cultural and intellectual dynamics of empire from a wide range of temporal and geographic settings. In addition to work on the Americas, Western Europe and South Asia, we are especially keen to receive proposals about other parts of the globe, including Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. We strongly encourage submissions that focus on the pre-modern period. We invite submissions from scholars in disciplines other than history whose work engages historical methodologies and analyses. Given our intention to produce a volume that is at once analytically rigorous and pedagogically useful, we are interested in articles that offer conceptual or theoretical discussion in addition to empirically-grounded case studies. We encourage potential contributors to submit work that falls under one or more o
f the following rubrics: labour and bodies; ideas, politics and cultures; goods and commodities; practices and styles. For sample questions, please consult the extended version of this call for abstracts on the Gender & History website at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/(ISSN)14680424/asset/homepages/GH_CFP_Gender_Empires_Global_Exchanges_LONG.pdf?v=1&s=8d7a616a2c265698f73d031698abb41751b72515
We plan to approach the creation of this special issue via a colloquium to be held at New York University (or Brown University) on Friday and Saturday, May 17-18, 2013. Please submit 1-2 page abstracts in English (500-750 words maximum) togendhist@umn.edu by October 1, 2012, with Special Issue 26:3 abstract submission in the subject line (limited funds for the translation of articles written in other languages might be available). Invitations to present at the colloquium will be issued in November 2012. Papers must be submitted for pre-circulation to the editors by April 1, 2013, as a condition of participation.
Email: gendhist@umn.edu
Visit the website at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291468-0424
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Call for Abstracts for Chapters in an Edited Volume:
Sex Trafficking in the US: Emerging Issues in the Research
This call for abstracts grows out of the Sex Trafficking in the US: Researching Vulnerable Populations conference held in February, 2012, at Oregon State University and seeks to explore emerging knowledge and issues in research. The focus of the edited volume is research that examines risks, experiences, consequences, and interventions of sex trafficking across differences (race/ethnicity, nation of origin, socioeconomic class, sexual and gender identities, ability, and age) applying these to the methodological, discursive, and ethical issues central to research on domestic sex trafficking in the US. Sex trafficking has been found in a wide variety of venues of the overall sex industry, including residential brothels, hostess clubs, online escort services, brothels disguised as massage parlors, strip clubs, and street prostitution. In most of these businesses the owners, employees, and customers all seek anonymity for a variety of reasons, some of which involve criminal b
ehavior in general and sex trafficking specifically. The difficulty in producing accurate data on illegal and covert phenomenon happening in the shadow economy and law of sex trafficking is largely responsible for the lack of reliable data. This compilation of research seeks to address this deficiency.
This edited volume will bring together experts from multi-disciplinary perspectives and backgrounds to discuss the research challenges involved in the study of domestic sex trafficking. Scholars and graduate students from all academic disciplines, including but not limited to: psychology, criminal justice, law, political science, women's and gender studies, public policy, public health, anthropology, ethnic studies, Native American studies, Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies, rural studies, urban studies and others are invited to submit their work.
Themes for article submissions may include, but are not limited to, the following:
(1) Research on the supply-side like age of entry ; experiences of sexual and physical violence (childhood/adult); use of pornography and Internet technology (Avatars and advertising) ; homelessness; physical /mental health problems; condom use; drugs or alcohol abuse; number of johns; memory and trauma( PTSD); contingent practices. Demand- side research on " johns " and how do we research them. Rescue narrative and impact on research with service providers, both religious and state.
(2) Statistical and empirical analysis of inaccurate oft-quoted "numbers" about sex trafficking.
(3) Literary analysis of memoirs by women who have experiences with sex trafficking.
(4) Theoretical analysis of sex trafficking and structural constraints beyond the standard binaries
(5) Women's human rights violations analysis of sex trafficking
(6) Sex trafficking within specific ethnic and sexual communities: Native American, Latina/o, African American, Asian American, transsexual, minor, etc.
(7) Citizenship, immigration and T-visas within migrant communities within the US.
(8) Geography and transnational migration of sex trafficking- impact of movement, location, and migration.
(9) IRB and impact of state/federal laws on research agendas and approvals.
(10) Research practices such as ethnography to understand relationship between participants, legal issues, and criminal justice communities.
(11) Criminalization, anti-trafficking laws, and traditional and new approaches for sex trafficking survivors.
(12) Vulnerabilities, survivorship patterns, and lessons from domestic violence victims (battered wife syndrome) or hostage victims (Stockholm syndrome) or war veterans/prisoners (PTSD)
(13) The pimp, the gang, the criminal enterprise, safe research with dangerous populations
(14) Minimizing the psychological and emotional harm of data gathering and increasing empowerment for participants and researchers
(15) Policy, law, regulation, and solutions-best methods for research and analysis
(16) Review of the research literature/bibliographies on the general and sub topics.
Final chapters should be no more than 7000 words, including references.
Instructions for submitting a proposal:
Submit an abstract of up to 500 words and 2-page CV to the following web site (https://conferences.bus.oregonstate.edu/Conference/sex-trafficking-abstracts/registration) by October 15, 2012.
Acceptance notifications will be made by December 31, 2012. Draft manuscripts are due by May 1, 2013. These will be submitted for peer review with full manuscripts due by October 1, 2013.
Editorial Committee: Norma L. Cárdenas, Allison Davis-White Eyes, Susana Rivera-Mills, Tonia St. Germain, Susan M. Shaw
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CALL FOR PAPERS
2013 Conable Conference in International Studies April 4-6, 2013, Rochester, New York
Gender, Violence, and Justice in the Age of Globalization
The organizing committee for the Conable Conference in International Studies is soliciting proposals for the 2013 conference to be held in Rochester, New York, April 4-6, 2013. We welcome submissions of abstracts for individual papers, panels of papers, workshops, poster sessions, performances, or other academic or professional products or delivery.
The theme for the 2013 conference is Gender, Violence, and Justice in the Age of Globalization. Over the past several decades, tremendous strides have been made toward ending gender-based violence and advancing a spectrum of goals broadly envisioned as promoting gender equality throughout the globe and particularly in developing countries as communities have harnessed aspects of globalization to enhance communications, technology, collaboration, travel, and capacity-building. Gender-based violence (GBV) has been contested locally, regionally, and globally. Grassroots activists have transformed local and national attitudes by provoking rigorous dialogue. International conventions and treaties provide the promise of increased protections for women, children, sexual and gender identity minorities, and individuals with disabilities. And as international protocols infiltrate domestic law, global protections are providing new opportunities for women, men, and children seeking to s
afeguard their bodies and seek justice for crimes perpetrated. At the same time, however, significant obstacles impede accountability and attitudinal change. In many nations, impunity from prosecution emboldens government agents, quasi-government militias, and private individuals. Ignorance of the laws or a cultural reluctance to seek redress via the law impedes progress in many nations. Some states stridently resist globalized pressures to domesticate international treaties and conventions, citing cultural, religious, and social arguments against global gender-based ideologies. And grassroots gender violence campaigners are increasingly wary of the cultural imperialism accompanying many ideological orientations, ranging from Marxist feminism and sexual liberation to neo-liberal dogma and academic chauvinism.
This conference seeks to examine the critical crossroads at which local and global gender-based violence campaigners and justice advocates find themselves today. We wish to explore the conflicts, commonalities, and resolutions in approaches to GBV among feminists and other philosophical and ideological frameworks in the global south and global north. And we are interested in how increasing transnational and global activities, such as trade liberalization and other economic developments are creating new kinds of violence, and/or encouraging and remedying violence.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words clearly identifying the argument, method of delivery, evidentiary basis or analytical framework, and site of research, study, or project, accompanied by a two-page CV identifying the proposer(s) by name, affiliation, address, and email, should be sent directly to Benjamin Lawrance, Conable Chair in International Studies [BNL@RIT.EDU] by October 15, 2012. Decisions will be made in the fall semester and proposals selected will be announced by email and on the Conable Conference website. All participants are required to register online and pay the registration fee as confirmation prior to the publication of the final program.
In 2013, the Conable Conference welcomes the collaboration of the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at Cornell Law School and the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester. Previous Conable Conferences have examined asylum law, refugee resettlement, and the role of expert testimony, among other international issues, and resulted in scholarly publications. Information about previous conferences may be found athttp://www.rit.edu/cla/conable/
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UCLA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN announces
THINKING GENDER 2013
23nd Annual Graduate Student Research Conference
Call for papers
Thinking Gender is a public conference highlighting graduate student research on women, gender and/or sexuality across all disciplines and historical periods, including future ones. We invite submissions for individual papers or pre-constituted panels on any topic pertaining to women, gender, and/or sexuality. This year, we especially welcome feminist research on: new directions in social movements (Occupy, Tea Party, Arab Spring, and other uprisings); new directions in feminist theory (the new materialisms, animal studies, disability, affect studies); debt (housing, medical, educational, generational); the archive (transformations in the historical, recycling, repurposing, reviving); social media (marketing, aggression, sexuality); intimacy politics (reproduction, kinship, caretaking labor, healthcare, marriage); and feminist representations now (media, politics and the arts).
CSW accepts submissions for both individual papers and pre-constituted panels from all active graduate students. In order to give everyone an opportunity to present, we do not accept submissions from people who presented at Thinking Gender in the previous year. Also no previously published material is eligible.
Students proposing individual papers are to submit a cover page (provided on our website), an abstract (250 words), a CV (2 pages maximum), and a brief bibliography (3 to 5 sources), for consideration. All components are to be delivered in one document and labeled according to the submission guidelines found on the CSW website. For panels, a 250-word description of the panel topic is required, in addition to the materials that must be provided for individual paper submissions.
For a more detailed description of submission guidelines, please visit: http://www.csw.ucla.edu/conferences/thinking-gender/thinking-gender-2013
Send submissions to: thinkinggender@csw.ucla.edu
Deadline for Submissions: Tuesday, October 16th, 2012 by 12 noon
Conference to be held on Friday, February 1, 2013, at the UCLA Faculty Center
Event is free and open to the public, but please be aware that there will be a $30 registration fee for presenters, which will cover the cost of conference materials and lunch at the Faculty Center.
UCLA Center for the Study of Women
1500 Public Affairs Building/Box 957222
Los Angeles, CA 90095-7222
310 825 0590
www.csw.ucla.edu
thinkinggender@csw.ucla.edu
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*CFP: Queer Failure in Flesh and Blood*
*Proposed Panel for the UNC Asheville Queer Studies Conference, April 4-6,
2013*
With the publication of *The Queer Art of Failure* in 2011, Judith
Halberstam joined a robust conversation in queer theory about negative
affect (along with David Halperin on gay shame, Lee Edelman on queer
nihilism, Heather Love on queer loss, Sara Ahmed on the problematic promise
of happiness, and Lauren Berlant on the false hope of optimism). On March
26, 2012, a panel was convened at
NYU http://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/bullybloggers-on-failure-and-the-future-of-queer-studies/ to
explore the topic in detail with Gayatri Gopinath, Lisa Duggan, Tavia
Nyong’o, Ann Pellegrini, Jose Munoz, and Jack Halberstam. Queer theory
currently loves it some failure.
And indeed there is a certain intellectual pleasure in this
counterintuitive embrace of: negativity, failing, forgetting, radical passivity, refusal, unknowing, unbecoming, a certain relief in the invitation to let go of the idea that our lives
should be evaluated according to a neoliberal heteronormative
late-capitalist free market politic. But in the wake of this pleasure and
relief, there is also (the discomfort of? the anxiety of? the failure of?)
an unresolved question: *What does this look like in everyday life?*
Halberstam examines this notion of failure as a meaningful site of
political resistance in the contexts of popular culture (e.g., Pixarvolt,
dude comedy, mumblecore, the silly archive), feminist theory (e.g., the
shadow feminisms of Spivak, Spillars, Solanas), and a non-heroic queer
history (e.g. white gay men within the Nazi party). For this proposed panel
on “Queer Failure in Flesh and Blood,” abstracts are solicited for papers
that shift the terrain from representation to lived realities.
We are especially interested in autoethnographic projects that amass thick
descriptions of a particular part of the author’s life experience
*and*theorize that experience in ways that demonstrate, illuminate,
problematize, and/or contest theories of queer failure. Proposals that do
not explicitly theorize personal experience will not be considered.
Some possible points of departure:
·What are the liberatory dimensions of moving against progression
and succession?
·What are the consequences of failure?
·Do we all want to fail better?
·What are the implications of failure for radical queer activist
projects, queer body projects, or queer relationships?
·Can you fail and still be an activist?
·What are the potentialities of shadow feminisms for queer
borderwork in the current historical moment?
·What does it mean in the everyday lives of queers of color to
associate postcolonial feminism and/or black womanism with the idiom of
failure?
Send 150-word paper proposals and a one-page CV in Word documents to both
of the panel co-organizers, Lisa Johnson (mjohnson@uscupstate.edu) and
Desiree Rowe (drowe@uscupstate.edu), by October 22, 2012.
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Added 7/31/12
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Call for papers
International Conference on "Women's Histories: The Local and the Global"
Sheffield Hallem University,
Sheffield, UK,
August 29-September 1, 2013
International Federation for Research in Women's History and Women's History Network
DEADLINE 31 OCTOBER 2012
International Federation for Research in Women's History and Women's History Network, UK: call for papers for International Conference on 'Women's Histories: the Local and the Global' to be held 29th August to 1st September 2013 at Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK.
This international conference will explore the history of women worldwide, from archaic to contemporary periods. Engaging with the recent global and transnational turns in historical scholarship, it will examine the ways in which histories of women can draw on and reshape these approaches to understanding the past. It will focus on developing gendered histories of globalisation that explore the complex interplay between the local and the global, and on exploring the relationship between nation-based traditions of womens history writing and transnational approaches which examine connections and comparisons between womens lives in different localities. Key questions to be addressed are:
How can womens histories reshape our understanding of the relationship between the local and the global?
What implications does a transnational framework of analysis have for nation-based traditions of writing womens history?
Keynote speakers will include: Mrinalini Sinha, Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of History, University of Michigan; Catherine Hall, Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History, University College London.
Strand themes:
You are invited to submit proposals for individual papers or panels (3 papers plus commentator) relating to the following strands:
1. The impact of global change on womens lives in specific localities.
2. Relations between women in the context of global inequalities of power.
3. Womens local responses and resistances to imperialism and globalisation.
4. Women, migrations, diasporas.
5. Empires at home: women in imperial metropoles.
6. Women as local producers, traders and consumers in a globalising economy.
7. Womens life histories and personal relationships across geo-political divides.
8. Womens involvement in transnational networks.
9. National womens histories in comparative perspective.
10. Teaching womens history in a globalising world.
11. The place of the global in local, community and public histories of women.
Conference languages: English and French
Please submit your proposal online through the conference website http://www.ifrwh2013conf.org.uk/submit-paper
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CALL FOR PAPERS
Demeter Press is seeking submissions for an edited collection on
Cinema and the Mother: Motherhood in
Contemporary World Cinemas
Editor: Dr. Asma Sayed
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: October 31, 2012!
Mother figure plays an essential role in cinema. Films have, by and large,
presented a stereotypical role of
a mother wherein she is hailed for her sacrifices and hated for having any
personal desires.
Representation of motherhood in world cinemas has either been framed
within patriarchal norms or within
nationalist discourses in which mother figure symbolizes the nation.
Patriarchy glorifies motherhood, and
cinema as an institution reflecting socio-cultural reality has tended to
idealize motherhood; depending on
the ethno-cultural paradigms, mother figure is presented either as angelic
or demonic, thus erasing the
normative image. While cinema can and does impact the perceptions of its
audiences, and thus has the
power to make or break stereotypes, rarely have films experimented with
the notion of motherhood; the
resistant mother, although not unheard of, is a rare character.
This collection will provide an analysis of how motherhood has been
represented in various filmic
traditions. Papers dealing with any cultural tradition are welcome;
however, preference may be given to
non-Hollywood traditions. Understanding of motherhood both as an
individual performance and as an
institution has mostly been a post-1980s phenomenon; as such, the
collection will focus on contemporary
cinema.
Topics can also include (but are not limited to):
Close textual analysis of a film/films; analysis of depiction of
motherhood in a particular filmic tradition –
for example, Korean, Iranian, Indian, Greek, British, Canadian, Japanese,
Chinese, Brazilian etc.; issues
such as mise en scène, genre, cinematography, editing, etc. in light of
portrayal of motherhood; angelic
mothers, demonic mothers, sacrificial mothers, selfish mothers, resisting
mothers, ideal mothers, etc.;
cinema as mother; mother as cinema; and nation as mother, mother as nation
– in cinema
Submission guidelines:
Abstracts: 300 words. Please include a 50-word biography (with citizenship
information)
Deadline for abstracts is October 31, 2012
Please send submissions and inquiries directly to:
Dr. Asma Sayed asayed@ualberta.ca
Completed manuscripts not exceeding 20 pages will be due May 2013,
and should conform to MLA guidelines.
Acceptance is contingent and will depend upon the strength and fit of the
final piece.
DEMETER PRESS
140 Holland St. West, PO Box 13022
Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5 (tel) 905-775-5215
http://www.demeterpress.org info@demeterpress.org
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Call for Papers: Migration and Forced Labor (Deadline October 31)
The Open Society Institute is calling for position papers for an
edited volume on human trafficking titled, Human Trafficking:
Reconsidering the Problem, edited by Rhacel Parreñas and Kimberly Kay
Hoang. The editors seek manuscripts from scholars and practitioners
from all academic disciplines (economics, law, social sciences, gender
and sexuality studies, public policy, health, and business). People
working with relevant NGO’s, government agencies, and public health
organizations are also invited to submit their work. Open Society will
publish the volume in 2013.
The current literature on human trafficking focuses overwhelmingly on
the issue of sex trafficking often overlooking the problem of “human
trafficking” through the lens of migration and “forced labor”. A focus
on “forced labor” avoids conflating trafficking with prostitution, and
at the same time calls attention to the susceptibility of a wide range
of migrant workers, not just sex workers, to human trafficking. The
volume thus, seeks papers on trafficked persons that include not only
sex workers but also agricultural, construction, factory, and domestic
workers to understand the structures and systems that render migrant
workers vulnerable to human trafficking.
In an attempt to expand the literature and research on human
trafficking, this volume will consider a wide array of jobs that leave
migrant workers vulnerable to human trafficking. We seek papers that
describe how the conditions, structures, social institutions, and
systems of various occupations leave workers vulnerable to forced
labor and human trafficking. We will focus on the following themes:
- The vulnerability of migrant workers in the 21st century,
including sex workers, agricultural workers, construction workers, and
domestic workers among many others.
- The systematic ways that social institutions such as broker
industries and guest worker programs impact human trafficking
- Papers that work to provide a more precise definition for
the concept of exploitation that systematically accounts for the
gradations of indenture among victims of “human trafficking,” by
distinguishing between peonage, servitude, and slavery
- Papers that predict long-term consequences of forced labor
by examining the reintegration of rescued trafficked victims and the
plight of the children and families of migrant workers vulnerable to
forced labor
In addressing the themes above, we hope to provide a more systematic
understanding of the problem of human trafficking that recognizes the
structural problems caused by institutions and systems of migration.
Position papers should be written in a style that is accessible to
non-academic audiences and no longer than 3500 words (15 double-spaced
pages) including all relevant citations.
Please submit papers to: Kimberly Kay Hoang via email at
kayhoang@rice.edu no later than October 31, 2012. Acceptance
notifications will be made by November 30, 2012. Please Direct all
questions and correspondence via postal mail to: Kimberly Kay Hoang |
Rice University | 6100 Main St Mech Lab 210 | P.O. Box 1892 MS-38 |
Houston, TX 77005.
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CALL FOR PAPERS
Demeter Press is seeking submissions for an edited collection on
Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions
Of Modern Motherhood
Editor: Dr. Linda Ennis
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: March 1, 2013!
To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Sharon Hays’ landmark book, “The
Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood”, this collection will revisit Hays’
concept of “intensive mothering” as a continuing, yet controversial
representation of modern motherhood. In Hays’ original work, she spoke of
“intensive mothering” as primarily being conducted by mothers, centered on
children’s needs with methods informed by experts, which are
labour-intensive and costly simply because children are entitled to this
maternal investment. While respecting the important need for connection
between mother and baby that is prevalent in the teachings of Attachment
Theory, this collection raises into question whether an over-investment of
mothers in their children’s lives is as effective a mode of parenting, as
being conveyed by representations of modern motherhood. In a world where
independence is encouraged, why are we still engaging in “intensive
motherhood”?
Topics can also include (but are not limited to):
Reconciling early childhood theory with intensive mothering; the impact of
Sharon Hays work; comparing intensive motherhood today with that of the
90s; motives behind intensive mothering; independence and dependency;
working/stay-at-home mothers and intensive motherhood; empty nest and
intensive mothering; the mommy track and intensive mothering; intensive
mothering throughout the life-span; fathers and intensive mothering;
economics of intensive motherhood; self-centeredness, perfectionism and
intensive motherhood; ambivalence, guilt and intensive mothering; career
success and intensive mothering; education and intensive mothering; the
role of the school in condoning intensive motherhood; the decline of the
family unit and intensive mothering; the use of technology to maintain
intensive mothering; single mothers and intensive mothering; immigrant
mothers and intensive mothering; grandmothers and intensive mothering;
intensiv
e mothering from a distance; intensive mothering and medical
well-being; depression and intensive mothering; stories about intensive
mothering experiences; intensive motherhood, as portrayed in literature.
Submission guidelines:
Abstracts: 250 words. Please include a 50-word biography
Deadline for abstracts is March 1, 2013
Please send submissions and inquiries directly to: Dr. Linda Ennis
lrennis@rogers.com
Completed manuscripts not exceeding 20 pages will be due September 2014,
and should conform to MLA guidelines.
Acceptance is contingent and will depend upon the strength and fit of the
final piece.
DEMETER PRESS
140 Holland St. West, PO Box 13022
Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5 (tel) 905-775-5215
http://www.demeterpress.org info@demeterpress.org
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Call for Papers
*WSQ* Special Issue: Engage!
Guest Editors: David A. Gerstner & Cynthia Chris
“I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.” — Oscar
Wilde
“There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked
people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don’t
expect you to save the world I do not think it’s asking to much for you to
love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call
friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life
those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.”
— Nikki Giovanni
“We were engaged once though, weren't we?. . . But you were the one that
called off the engagement, do ya remember? I'm still available.” — John
“Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) to Midge Wood (Barbara Bel Geddes) in *
Vertigo* (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
The declarative verb “engage” occupies cross-purposes. “To engage” spans
innumerable social and cultural arenas: business, politics, sex, and other
activities in which we *engage*. The word means, in some senses, to begin,
to attract, to hire: she engaged me in conversation; the driver engaged the
clutch. In other senses, the word indicates an invitation, a promise, a
binding occupation: one engages by hiring, by engaging in a business, or in
politics; one is betrothed to a beloved in the act of engagement. An
engagement is entangling, drawing together participants in a cooperating
unit (a workplace, a relationship, a contractual agreement) even as that
entangling may be one of violent division: troops may engage in battle.
Yet: engagement is more than co-presence, it is relational: at work or in
love, one can simply go through the motions or one can engage with a vigor
that is both actively corporeal and soulfully internalized. To engage
encompasses processes of both settin
g in motion and sustaining a
commitment, both to splice and to confront. To disengage, even, is to begin
again in relation to some other being or entity; that is, to re-engage.
We are interested in the dynamic of all forms of engagement, and seek to
explore its valence in explorations of the various kinds of engagements
that gather individuals into pairings, partnerships, or groups, *with
particular attention given to the gendered stakes and sexual aspects
involved in engagement. *We are moved by discussions informed by feminist
and queer theory that regard how one engages (explicitly or implicitly) in
social alliances and political work. Consider for example, “The Tyranny of
Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman (1972), “The Personal Is Political” by
Carol Hanisch (1969), the anonymous manifesto “Queers Read This/I Hate
Straights” (1990); Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner’s engagements of
sexuality in the public sphere in “Sex in Public” (1998); Michael Worton’s
theoretical engagement of erotic practices in “Cruising (Through)
Encounters” (1998); and the engaging interrogation of pedagogy in “Teaching
Shame” by Ellis Hanson (2009).
Such an inquiry—at once etymological, theoretical, and practical—is
necessarily broad-based. But it allows us to ask: What does it mean to
begin, to broach, to breach a public, political, or cultural sphere? How do
the dynamics of academic disciplines, relational, social, and political
engagements inform one another? How are our relationships to work, play,
ideas, institutions, identities, bodies (our own and others’), defined by
the degree to which we engage, through indifference, resistance, denial,
hostility, advocacy, identification, fandom, or action? What deconstructive
possibilities does the imperative—*to engage—*invite given its generous
applications in contemporary culture?
We invite scholarly submissions—as well as poetry, prose, and visual
essays—that approach engagement or the imperative, “to engage,” from a
variety of methodological perspectives. Suggested topics to engage
include, but are not limited to:
o The erotics of being engaged by technology: engaging avatars,
engaging with machines; gendered gadgetry and digital fetishes;
o Engagement marketing: identity politics of evangelistic branding
campaigns; the tactility of word-of-mouth branding;
o Academic engagements: feminist and queer pedagogy and
interdisciplinarity; practices of engagement in sociology, anthropology and
other disciplines;
o Getting engaged: marriage, monogamy, polyamoury, flirtation,
seduction; trans-, genderqueer and refusing to engage gender binaries;
public sex, sex work; coupling, uncoupling;
o Gendered practices in partisan polemics, flip-flopping, direct
action, occupation, military engagement, civil disobedience, joining,
supporting, standing by.
For academic work, please send articles by October 1, 2012 to the guest
editors, Cynthia Chris and David Gerstner at WSQEngageIssue@gmail.com.
Please send complete articles, not abstracts. Submission should not exceed
22 double spaced, 12 point font pages (including references) and should
comply with the formatting guidelines at
http://www.feministpress.org/wsq/submission-guidelines.
Poetry submissions should be sent to WSQ's poetry editor, Kathleen Ossip,
at WSQpoetry@gmail.com by October 1, 2012. Please review previous issues of
WSQ to see what type of submissions we prefer before submitting poems.
Please note that poetry submissions may be held for six months or longer.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if the poetry editor is notified
immediately of acceptance elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been
previously published. Please paste poetry submissions into the body of the
e-mail along with all contact information.
Fiction, essay, and memoir submissions should be sent to WSQ's
fiction/nonfiction editor, Nicole Cooley, at WSQCreativeProse@gmail.com by
October 1, 2012. Please review previous issues of WSQ to see what type of
submissions we prefer before submitting prose. Please note that prose
submissions may be held for six months or longer. Simultaneous submissions
are acceptable if the prose editor is notified immediately of acceptance
elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been previously published. Please
provide all contact information in the body of the e-mail.
Art submissions should be sent to Margot Bouman at WSQArt@gmail.com by
October 1, 2012. After art is reviewed and accepted, accepted art must be
sent to the journal's managing editor on a CD that includes all artwork of
300 DPI or greater, saved as 4.25 inches wide or larger. These files should
be saved as individual JPEGS or TIFFS.
“Engage!” — Captain Jean-Luc Picard, *Star Trek: The Next Generation*
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The National Political Science Review (NPSR)
Invitation to the Scholarly Community
The editors of The National Political Science Review (NPSR) invite submissions from the scholarly community for review and possible publication for a Special Issue on:
BLACK WOMEN IN POLITICS:
MOVING FORWARD -- NEW QUESTIONS, NEW DIRECTIONS
A recent study, appearing in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, suggests that Black women are often rendered invisible in the social sphere. This study brings to light what we might already know via anecdotal evidence. However, it leaves us wondering how do we study Black women? When Black women are the subjects of the research, must they always be compared to other racial/ethnic groups? Which methodologies and methods are better suited for unearthing and explaining Black women's experiences as political and social actors? And, finally what new knowledges are produced when interdisciplinary approaches and unconventional methodologies and methods are employed?
In addressing these questions, this special issue seeks to interact with and advance the continuum of Black women's studies with a special focus on Black women and politics. The editors are soliciting articles for a themed issue of the National Political Science Review (NPSR) to be published in 2014. This special edition will be devoted to (1) questions of epistemology and the politics of knowledge production; and (2) the lives and lived realities of Black women--their cultures and politics, their representations in media, their involvement in new media, and their activism. We invite research length papers on Black women in politics and Black gender politics from a wide range of disciplines including Black women's studies, political science, religion, Black Studies, sociology, Women's Studies, and philosophy among others. Papers may take any theoretical and or methodological perspective that centers Black women’s political phenomena — broadly defined. All submissions should
be written in a manner that is accessible to a wide scholarly audience. Papers should be no longer than 25 pages, inclusive of notes and references, and should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition). We especially encourage papers that employ not only quantitative, but also qualitative and interpretive methodologies, which analyze and explain the triumphs and challenges faced by Black women domestically and globally. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which feminist and womanist scholars have challenged disciplinary conventions in producing transformative, interdisciplinary knowledge. Articles may be inspired by, but are certainly not limited to, the following themes:
* Black women and reproductive justice
* Black women's response to nation states, colonialism and neo-colonialism
* Black women’s contemporary social and political activism
* Black women’s experience with and negotiation of the criminal justice system
* Black women and the politics of representation: sexuality, media, and/or texts
* Black women’s informal political participation in movements and organizations
* The politics of knowledge production
* Transformational approaches to intersectionality scholarship
* Black women in international relations and comparative politics
* Black women in politics, new social media, and virtual social networks
The NPSR is a refereed journal of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Its editions appear annually and comprise the highest quality scholarship related to the experiences of African Americans in the American political community, as well as in the wider reach of the African Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere. It also focuses on the international links between African Americans and the larger community of nations, particularly with Africa.
Please email submissions and cover letter, no later than October 1, 2012, to:
Dr. Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd at ngaf@rci.rutgers.edu AND Dr. Julia Jordan-Zachery at jjordanz@providence.edu.
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M/C Journal Special Issue: 'Marriage'
The question of what 'marriage' is, and what it is capable of becoming, has increasingly become a hot topic across many countries. In Australia, a key turning point occurred when the then Howard goverment amended the Marriage Act to explicitly restrict marriage to the union of one legally recognised man to one legally recognised woman (a fact that has significant implications for those whose natally-assigned identity does not accord with their actual identity, as well as 'same-sex' couples). In response to this, and echoing successful (and unsuccessful) movements in other countries, legislation is now being presented to both State and Federal Parliaments seeking to allow same-sex (or 'gay,' in some popular iterations) marriage to be legalised in Australia.
This restriction on, and petition for access to, marriage in Australia highlights something of the polarised nature of debates over marriage in this country. This plays out in many ways across a range of communities, such as when political parties take positions on what marriage is or ought to be - and on whether it is a matter of public morality or individual conscience. In regards to those excluded from marriage, some lobby governments for access to marriage, whilst others critique such lobbying for failing to challenge the privileging of particular kinds of relationships in regards to, for example, the racialised, classed, sexed, sexualised and normalising effects of marriage. And of course some (typically religious) groups lobby governments to maintain marriage as a heterosexual, reproductive institution, the alleged cornerstone of a stable society.
At the same time as these polarising debates go on, weddings and marriages remain sites of intense affective and consumerist investment. Pop culture continues to return to engagements, marriages and weddings, often thereby revealing contemporary anxieties about sex, gender, love, intimacy and relationships. The wedding industry has taken off, with large sums of money spent in producing one 'perfect day'. In the cultural imaginary, marriage remains, at least ideally, a key step in the imagined trajectory of an individual's life.
This issue of /M/C Journal/ seeks to provide a forum for accessible but critical discussions of the current imagining of marriage. Papers might seek to provide an account of the current 'marriage equality' movement in Australia or elsewhere, critical engagements with such movements, discussion of the interplay between the institutional and personal investments in concepts of marriage, discussion of marriage's current form as depicted in filmic, televisual or other texts, discussion of the continuing affective investment in marriage, or any other critical reading of marriage and the debates that surround it in Australia.
Prospective contributors should email an abstract of 100-250 words and a brief biography to the issue editors. Abstracts should include the article title and should describe your research question, approach, and argument. Biographies should be about three sentences (maximum 75 words) and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. Articles should be 3000 words (plus bibliography). All articles will be refereed and must adhere to MLA style (6th edition).
Details
* Article deadline: 12 Oct. 2012**
* Release date: 12 Dec. 2012
* Editors: Jess Cadwallader and Damien Riggs
Please submit articles through the website: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal. Send any enquiries to marriage@journal.media-culture.org.au <mailto:marriage@journal.media-culture.org.au>.
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Added 7/3/12
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Special Issue on New Conversations in Feminist Disability Studies
August 15, 2013 submission deadline
Volume 30, Issue 1, Winter 2015
Edited by Kim Q. Hall
Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy is seeking new work for a special issue on disability with the general theme of New Conversations in Feminist Disability Studies. In 2001 Hypatia published its first special issue on feminist philosophy and disability. Since that time, there has been a great deal of disability scholarship in feminist and queer theory. A new special issue provides the opportunity to consider interventions, innovations, and transformations in feminist theory occasioned by theories and concepts that animate feminist disability studies, disability studies, queer disability studies/crip theory.
Within philosophy, much of the discussion of disability has occurred in the areas of bioethics, ethics of care, and social and political philosophy. This work remains crucial for furthering philosophical understanding of disability. In addition to these areas of philosophy, this special issue seeks to provide a space for new feminist philosophical analyses of disability, as well as new feminist, queer, and feminist queer crip conversations between scholarship on disability in ethics and social and political philosophy and scholarship on disability in epistemology, science studies, environmental philosophy, ecofeminism, queer ecology, aesthetics, critical race theory, metaphysics, phenomenology, and queer theory. Papers on any topic pertaining to feminist or feminist queer crip analyses of disability are welcome, including (but not limited to) the following:
-Disability and Phenomenology
-Disability and epistemologies of ignorance
-Disability, gender, race, class, and sexuality
-Disability, national identity, and nationalism
-Disability and/as “assemblage”
-Disability and the question of “the animal”
-Disability and posthumanism
-Disability, ethics, and politics
-Disability and globalization
-Access, accommodation, quality of life
-Bodies and borders
-Able-bodiedness and able-mindedness
-Disability and environmentalism, ecology, ecofeminism, and/or queer ecology
-Disability, feminist materialism, and “agential realism”
-The relationship between impairment and disability identity
-Illness, disease, impairment, bodily limitation, pain, failure
-Disability and the meaning and/or experience of sex and gender, transgender, and intersex
-Disability and orientation/ reorientation/ disorientation of understandings of time and space
-Disability, feminist materialism, and “agential realism”
-Disability and critical analyses of science, scientific knowledge, nature, and human nature
-Feminist/queer/crip perspectives on the Occupy Movement and other global movements for economic, environmental, social, and political justice
-The meaning of art and aesthetic concepts through the lens of disability
-Rethinking the canon of western philosophy through the lens of feminist disability studies
Deadline for submission: August 15, 2013.
Papers should be no more than 8000 words, inclusive of notes and bibliography, prepared for anonymous review, and accompanied by an abstract of no more than 200 words. For details please see Hypatia's submission guidelineshttp://depts.washington.edu/hypatia/submission_guidelines.html
Please submit your paper to manuscript central (Wiley-Blackwell) website: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hypa.
When you submit, make sure to select “Disability” as your manuscript type, and also send an email to the guest editor, Kim Q. Hall: hallki@appstate.edu, indicating the title of the paper you have submitted.
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Added 6/19/12
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Call for submissions- a special issue of Woolf Studies Annual on
Virginia Woolf and Jews/Jewishness
The 2013 volume of Woolf Studies Annual will be devoted to the topic of Jews
and/or Jewishness in Woolf's writing. We are less interested in the
question of whether or not Woolf herself was or was not antisemitic (except
insofar as this can be articulated in readings of her texts) than in how the
figure of the Jew operates within her work.
The special issue is not limited to work on Virginia Woolf herself, but also
will welcome contributions on Leonard Woolf, and on the Bloomsbury milieu.
In addition to full-length articles, we also envisage a forum of short
commentary, and an annotated bibliography.
Forum
We invite brief commentary of up to 750 words on a relevant short passage
from Woolf's writing: for example, from the "Present Day" chapter of The
Years; "The Duchess and the Jeweller"; "Street Haunting"; Three Guineas;
Between the Acts, and elsewhere-there is no limitation on what you might
select.
Additionally, we welcome brief statements in response to the following broad
questions:
. How do Woolf's representations of Jews compare with those of other
modernist writers?
. How have treatments of Woolf's antisemitism/prejudice figured
within Woolf scholarship?
. In treating this topic within Woolf's work, what are the salient
issues?
. What is the relation between her fiction and the extensive
biographical record of Woolf's comments/ruminations about Jews and
Jewishness available in her letters, diaries, and memoirs?
A number of such brief commentaries and statements would then be shared for
response, and the opportunity for dialogue enabled, with the resulting texts
published as a forum on the topic.
Annotated Bibliography
Recommendations for previously published scholarship and sources on the
topic are also welcome and will be included as an annotated bibliography in
the special issue.
Deadlines
Forum commentaries/statements: June 30 2012
Full-length articles (8,000-10,000 words): August 30 2012-N.B. WSA
submission guidelines apply (see http://www.pace.edu/press/journals/woolf-studies-annual)
Annotated Bibliography recommendations: November 15 2012
(General articles on any topic may continue to be submitted for
consideration.)
Please direct all correspondence, inquiries, submissions to
woolfstudiesannual@gmail.com
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- Center for Feminist Research
- University of Southern California
- Mark Taper Hall of Humanities
- Room 422
- 3501 Trousdale Parkway
- Los Angeles, California
- 90089-4352 USA
- Phone: (213) 740 - 1739
- Email: cfr@usc.edu