Showing posts with label essays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essays. Show all posts

27 July 2011

Call for Papers for Edited Volume: Women Writers and Queer Desire

Deadline: 21 August 2011

After the success of our book Women on Women; we are looking for quality papers on women writers across boundaries of nation/state/age/class. Suggested Topics:
  • Women and sexuality
  • Women and Queer desire
  • Lesbian Studies
  • Women and nation
  • women and change
  • Women and Sensuality
  • Women and religion

Please send a 150-200 word abstract along with a brief bio to asha.choubey@gmail.com by 21 August 2011. Full papers shall be expected by 30 December 2011.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: asha.choubey@gmail.com

For submissions: asha.choubey@gmail.com

Website: read about the book Women on Women here
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25 July 2011

Call for Submissions to Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics: Special Issue on Boys' Love Manga

Deadline: 14 October 2011

Boys' love emerged in the late 1960s as women in Japan began creating commercial manga (comics) about young males in homoerotic relationships and self-publishing similarly-themed comics called dōjinshi using young male characters taken from popular shōnen (boys) manga. The stories show the characters trying to overcome obstacles in order to connect or bond romantically. The genre has gained popularity in many world regions. Beginning in the second half of the 1990s, boys' love became popular in the West, where it is generally called yaoi, from the acronym of the tongue-in-cheek description "yamanashi, ochinashi, iminashi," or "no climax,no point, no meaning."

Fans use the genre in subversive and oppositional ways, reading or creating boys’ love as a form of resistance and challenge to gender norms, such as the female-objectifying "male gaze," and as expressions of ambivalence in relation to these norms. The latter, in particular, is shown in the recently recognized fact that a number of heterosexual males also create and consume BL narratives.

We seek to make this special issue inclusive of expressions of boys' love and yaoi worldwide, multifaceted and interdisciplinary. We hope to reflect fan diversity, explore previously unexplored areas, and suggest ideas for future research.

We are seeking essays of 5,000 to 7,000 words.

Topics might include:

The history of shōjo (girls’) comics in Japan as it influenced, framed, and grounded the development of the boys' love genre; Current legal and censorship issues related to boys' love, especially in the context of comic history, such as the recently enacted youth protection amendment in the Tokyo prefecture and the proposed Internet filtering in Australia; The practices and identities of fans who create and consume this genre, including fujoshi (female BL fans), fudanshi (self-identified heterosexual male fans), and otaku (all fans); The inception, growth, and marketing strategies of the publishing industries that include or are entirely dedicated to boys' love comics, especially compared to those that publish gay comics or heterosexual adult comics; Concepts of "race" and ethnicity as they manifest in boys' love and yaoi; Discursive analysis of media responses to the boys’ love/yaoi genre and to fans’ activities;

Queer discourses within and about boys' love and yaoi, such as their potential for a subsumption, by female boys' love artists and writers, of gay/queer male discourses; Comparison of boys' love and yaoi expressions in world regions; Reading strategies of fans; The distribution of boys' love comics over new media, such as mobile phone novels, microblogs, and image boards such as 4chan; Copyright issues related to boys' love, such as the ethics of making scanlations of untranslated works and the poaching in dōjinshi of commercially published characters; Artistic and iconographic developments and differences within the genre over time and between national cultures; Self-reflexivity within the comics as males read boys' love comics for same-s3x romantic or s3xual "tips," are supported by female boys' love fans, or work within the manga publishing industry.

We are looking for articles from multiple disciplines and theoretical approaches. The primary focus would be manga (printed and electronic), but we would hope to include at least an overview of non-manga genres, too, to provide context and a sense of the genre's scope.

Please submit abstracts of between 250-300 words no later than October 14, 2011 to editors@yaoiresearch.com

Contact Information:

For inquiries: editors@yaoiresearch.com

For submissions: editors@yaoiresearch.com

Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=2150-4857&linktype=38
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20 July 2011

Call for Essays - Rejecting the Bedroom: Sex and Sexuality as a Site of Queer Resistance and Space (Ruca Press)

Deadline: 1 November 2011

Rejecting the Bedroom: Sex and Sexuality as a Site of Queer Resistance and Space

“It’s all about sex.” — The opening line and closing remarks to the North American television series Queer As Folk. But really, what is sex? Through an interdisciplinary approach this project explores sex and sexuality as tropes and markers of queerness. This work responds to the hegemonic cultural gaze on queer sexual behavior by reclaiming sex and disrupting/blurring the lines of the limiting constructions of the private space: rejecting the bedroom.

The bedroom has, essentially, become a new closet for queers. The hegemonic heteronormative culture echos that it’s okay for queer people to fuck each other, so as long as they keep it in the bedroom—”we just don’t want to see it.” Anti-gay legislation and the acceptance of the nuclear model of relationships has forced queers into bedroom, silenced, to have to sex like our heterosexual counterparts. This work thus gives a voice to queer sex and, essentially, allows sexuality to define the essence of queerness; because even when it’s not about sex, it is still about sex.

We do consider, however, that while this project works to ‘reject’ the bedroom, it also raises the question of whether or not (and how) we can reclaim the bedroom and queer that space on our own terms.

We are especially interested in serious critically engaging essays about queer sexual politics, public sexual cultures, cruising, polyamory, sex and spiritual/religious identity, HIV/AIDS, sexual consumerism, porn, conceptualizations of sex as space, sexualities outside of the U.S., and sexual and gender transgression. We are looking for essays that question the social and political hierarchies of sex and sexuality, that engage different sexual cultures based on race, class, gender, body type, ability, and sexual identity.

The basics:

We are accepting well-written, sophisticated essays for the Rejecting the Bedroom anthology until November 1, 2011.

Successful submission packets will include a cover page that provides the writer’s contact information and a brief bio (150-300 words). All submissions should be double-spaced, in Times New Roman (12pt) font.

As a small press, Ruca Press is unable to provide monetary compensation for submissions. Contributors will receive 2 contributor copies of the book and will be able to purchase additional copies of the book at-cost.

Send submissions to:

Please email all submissions to submissions@rucapress.com in a single Word (.doc or .docx) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) attachment. Be sure to include the following in the subject line: “Bedroom Submission: YourLastName.”

Please direct all questions and concerns regarding Submission Guidelines to info@rucapress.com.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: info@rucapress.com

For submissions: submissions@rucapress.com

Website: http://www.rucapress.com/
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07 July 2011

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Journal of Homosexuality

Deadline: 31 August 2011

The Journal of Homosexuality invites the submission of abstracts for a special issue expected to publish in Fall 2012.

Guest Editors: Lance Wahlert and Autumn Fiester

This special issue will consider the spaces, places, and localities in which bioethical concerns and dilemmas arise. Recent scholarship in bioethics, disability, studies, and queer theory has focused prominently on the institutional and circumstantial factors that impact the appreciations, services, and needs of marginalized populations.

To that end, numerous scholars from a variety of traditions have weighed-in on the spatial and organizational strategies of municipalities, nations, and other governing bodies to consider the complexities and sensitivities of those in need of health care services. Bearing in mind this recent intellectual trend, this special issue will provide discourse on a as-yet-unacknowledged question: How do we appreciate and understand the special needs and special sensitivities of queer parties in the clinical realm given the constraints of location, space, and geography?

Accordingly, we seek contributors from numerous disciplines to provide insights on how queer health needs might be space and place specific. How do the needs of trans persons differ in the clinic, in the classroom, and in the boardroom? Does the pedagogical value of queer-positive sex education policies differ in the high school, in the courtroom, and in the legislative house? Do the ethics of safe(r) s3x standards change when we consider disparate spaces such as bathhouse, the tearoom, the bedroom, and the hospital? Does the act of memorializing queer health and queer s3xuality change between the archive, the home, the church, and the art gallery? More boldly (and perhaps more discerningly), what continuities can we identify across these various spaces?

This special issue will attempt to 'map' (literally and figuratively) the healthcare sensitivities of LGBTQ persons, considering these over-arching questions:

-- What are the prominent, queer sites of contention, contagion, and discourse?
-- How does the proximity of these spaces (as safe or otherwise) affect and effect their (il)legitimacy?
-- Where do we posit the queerness of healthcare; and the health of queerness?
-- With maps literally included in this special issue, what does the topgraphy, geography, and spatiality of queer health look like cartographically? And how is this a useful strategy?

Abstract submissions should be 1,000-1,500 words in length and are due by August 31, 2011. Abstract should be submitted to: submissions@queerbioethics.com

Contact Information:

For inquiries: submissions@queerbioethics.com

For submissions: submissions@queerbioethics.com

Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/WJHM
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Call for Submissions: Memorial Book on the Life of David Kato, African LGBT Activist

Deadline: 16 December 2011

This is a call for materials for a biographical book on the life, work and legacy of David Kisule Kato the deceased Ugandan human rights defender for s3xual (and other) minorities. The biography is being developed and written by researchers in the Law, Gender and S3xuality Research Project of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University Kampala. We are interested in a range of materials including essays, fiction, poetry, web blogs, art, crafts, photographs, film, documentaries, speeches, diaries, letters and other correspondence, music, academic publications, etc. that reflect any aspect of the life and work of David Kato. We invite materials from family, friends, lovers, partners, colleagues, allies, students, other human rights defenders and advocates, social justice activists, s3xual minorities, academics, clerics, parliamentarians, journalists and anyone else with something (whether positive or negative) to say about David Kato�s life, work and legacy.

Materials about the different commemoration activities and memorial events held after David�s death are also welcome. The materials will be collected alongside interviews and focus group
discussions conducted in rural and urban Uganda among those who knew David Kato. Although the main language of the biography will be English, relevant materials written in Luganda, Kiswahili, French, Portugese, Spanish and any other African tongue will be translated for inclusion. The deadline for submission is 16th December 2011. All received materials will
be duly acknowledged.

Please send material to:

Stella Nyanzi,
Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project,
Faculty of Law,
P. O. Box 7062, Kampala � Uganda.
Email: snyanzi@law.mak.ac.ug or
stellanyanzibah@googlemail.com

Contact Information:

For inquiries: snyanzi@law.mak.ac.ug or stellanyanzibah@googlemail.com

For submissions: snyanzi@law.mak.ac.ug or stellanyanzibah@googlemail.com
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02 July 2011

Call for Submissions: Sexualities and Children's Cultures (special issue of Children's Literature Association Quarterly)

Deadline: 1 November 2011

Co-editors Thomas Crisp and Lance Weldy invite papers that address any aspect of these ongoing conversations, including (but not limited to):

Papers should conform to the usual style of ChLAQ and be between 5000-7000 words in length. Please submit completed essays to Thomas Crisp (tcrisp@sar.usf.edu) by 1 November 2011. The selected articles will appear in ChLAQ 37.3, Fall 2012.

Contact Information:

For inquiries:
tcrisp@sar.usf.edu

For submissions:
tcrisp@sar.usf.edu
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22 June 2011

Call for Submissions: Anthology of Criticism on Queerness in Film and Television

Deadline: 31 August 2011

Proposals are invited for a collection of essays on the topic of queerness in film and television. Please email inquiries asap with a short bio of the author, a working title of the paper, and a brief summary of the article. Deadline for completed abstracts is August 2011.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: meghna.mudaliar@gmail.com

For submissions: meghna.mudaliar@gmail.com
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21 June 2011

Call for Submissions for an Edited Collection: Other Mothers/ Other Mothering (Demeter Press)

Deadline: 12 October 2011

Other mothers and other mothering roles may be found throughout history and across diverse cultures. Other mothers may be the paradigmatic first responders, the first-teachers of informal and formal learnings, or first care-givers for the formative triage years of children and youth. Other mothering denotes the continuity and contemporary practices of shared, communal, or assumed mothering responsibilities that are empowering and inclusive of social transformation.

Despite the prevalence of this practice and increasing scholarship about other mothering, an edited collection on this important and central cultural paradigm does not yet exist. The aim of the present collection is to investigate the history, possibilities, differences, continuities, transformations, or advancements of other mothering, paying particular attention to liberating potentials of destabilizing patriarchal representations of motherhood and family structures. As interconnected and transnational cultures are in full swing into the 21st century, both men and women can perform and enable diverse and holistic roles of other mothering.

How does other mothering transform the language implications of gender? How do we interrogate the roles of mothering for both women and men? This collection will explore the fluid, empowering and diversified roles of other mothering across cultures. Thus, of particular interest are submissions that interrogate other mothering from global perspectives, comparative ethnicities and historical contexts. The editor of this collection seeks article-length contributions in the humanities, cultural studies and social sciences that may include, but are not limited to the following topics:

• foster mothering • queer co-mothering • gay mothering and the “modern family” • open adoption mothering • closed adoption mothering • grandmothering • non-residential mothers • non-custodial mothers • men and mothering • co-mothering • fictive kin mothers • community mothers • African American, African, Caribbean, Latin American, and Native American other mothers • other mothering in religious practices • Godmothers across cultures • tiger mothering • single mothers • representations of other mothers/other mothering in literature, popular culture, the arts •

Submission guidelines:

Abstracts should be 250 words. Please also include a CV. Deadline for abstracts: October 12, 2011. Accepted papers of 4000-5000 words (15-18 pages) will be due on April 2, 2012 and will conform to MLA style format. Please send submissions directly to: othermothers2013@gmail.com

Contact Information:

For inquiries: othermothers2013@gmail.com

For submissions: othermothers2013@gmail.com

Website: http://www.demeterpress.org/
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15 June 2011

Call for Essays on Gay and Lesbian Protest Rock Music: The Routledge History of Social Protest in Popular Music

Deadline: 30 June 2011

Routledge press announces a call for papers for its upcoming volume, The Routledge History of Social Protest in Popular Music, edited by Jonathan Friedman, professor of History at West Chester University.

This collection will show the great diversity in form and content of popular music as a means of social protest over time, focusing largely on the American and British context but also including a sweep across continents. The musical movements under discussion in this volume vary in the degree of their intentionality and directness to protest, but there is a distinct thread-line in each, addressing societal wrongs, whether based on race, gender, or class, and offering solutions or comfort.

The volume will be divided into four parts:

1. Historical Beginnings--This part will offer a theoretical framework and historical background to 20th century popular protest music, by looking at developments in the 19th century through the years prior to the advent of rock and roll. Musical protest against discrimination based on race, gender, and class will be the guiding theme of this section.

2. Rock, Folk, War, and Civil Rights--This part will specifically address anti-war and pro-civil rights discourses in musical forms in the United States, not just in the 1960s but well before.

3. Contemporary Social Protest in Rock--This part will deal with how a number of genres in modern popular music have addressed the human condition, some with greater degrees of intentionality and effectiveness than others. Guiding questions in this section include: What are the criteria for effective social protest in these diverse musical genres? In what ways have artists in popular music advanced or set back the cause of human rights?

4. International Protest--This part will offer a scan of protest music across the globe, from Latin America to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. What have been some of the shared themes in these vastly different settings? How has international protest music drawn on both indigenous roots and western influences in crafting its voice?

Contributors are welcome to submit a proposal relevant to one of these sections. Essays on 19th and early 20th century musical protest, postmodern theory, feminism, and musical protest, dance music, gay and lesbian protest rock, and international protest are especially welcome.

Please send a 100 word proposal plus a current vita electronically to jfriedman@wcupa.edu.

Jonathan C. Friedman, Ph.D.
Professor of History
Director of Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Main Hall 409
West Chester University
West Chester, PA 19383
610-436-2972

Contact Information:

For inquiries: jfriedman@wcupa.edu

For submissions: jfriedman@wcupa.edu

Website: http://www.routledge.com/
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Call for Papers: The Lesbian Subjectivity in the Arab World (Special Issue of Al-Raida Journal)

Deadline: 20 June 2011

This special issue of Al-Raida is intended to shed light on the problematic position of the lesbian in Arab cultures on various interdisciplinary levels. It is also intended to question the politics of love and friendships in the Arab cultures, in an attempt to examine the perplexing position of the lesbian subjectivity and the perils of "coming" out of the complicated Arab closets.

The subject of lesbianism has rarely been addressed in the Arab world on the assumption that it is not a priority, or that 'there are no lesbians in our culture', or that some women 'become' lesbians due to some negative experiences or imposed sexual segregation, thus conveying an implicit message that lesbians can or should be heteronormalized once women's circumstances change. All these assumptions and misconceptions tend to deny the existence of an independent lesbian subjectivity that demands different priorities, ethics, rights and politics. The emergence of literature on 'female homosexuality' during the past few years constitutes a huge leap in gender and sexuality studies.

This special issue of Al-Raida is intended to shed light on the problematic position of the lesbian in Arab cultures on various interdisciplinary levels. It is also intended to question the politics of love and friendships in the Arab cultures, in an attempt to examine the perplexing position of the lesbian subjectivity and the perils of "coming" out of the complicated Arab closets. The future of lesbian studies in Women's Studies and Gender Programs in the Arab countries is a question that needs to be answered within the context of this issue. One of the key questions that this special issue will address is the extent to which the lesbian identity can become a recognized reality and a perceived lifestyle without provoking the latent homophobia of the Arab World which still regards gender identity, sexual identity and sexual orientation as alien to the values of 'Our Culture'.

We are interested in receiving academic studies and critical essays pertaining to the topic outlined above. Topics may include but are not restricted to:

- The essentialist/constructionist debates about the lesbian sexuality in the Arab world.

- Is there a lesbian Arabic literature?

- Theorizing the Arab lesbian.

- Historical perspectives on female same-sex relations in the Arab cultures.

- Images of female same-sex relations in Arab media: clichés and stereotypes.

- Arab lesbians in cyberspace (websites, online magazines and discussion groups).

- The problematic position of lesbians in Arab NGOs between human rights and women's rights.

- The possibility of integrating lesbian Studies in the Arab Academia.

- 'Lesbian autobiography': obstacles and challenges.

- The impact of transnational feminism on lesbian activism in the region.

- Lesbianism in Arab religious and legal discourses.

- Body images and self-representation: lesbian masculinities and femininities.

- Arab lesbians between the historical perception of female homosexuality and the post-modern perception of the 'Queer' identity.

- Resisting heterosexual stereotypes and linguistic homophobia.

- Examining heteronormativity in the Arab feminist discourse.

If you are interested in contributing to this issue of Al-Raida, kindly send your abstract (250-300 words) no later than June 20, 2011. All abstracts submitted are reviewed by Al-Raida's editorial staff and are subject to its approval. Once the abstract is approved contributors will have to submit their paper no later than September 20, 2011. Submissions are accepted in English, Arabic or French. All non-English submissions will be translated by IWSAW and published in English following the approval of the author.

This special issue will be edited by Dr. Iman Al-Ghafari, an academic researcher who has extensive publications and contributions to the field of lesbian studies in the Arab cultures. Kindly send your emails simultaneously to the managing editor, Ms. Myriam Sfeir, at myriam.sfeir@lau.edu.lb and to the guest editor, Dr. Iman Al-Ghafari at, dr.iman.gh@gmail.com

Contact Information:

For inquiries: myriam.sfeir@lau.edu.lb or dr.iman.gh@gmail.com

For submissions: myriam.sfeir@lau.edu.lb and dr.iman.gh@gmail.com

Website: http://www.lau.edu.lb/centers-institutes/iwsaw/raida.html
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02 June 2011

Call for Papers: The Queerness of Hip Hop (Palimpsest Journal of Women, Gender and the Black International)

Deadline: 15 December 2011

Call for Papers for a One-Day Symposium at Harvard University and Special Issue of Palimpsest, A journal of Women, Gender and the Black International

Conveners/ Editors: Scott Poulson-Bryant and C. Riley Snorton, Ph.D.

Harvard University Symposium

September 21, 2012

Abstracts due December 15, 2011

As Queer Theory has developed as a discursive space in which to investigate and find intellectual engagement with issues of citizenship, nationalism, globalism, and race, hip hop studies has increasingly become an important site of the study of sexuality, gender and the body.

"The Queerness of Hip Hop/The Hip Hop of Queerness" project seeks to make a critical intervention in both areas of study by placing the fields alongside each other. In other words, “The Queerness of Hip Hop” looks to engage the ways that queer theory can (re)frame various disciplinary approaches in the rapidly growing field of Hip Hop Studies. One of the main goals of the project will be to focus on the emergence of Queer Theory as a viable analytic in the academic areas of hip hop cultural studies and African American cultural production while also and conversely examining hip hop's roots in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender activism and intellectual growth.

We are particularly interested in scholarship that makes use of cross-disciplinary approaches that sustain attention to both the discursive linkages and slippages that may result from bringing hip hop epistemologies to bear on contemporary queer theory and queer canonical texts. Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

- hip hop’s queer historiography
- queer iconography in hip hop music videos and performance
- hip hop’s queer aesthetics
- sampling and remixing as queer sonic promiscuity
- hip hop and gender performance
- style and fashion as modes of hip hop discourse
- queer readings of specific hip hop productions, personalities and performances
- queer Diaspora/ hip hop Diaspora

Submitted abstracts will be considered for inclusion in both the special issue of Palimpsest and the symposium. All submissions will be acknowledged by January 1, 2012 and decisions will be made by February 1, 2012. Essays must be previously unpublished work, and symposium participants are required to pre-circulate their essays with other panelists. Please submit 300 word abstracts, CV, and contact information to Scott Poulson-Bryant and C. Riley Snorton via queernessofhiphop@gmail.com.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: queernessofhiphop@gmail.com

For submissions: queernessofhiphop@gmail.com

Website: http://www.palimpsestjournal.com/
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30 May 2011

Call for Papers - Critical Ethnic Studies: An Anthology (University of California)

Deadline: 31 January 2012

Rather than attempting to pose and answer the question, "What is critical ethnic studies?," this anthology seeks to catalyze a more wide-ranging set of critical problems for emergent scholarly work and new forms of knowledge. Building on longstanding critiques of race, imperialism, and capital in ethnic studies and related fields, some broadly framed key conceptual questions for this anthology include: Is it necessary to rethink and reframe some of the central – even taken-for-granted – analytical and theoretical rubrics of ethnic studies, such as "race," "gender," "sexuality," "citizenship," and "class?" How do long histories of multiple, incommensurable racial genocides (e.g., land conquest, racial slave trade, militarized extermination) constitute the historical present? How do we apprehend and theorize the persistent systems and structures of gendered racial violence, on the one hand, while attending to the resilience of political agency and transformation, on the other? How can we rethink the question of (racist/state) violence in rigorous and creative ways, neither reifying nor pathologizing it, but asking instead how a violence of condition produces a condition of violence? What do notions of the "subaltern," "collective," "popular," and "multitude" mean in a white supremacist and settler colonial formation such as the U.S.? What is the relationship between critical ethnic studies and related emergent fields, such as critical prison studies, queer ethnic studies, and settler colonial studies? How can we create the conditions and framework for the ongoing appreciation of marginalized yet dynamic modes of critique, contestation, and inquiry within (and across) various fields, such as: critiques of sovereignty and recognition within Native and Indigenous studies; anti-Blackness as an analytical rubric within Black studies; debates about the politics and theorization of Asian settler colonialism within Asian American studies; and critiques of First World privilege and mobility within (U.S.) queer of color studies?

We invite essay submissions on a wide range of topics that may include but are not limited to the following:

* Race, colonialism, and capitalism
* Warfare and militarism
* Theories of violence
* Settler colonialism and white supremacy
* Critical genocide studies
* Cultural studies, the politics of aesthetic and cultural practice
* Critical feminist epistemologies
* Queer ethnic studies
* Decolonization and empire
* Social movements, activism, insurrection, and revolution
* Immigration and labor
* Multiculturalism and colorblindness
* Critical race studies
* Critical legal studies
* Liberationist epistemologies
* Critical ethnic studies, undisciplinarity, and relationship to other fields
* Professionalization, praxis, and the academic industrial complex
* Relationship between racism and environmental justice movements
* Sovereignty, the nation, and the nation-state
* Ethnic studies in relation to past and current eras of the privatization, corporatization, and defunding of the university
* Tension between institutionalization and movement-building in ethnic studies
* New frameworks for the comparative analysis of differential racial histories, e.g., immigrant and indigenous histories
* The erotic and sexual outlaw
* Academics of color and the erasure of class privilege

Word Limit: 4,000 - 6,000 words including notes

Format: Word document with citations in Chicago Style

Contact Information:

For inquiries: cesanthology@gmail.com

For submissions: cesanthology@gmail.com

Website: http://www.cesa.ucr.edu/
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21 May 2011

Call for Submissions: For Colored Boys (Magnus Books)

Deadline: 20 July 2011

From May 20 until July 20, we will accept essays and other writings to include in For Colored Boys. We are looking for inspirational stories centered around any one of the following four major themes: faith, family, love and work. Submissions should be between 1000 and 5000 words. Some of the essays published in the finished book will be long and some will be short. Send your submission to info@4coloredboys.com. Please include your name, email address, phone number, brief 1-paragraph bio and a jpeg photo with your submission.

Unlike traditional anthologies which tend to use established writers, we also want to tell the stories of real people (ordinary and extraordinary) who have dealt with, or are still dealing with, adversity in their lives. Of course we intend to include essays from gifted writers, published authors and well known public figures who have overcome obstacles. But we are also looking for college students, suicide survivors, and those who have faced bullying or harassment in their lives. It doesn't matter if you call yourself "same-gender-loving," "down low," "gay," "queer," or none of the above. We're not interested in labels. We are interested in well-told stories that will educate, entertain or inspire others.

Ideally, we would like to include the voices of Latinos, Asian-Americans and other people of color in this book. And we expect to include the voices of those who are straight, bisexual, transgender or questioning, so long as the stories are relevant to the purpose and the themes of the book.

Finally, we don't expect every story to finish with a happy ending. That's not the way life works. Nor do we expect every essay to deal with suicide, harassment or tragedy. We want this to be a balanced but inspirational book about real life. Your voice and your story are critical to make that happen.

The book will be published in March/April 2012.

Title: For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Still Not Enough (A collection of writings on living life, confronting obstacles and believing in yourself)

Editor: Keith Boykin

Publisher: Magnus Books

Background:

In 1974, playwright Ntozake Shange published a choreopoem called For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf. The book/play/poetry would go on to inspire legions of women for decades and would later become the subject and title of a hugely popular movie in the fall of 2010. While the film was selling out movie theaters, young black gay men were literally committing suicide in the silence of their own communities. It was around that time when Keith Boykin, a New York Times bestselling author, and Magnus Books publisher Don Weise first discussed the possibility of working together on a book in response to the outbreak of suicides among young men of color.

In the same time period, a young Rutgers University student named Tyler Clementi took his own life after a roommate secretly videotaped him in an intimate setting with another young man. In response, syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage created a YouTube video with his partner Terry to inspire young people facing harassment. Their message, It Gets Better, turned into a popular movement, inspiring thousands of user-created videos on the Internet. Savage's project targeted people of all races, backgrounds and colors, but Boykin and Weise wanted to create something special "for colored boys." When they decided to create a new book, the title was obvious: For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Still Not Enough. It was almost the same title author E. Lynn Harris had once considered for his memoir. The new book responds to the crisis of youth development and suicide in the black community, and more specifically among young gay men of color.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: info@4coloredboys.com

For submissions: info@4coloredboys.com

Website: http://www.magnusbooks.com/
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15 May 2011

Performing Ethos: Queer Publics, Volume 2, Issue 2 (2012) Call for Papers

Deadline: 30 September 2011

While the word ‘queer’ is often understood to signal aberrance, in the past decade many scholars working within the field of queer theory have sought to broach the subject of queer ethics. For instance, leading theorists such as Leo Bersani (2008) and Tim Dean (2009) have mined the ethical features of certain sexual practices, while Lee Edelman (2004) has forwarded an anti-assimilationist thesis that grounds queer ethical and political projects outside and against kinship and reproductive circuits. Less aggressively, Judith Butler (2004) has advanced an ethic of recognizing and responding to vulnerability, while Sara Ahmed (2010) celebrates the practice of ‘troublemaking’ in the production of new ethical codes. Michael Warner (1999) and performance studies scholar José Esteban Muñoz (1999) have both located queer ethics in what they refer to as ‘world-making’ endeavours.


This first special issue of Performing Ethos seeks to analyse a range of theatre and performance practices that raise timely questions about queer ethical and political projects. Prompted by the apparent increased visibility of queer culture in the western world, not to mention the proliferation of different kinds of publics, this issue seeks to:

1. Consider how queer publics are performatively constituted and contested in light of ethical and political concerns
2. Explore the ethical and political relationship between queer publics, counter-publics and the public sphere
3. Analyse queer culture’s acceptance of, or resistance to, heteronormative regimes
4. Assess the ethical and political agency (or lack thereof) of a range of queer bodies,
sites, and practices in the public sphere

The guest-editor invites articles (5-7,000 words), interviews (5-7,000 words), short reflections (500-1,000 words) and book reviews (1,000 words) that respond to the focus of the issue.
Submissions may address topics such as:

• Civil-partnership and marriage ceremonies
• LGBTQ activism, protests and parades
• Collaborative or community-based theatre and performance initiatives
• The erasure or expansion of queer spaces in urban environments
• Displays of queer relationships and intimacies, and/or their policing
• Queer celebrities, personalities and political figures
• Culturally encoded queer bodies in the public sphere, including ethnic and dis/abled
‘others’
• Queer readings of spectators, participants, fan-bases and virtual communities
• Queer analyses of ostensibly heteronormative cultural practices
• Methodologies for the analysis and documentation of queer publics

General inquires and ideas for interviews and reviews should be addressed to Fintan Walsh at walshf@tcd.ie, while completed articles and reflections must be submitted by 30 September 2011, following the journal guidelines, which are available here.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: walshf@tcd.ie

For submissions: ca.upton@ulster.ac.uk

Website: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk
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10 May 2011

Call for Contributors - "Lesbians, Sexuality and Islam" Issue of The Journal of Lesbian Studies

Deadline: 1 July 2011

The Journal of Lesbian Studies will be devoting a special issue to the topic of LESBIANS, SEXUALITY, AND ISLAM, edited by Huma Ahmed-Ghosh, ghosh@mail.sdsu.edu.

There has been very little published work on lesbians and Islam. Possible topics and methods include, but are not limited to religion, Quran, Hadith, Sharia, personal experiences of Muslim women, ethnic and regional diversities, oral histories, feminist theory, research, fiction, and poetry. Authors may use a pseudonym if they prefer.

Please send a one-page abstract of your proposed contribution to Huma Ahmed-Ghosh at ghosh@mail.sdsu.edu by July 1, 2011. Proposals will be evaluated for originality and writing style, as well as how all the contributions fit together. Potential authors will be invited to write full articles in the range of 5,000 to 7,500 words.

We hope you will consider writing about your scholarship or experiences, so that this important topic receives the attention it deserves.

Huma Ahmed-Ghosh, Professor
Department of Women's Studies
Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies, Advisory Board
Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, Advisory Board
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182
Tel: 619-594-3046
Fax: 619-594-5218

Contact Information:

For inquiries: ghosh@mail.sdsu.edu

For submissions: ghosh@mail.sdsu.edu

Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/WJLS
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07 May 2011

Call for Submissions: "As We Are Book", a Collection of Essays from LGBTs who Grew up in the South

Brit Blalock is in the process of compiling a selection of personal essays about LGBT teens/adults growing up in the Bible Belt/rural South. She is looking for stories concerned with every angle of experience: living closeted, coming out, feeling acceptance, etc. Please feel free to e-mail her (Brit Blalock) to ask questions or to send a submission at aswearebook@gmail.com

Some tips for submitters:

* Submissions should be between 1,000-4,000 words.

* The book will be marketed as non-fiction and personal essay, so we're looking for stories that are true. Please do not submit work that is not based in fact and personal experience. (We don't want to have a James Frey situation on our hands!)

* If you're not a writer by trade, don't worry! I'm here to help with the editing process. I'm mostly looking for people who have great stories to tell!

* All stories will not be accepted. I'm sorry, but that's the way the book world works! I can promise that every essay will be given a very thorough read.

* Please submit via e-mail by attaching your essay as a word document.

* In your e-mail please include a short biographical note. Incorporate details like profession, location, past publications, etc.

About Brit Blalock

Brit Blalock was born and raised in lower Alabama along the Gulf Coast. She spent 5 years in Birmingham for undergrad and work before moving to New York City to complete an MFA in creative writing at NYU. She will be finishing that degree this May and relocating based on job opportunities.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: aswearebook@gmail.com

For submissions: aswearebook@gmail.com

Website: http://www.facebook.com/pages/As-We-Are-Book/134673986606392?sk=info
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23 April 2011

Call for Contributions - Peeking Out of the Closet: Faculty of Color Coming Out in the Classroom

Deadline: 1 October 2011

Coming out of the closet and announcing your sexual orientation is a process that affects and impacts individuals in very different and specific ways. This process of coming out can be both positive and negative depending greatly on the circumstances and the audience. For some professors who are teaching in the classroom, one constant stressor can be the continual struggle of the repetitive sharing and opening of one’s sexual orientation with new students. This process may change with the content being taught by the professor, however, it is a process that can have very specific repercussions depending on the space and time occupied by that individual who chooses or is forced to “come out” in the classroom.

But what if you were a faculty member? Should coming out to students even be a choice? Is there a place for coming out to ones students at all? What are some possible repercussions/responses/attitudes to faculty members coming out in the classroom? Is an individual's choice to come out one that has to take into account college/university policies, the institution's denominational affiliation, and/or the communities surrounding and being served by the institution? What about the discipline in which you teach - how can what you teach students lead to a 'need' to come out in the classroom? Should coming out to students be legislated by the administration, departments, or even colleagues? Is the experience different and more complicated as you consider racial/ethnic, class background, and gender composition of students and faculty?

We are seeking ethnographic essays that focus on the experience(s) of LGBTQ faculty of color coming out, or choosing not to come out, in the classroom. While you are the subject of the essays, you should also be able to engage academic approaches to the analysis of your own experiences. Submissions are opened to all disciplines and types of institutions.

If interested, please send a 250 word abstract and short bio. A 15-20 page essay should be sent electronically by October 1, 2011 to emoralesdiaz@wsc.ma.edu

Dr. Enrique Morales-Díaz
Associate Professor of Spanish, Ethnic & Gender Studies
Chair, Liberal Studies
Westfield State University
Westfield, MA 01086
413-572-8193

Contact Information:

For inquiries: emoralesdiaz@wsc.ma.edu

For submissions: emoralesdiaz@wsc.ma.edu
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Call for Submissions on Homophobia: Dialogue Spring 2012 "Diversity" Issue

Deadline: 10 May 2011

We welcome your ideas and article proposals on how schools are addressing diversity, our new theme for the 2012 issue of Dialogue. The growing concerns about discrimination, racial prejudice, homophobia, religious intolerance, gender-based violence and (cyber)bullying in our diverse school communities make this issue more urgent than ever before. Read more on why private schools need to start a national dialogue on diversity.

Spring 2012 issue: Diversity

How is your school responding to the needs of an increasingly diverse community through your curriculum, policies, programs, guidelines, teacher training, practices, lessons and teachings inside and outside the classroom?

Submit your ideas & article proposals on Diversity:

* Cultural, racial, religious.

* Social, Socioeconomic

* Special needs and disabilities

* Body image and appearance

* Gender or sexual orientation

Contribute:

* an article proposal

* blog post

* e-newsletter article

Do you have an article idea that fits with this theme?
 Article proposals for Dialogue should be brief—one type-written page or less—and include your full name; current position; home and work addresses; work and home telephone numbers; email address; and a brief bio that includes any qualifications. Email your proposals to EDITOR@OURKIDS.NET. We are accepting proposals for the 2012 edition of Dialogue until May 10, 2011. All articles after May 10 will still be considered for publication online and in the e-newsletter throughout the year.

Editorial procedure

Our Editorial Advisory Board review all submissions. All reference to your identity, organization or school will be removed from article proposals prior to reviewing. After notification of your article acceptance, the editor will work with you to establish a detailed article outline, finalize the length and deadline details before you proceed with the actual writing. The subsequent editing process will involve at least one more conversation, copy-edit, final review and sign-off by you, the author. We will do our best to reply to all proposals in a timely fashion.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: EDITOR@OURKIDS.NET

For submissions: EDITOR@OURKIDS.NET

Website: http://www.dialogueonline.ca/
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19 April 2011

Deadline Extended - Call for Submissions: "Transgendered" Issue of MP Online Feminist Journal

Deadline: 31 August 2011 (from 21 April 2011)

Can there be a multi-gendered feminism? MP journal seeks submissions that explore the many facets of transgendered feminism. How do transgendered people experience, embrace, reject, or practice feminism? What is the role of feminism within queer studies? What is the role of feminism for those who occupy the interstice between male and female? Is gender performance feminist? MP Journal welcomes academic papers, book reviews, and other well-written inquiries on the subject of transgendered feminisms. Internationals submissions are encouraged. Submissions may be in any accepted academic format such as MLA, APA, Legal Bluebook, Chicago Style but must be consistent throughout and thoroughly and carefully edited. Please send the submission, a 50 word bio, and a CV before midnight August 31, 2011.

Submission Guidelines

We accept submissions from all types of writers. In order to be considered, all submissions should:

* be scholarly/academic in nature;
* use a standard citation format such as MLA, Chicago, APA, or Harvard Bluebook;
* be sent as an attachment (*.doc, *.txt, *.rtf — no *.pdf, please!);
* include a CV or writing resume and a 50 word bio;
* abide by the copyright and image use information listed below.

Please download and review our style guide for additional instructions.

Send submission to: llhinkle(at)academinist.org

Copyright Information

In order to assure the widest possible audience for the work published in MP, that work is added, by contractual agreement, to one or more EBSCO Publishing databases. The users of those databases have access and limited copying privileges with respect to work appearing in MP. Your submission indicates that this arrangement is acceptable to you and that upon acceptance you agree to license your work to MP Journal and to its sub-licensor, EBSCO Publishing. You further confirm that the work has not been published prior to its appearance in MP. In addition, you confirm it is original work that abides by all copyright rules and regulations. You understand that, upon publication, all rights to this work will revert to you, the author. However, you also understand that MP reserves the right to publish this work (in part or in its entirety) in electronic form on its website and/or on electronic information databases published by others.

Download style guide >>

Contact Information:

For inquiries: llhinkle(at)academinist.org

For submissions: llhinkle(at)academinist.org

Website: http://academinist.org/
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16 April 2011

Call for Manuscripts - New Book Series: Contributions to Transnational Feminism

Call for Manuscripts

New Book Series: Contributions to Transnational Feminism

General Editors: Erin Kenny (Drury University, U.S.A.) and Silvia Schultermandl (University of Graz, Austria)

LIT Verlag (Berlin, Münster, Vienna, London) is accepting book-length manuscripts and proposals from scholars in gender studies, postcolonial theory, feminist anthropology, cultural geography, literary theory, critical theory, and other interdisciplinary fields, and especially seeks projects that offer new theoretical insights and/or grounded empirical research that contribute to the emerging field of transnational feminism.


This new book series (peer-reviewed) is envisioned as a medium to create an international forum for innovative discussions of gender in a transnational context. Emphasis on gender dynamics within transnational contexts enables this book series to investigate and engage various aspects of power and privilege at play in the interaction of peoples, ideas, and commodities in a global economy. We consciously adopt the term “transnational” instead of “global” because we are convinced that the steady mass-movement of people and cultures contributes to a world in which borders and boundaries of nation, culture, race, and gender need to be conceptualized and theorized anew. Unlike global feminism, which was characterized by its tendency to centralize Western concepts of gender and essentialize all other concepts of gender, transnational feminism offers a more nuanced set of parameters, diction and framework for a contemporary discussion of the dynamics at play at experiences of migration across times and places. In the past, “global feminism” has often been confused with a Western feminist theory laid out onto an international context. This series refutes such practices and recognizes the importance of analyzing the specific locations that contribute to the social construction of people’s lived worlds, as well the global inequalities that emerge from a world order based on binary oppositions and neo-liberal notions of economy.

We invite book-length discussions on a variety of aspects in transnational feminism which embrace an academic or academic/personal perspective. We especially invite innovative perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches from fields such as Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Literary Theory, and Critical Theory.

There is a great range of analytical scope that individual contributions to this book series may display.

Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following themes:

- the impact of nationalism on gender roles
- travel across borders / across a life time
- interrelatedness between privilege and (dis)placement
- disconnect between origin and ethnic consciousness
- identity mappings across borders
- transnationality and the global social movements
- poststructuralist/postmodern notions of feminism
- home and domesticity in transnational contexts
- experimental and (auto)ethnographic treatments of gender
- virtual and internal border crossings

Submission Requirements

Submissions should include:

• a 3-5 page overall description of the intent and scope of the project and an evaluation of its projected merits compared to existing texts (eg. How is this work new, valuable, or unique to the field? Are there comparable books?)
• a brief synopsis of each chapter, or possibly a draft of chapters completed
• a recent vita; if this is a multi-authored collection, include a brief biographical sketch of each contributor
• a probable time line for completion
• an estimation of the book’s total length (allow 400 words per published page)
• and a discussion of logistical issues (eg. copyright permissions, photographs, illustrations, etc.)

Silvia Schultermandl
Department of American Studies
University of Gra, Attemsgasse 25/II
8010 Graz, AUSTRIA

Contact Information:

For inquiries: silvia.schultermandl@uni-graz.at

For submissions: silvia.schultermandl@uni-graz.at

Website: http://www.uni-graz.at/silvia.schultermandl/html/book_series.html
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