cfp.english.upenn.edu

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS/PAPERS
We invite contributions to our proposed volume, Queer Landscapes: Mapping Queer Space(s) of Praxis and Pedagogy . For two decades, queer theory has provided a flexible methodology for engaging the world. This broad theoretical approach is slowly working to dissolve dialectical boundaries erected to contain rigid distinctions separating disciplines within the academy, and the academy itself from the world beyond. In doing so, queer theory has opened up new landscapes in diverse fields in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, pushing us to reconsider the ways in which we organize and navigate knowledge.

Queer Landscapes seeks to further “queer” scholarship and praxis by bringing together thinkers and activists to explore how we see, write, read, experience, and teach through the fluid space of queerness. We are interested in how queer-identified and -influenced people create ideas, works, classrooms, and other spaces (e.g., digital, activist) that vivify relational and (eco)systems thinking, thus challenging accepted hierarchies, binaries, and hegemonies. Our volume will feature theorist-practitioners who have already made huge strides in helping us to open new landscapes of queer thinking and being, and we also welcome fresh new voices to a community of scholars and activists.

Possible areas of interest include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Activism
• Digital Humanities
• Disability Studies
• Ecocriticism
• Ethnic & Critical Race Studies
• Gender & Sexuality Studies
• History
• Literature, Film, & Media Studies
• Medicine
• Music
• Pedagogy & Literacy Studies
• Philosophy
• Social Sciences

In sum, Queer Landscapes will offer academicians at the college and secondary levels, as well as lay readers, an accessible volume that challenge delimiting ways of thinking and being to incite radically nondualistic alternative spaces for thought and action.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
We welcome proposals for both critical essays and shorter and/or non-traditional writing that will contribute to the volume’s goal of exploring queer landscapes. Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words and a short bio of approximately 150 words to mcneil@asu.edu no later than 11:59 PM (MST) July 31, 2012. Note: Complete papers, along with abstract and bio, are also welcome.

We will notify authors of acceptance/rejection no later than August 15, 2012. Several publishers have already expressed interest in this volume, so we plan to submit the full proposal early this fall. Final versions of critical essays will need to be between 6,000 and 8,000 (inclusive of endnotes) and must conform to MLA style guidelines. Guidelines for final versions of shorter and/or non-traditional pieces will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

ABOUT THE EDITORS
Elizabeth McNeil teaches writing and American ethnic, “freak” studies, and transgender and intersex literatures and film at Arizona State University. She is co-editor of Sapphire’s Literary Breakthrough: Erotic Literacies, Feminist Pedagogies, Environmental Justice Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and author of Trickster Discourse: Mediating Transformation for a New World (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010).

James Wermers teaches literature, philosophy, and composition at Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix Campus. He has published on Shakespeare and contemporary film, with a particular focus on how conceptions of race and sexuality impact our understanding of the world.