gender studies and sexuality

Join the 2026 Graduate Conference at the University of Verona and explore how identities are shaped, challenged, and reimagined through language, literature, and culture.
“(De)Constructing Identities: Inclusive Practices of Naming” invites emerging scholars to engage with some of today’s most urgent debates on inclusion, representation, and power.
From feminist and queer studies to postcolonialism, disability studies, translation, and cultural memory, the conference offers a rich interdisciplinary dialogue.
Participants will investigate how naming practices influence social perception, identity formation, and political discourse across languag

The Indian diaspora is the largest diaspora community in the world, with an approximate population of 35.4 million. From the migration of the indentured labour force during the colonial period to the mass immigration of educated Indians to overseas countries in the late twentieth century, the Indian diaspora has indeed become a global phenomenon. Expanding migration circuits, job and business opportunities, shifting lifestyles, skilled and semi-skilled labour force, among others, have resulted in significant socioeconomic mobility, especially over the last 25 years. Besides making significant contributions to varied fields, the Indian diaspora has also arguably brought changes in how others have traditionally seen India.

This edited volume explores the interrelations between disability and addiction within Japanese literary literature. By focusing strictly on literary representations—and excluding media studies—this collection aims to examine how embodiment, social normativity, and deviance are negotiated through culturally specific frameworks.

The editors invite contributions for the following four sections

1. Disability in Japanese Literature (3 Articles)

INTERNATIONAL DOCTORAL CONFERENCE

SILENCE(D): ILLUSORY ABSENCES AND DENIED PRESENCES

University of Florence (Italy), 26th-27th October 2026

Link to the call for papers (in Italian and English): https://www.dottoratolinletcult.unifi.it/upload/sub/News/CallForPapers_Silcenced_UNIFI%20(1).pdf

FEMINANIMALS
Representations of Women and/as Animals in Literature, Arts, and Other Media

University of Oxford, Oriel College

14-16 April 2027

Keynote speakers: Prof Chloë Taylor (University of Alberta) and Dr Kaori Nagai (University of Kent)

Roundtable with Queer Kinship Network led by Prof Charlotte Ross (University of Oxford)

Organising committee: Dr Fanny Clemente (University of Oxford), Dr Greta Colombani (independent scholar), Dr Cécile Bishop (University of Oxford)

This panel examines how writers challenge dominant structures of authority in/through narratives of sexual violence. Legal and cultural frameworks often dictate how sexual violence is recognized, narrated, and believed, shaping whose stories are legible and whose are dismissed. This session explores how survivors and writers resist these constraints through alternative narrative strategies, fragmentation, silence, poetic form, visual storytelling and more. It attends to how narrative operates as a site of power, shaping not only representation but the conditions under which sexual violence is acknowledged, legitimized, or denied.

The Phenomenology of the Stand-up Comic: Toward a Sociology of Gendered Humour

Mike Flanagan has emerged over the past fifteen years as one of the most prolific and recognizable horror creators in film and television, working across low-budget independent cinema, studio-backed films, and prestige limited series. Yet despite his prominence, versatility, and authorial trademarks, especially his collaborations with recurring actors and other artistic partners, he has received little sustained scholarly attention.

The history of work and labour has long occupied a central place within European social history, offering a key lens through which to examine social relations, hierarchies, forms of power, and economic formations across the longue durée. Rather than approaching work solely as an economic function, historical scholarship has increasingly foregrounded work as a lived social experience –one that has shaped identities, values, and modes of belonging.

2027 will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of radical ecologist and labor organizer Judi Bari. Best known for her leadership in the 1990 Redwood Summer campaign in Northern California, Bari sought to overcome the entrenched division between environmentalists and timber workers by identifying corporate capital as the common force exploiting both labor and forests. Her politics extended beyond direct action and formal organizing to include music, storytelling as agitation, and public spectacle, all mobilized to cultivate ecological consciousness within a framework of working-class solidarity.

Call for Book Chapters

Heated Rivalry: Queer Joy and Intimate Masculinity on Television

** Under review with a major international publisher **

You are invited to submit a paper to the session "Passing Novels Now and Then:Gender, Class" at the 123rd Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Languagae Association (PAMLA) conference in Seatlle, WA from Nov. 12-15, 2026.

Description:

Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) Fall Conference October 15th to 17th - Online 

Call for Papers: Taylor Swift & Swiftie Studies Area 

Please submit abstracts of 250–400 words and a short 100-word bio to the linked form below.

The Taylor Swift & Swiftie Studies area, part of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) Fall Online Conference (October 15–17, 2026), features the newly established conference area and Digital Swift Symposium, a curated space for interdisciplinary scholarship on popular music, fandom, gender, authorship, and digital culture.

As the section editor for The Women’s Experience, I am writing to invite you to consider submitting a chapter proposal for consideration to be included in The American Research Handbook on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, an edited scholarly volume that examines the evolving role of diversity, equity, and inclusion within American democracy and educational institutions.  

The Women’s Experience section seeks rigorous, thoughtful, and evidence-based analyses that examine gender equity, intersectionality, and the evolving role(s) of women in society at the present moment.